The Great Paradox of Work

By: Dr. Bill Anton

Like many things in life, the instrumental perspective is responsible for both individual and business accomplishment and ineffectiveness at the same time. As expressed by David Whyte in his book The Heart Aroused, “work, paradoxically, does not ask enough of us, yet exhausts the narrow parts of us we do bring to its door.”

In their attempts to address the need for innovation in the context of the instrumental paradigm, many courageous companies have learned to disrupt things in a way that allows the expression of new energy. But do not confuse this type of “disruption” with an attempt to change mental models. These companies often hire narrowly focused people and encourage them to engage in uncharacteristic and divergent ways of thinking, restricting their normal pathways of production and enabling them to create something new. Although useful to the company, the creative product born of this process is qualitatively different and distinct from creativity born of wholeness.

This energy is usually not the result of helping workers liberate themselves from self-limiting beliefs. More often it represents a cathartic expression of what has been suppressed but is still contaminated by their developmental histories, fortified by their accommodations and defenses, and designed to preserve the “integrity” of the early mental models that define who they believe themselves to be. The company benefits in the short run, but the energized contributor is likely to be left in a refractory state until he or she is recalibrated to emit another spurt of tense energy.