Schlagwort-Archive: Doing

The kernel of the brute – the ideal metaphor for the real meaning

The world is a closed system, an organism called Gaia. The original trigger and only possible inflow of new energy comes from outer space. Otherwise, only a shift of resources takes place – wooden nickels from left to the right pocket. As long as Gaia uses the energy exchange to maintain its viability and to develop new diversity, nothing unnatural happens. The interaction of all elements maintains our lebensraum. A profit-making industry that exploits the common goods to create their value pollutes the system. The added value in favor of a few people is always at the expense of others. Think about the fact that the groundwater that is getting scarcer, because it is contaminated by fracking or is making money in bottled water. It disappears or becomes inedible. And suddenly we recognize the kernel of the brute of the economization of the commons.

In Goethe’s Faust, Faust takes a poodle to his home that eventually turns into Mephistopheles, the devil. Faust realizes – “So that was the kernel of the brute “. This hidden in the obvious is the actual meaning. Which aspects do appear?

  • The actual doing
    Providing people with clean water is an honorable task, until you realize how the water gets into the bottles. Groundwater level plays a major role in this. Due to the high-performance industrial pumping, the groundwater level drops. On the one hand, the existing wells no longer reach the groundwater level, forcing citizens to buy the much more expensive bottled water. On the other hand, the greens can no longer supply themselves with the vital water, which leads to waldsterben, drought, and bad harvests and as a result to famines.
    The kernel of the brute is the destruction of natural resources through exaggerated exploitation of the sources.
  • The actual result
    Over 40 billion gallons of bottled water are consumed every year. This is often the only available clean water. Thus, the producers contribute significantly to improving the health of many. At first glance, it is understandable that the clean water costs much more than the local, dirty water. However, when you realize that some companies are paying $ 4 for 260 thousand gallons of water but turn this water into $ 2 million in sales, it’s easy to see that $ 1,999,996 will cover more than the total cost of providing the water.
    The kernel of the brute is the immeasurable profit that is making a few at the expense of all those who loose their natural resource.
  • The actual consequences
    Gaia has resources that have been built over millions of years. These include our oil reserves, the air and the water. If industrial water pumping continues to lower the groundwater level, fewer and fewer trees and plants are available to convert CO2 into important oxygen through photosynthesis. This not only endangers our health, but also leads to continuous global warming with the known consequences of climate change. The countermeasures of Gaia will regulate the root cause of this evolution, humans, so that the earth returns to a healthy state of equilibrium – without the harmful impact of mankind.
    The kernel of the brute is the long-term damage to our livelihoods by business concepts of reckless profiteers.

Bottom line: We live in a media age, where all protagonists have put themselves in a good position. Appropriate press departments take care of the desired external image. The poodle looks good and provides with good descriptions of what is done skillfully, what great results are produced and what shiny consequences arise from it. But that does not give the public much of the truth. The kernel of the brute cannot be seen. The damage caused by this doing, the unwanted side effects and the terrible consequences are concealed. This real meaning is well described by the metaphor of the kernel of the brute.

Conserve energy in agile activities

Agile activities are determined by the acting people, who produce seizable results. Each particular aspect that makes a contribution to the overall outcome is thereby of interest. These are on the one hand the memetic results – ideas, topics, concepts, models, plans and practices. On the other hand it’s a matter of the physical products – prototypes, parts, components and assemblies. In order to exploit the opportunities of agility, the acting people need a constant energy level. Nothing else remains to be done by the managers than tackling things or doing anything, so that the involved people do not work to hard, not to burn out, but to conserve their energy.

The stamina of employees in the context of agile projects and, above all, the duration of a high agile energy level are apparently not yet analyzed. Factors that affect the duration and encourage on a long-term basis are among other things the following aspects.

  • Positive self-image
    A positive assessment of the self-esteem results from the own, recognized strengths (e.g. skills, creativity) and the controllable weaknesses (e.g. impatience, being nutty on details). The self-image is often reinforced by the comparison with other people.
    The manager should suppress all disturbing impulses, like the feeling of competing with the employees, in order not to put scratches on their self-image.
  • Aligned doing
    As soon as the employees have found their direction; they become bound to everything that goes into this direction. All thoughts turn around planning, execution and implementation of the various parts as well as around similar results that other people created.
    The manager can foster this momentum, by providing appropriate material, trainings and events for the employee.
  • Real autonomy
    The feeling of having control of your own fate and to determine your own career with suitable measures create self-confidence that allows admitting difficult tasks. This results in a confident attitude that achieves more than a negative.
    The manager is crucial for the elbow spaces that are available to the employees. This takes place on the one hand through the fact that they do not interfere into each detail as well as to prevent on the other hand that others limit the autonomy of the employees.
  • Official acknowledgment
    The results that are obtained by the employees, should be honored by the internal public. This can take place through respective publications in the available media, mentions within given events or through appropriate trophies (e.g. certificates, cups, and badges).
    The manager is responsible to take care that the employees are praised and/or for the fact that deliverables become officially visible.
  • Equal workload
    Dependent on the employee type they work with their personal rhythm. There are morning and evening beauties, short-distance and long haul runners as well as short- and long-winded, rhythmic and flowing characters. It is common for all that an interruption of their work is counter productive, since the resumption of the thread always takes a lot of time.
    The manager should know the rhythms of their employees and do everything that they are not thrown out of their rhythm or will be interrupted.

Whereas leaders in the past intervened from above with defaults, demands and instructions in order to prove themselves, now the conception of the world is put upside down. With the old approach they would destroy the mechanisms that keep the employees moving. In agile environments they carry the needs of all employees on their shoulders.

Bottom line: The pro-active actors are located in the center of a self-organized world. Their positive self-image, their aligned doing, their need for real autonomy, their official acknowledgment and their equal workload are apart from other aspects the pre-requisites for agile approaches. The managers have the duty to support the employees in all areas. Thus, the energy is extensively longer conserved in agile activities.