There are concepts in our shared reality that are deeply ingrained in the fabric of our collective system. These concepts have the power to shape the entirety of our socio-economic, environmental, political, or corporate culture, but we don't seem to fully understand how they actually work or what they truly are.
One such concept is the word "governance."
Most of the activities you engage in daily are under the governance of the 'system' or some of its sub-systems. Most likely, someone is governing your job. Someone is governing your city and your country. Someone is governing your children at school or our elders in retirement homes.
Someone is governing the food you are able to eat, and someone is governing the quality of the air you breathe or the water you drink.
Perhaps something or someone is even governing and controlling your inner beliefs and deep values, and you don't even consciously realize it yet.
Anyway, I think you get the point: governance is most likely a part of your life, whether you like it or not. And potentially, you are also governing many different beings and systems in your daily life too.
So, I guess it's pretty important to understand the main mechanics and dynamics of this concept in our own personal reality and how we authentically use it with others.
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In simple terms, governance is the act or process of governing or overseeing the control and direction of something (such as a country or an organization).
In a more detailed paragraph from Wikipedia:
Governance is the overall complex system or framework of processes, functions, structures, rules, laws, and norms borne out of the relationships, interactions, power dynamics, and communication within an organized group of individuals. It not only sets the boundaries of acceptable conduct and practices of different actors within the group and controls their decision-making processes through the creation and enforcement of rules and guidelines, but also manages, allocates, and mobilizes relevant resources and capacities of different members and sets the overall direction of the group in order to effectively address its specific collective needs, problems, and challenges.
The concept of governance can be applied to social, political, or economic entities (groups of individuals engaged in some purposeful activity) such as a state and its government (public administration), a governed territory, a society, a community, a social group (like a tribe or a family), a formal or informal organization, a corporation, a non-governmental organization, a non-profit organization, a project team, a market, a network, or even the global stage.
Governance can also pertain to a specific sector of activities such as land, environment, health, internet, security, etc. The degree of formality in governance depends on the internal rules of a given entity and its external interactions with similar entities. As such, governance may take many forms, driven by many different motivations and with many different results.
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Now that we are done with formal definitions, I think you understand why it could be useful to comprehend how governance works and why it seems so necessary in our shared reality.
We cannot talk about governance without talking about power. It's mainly about power and our inability to use it properly.
(And it's also about our need for protection and safety from something more powerful than us, but we'll come back to that a bit later.)
What is power? And how do you change the distribution of collective power through the governance process in the system?
In most social systems, power is the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.
Power rarely has anything to do with money. The fact that you can be easily manipulated and give your personal power to someone with money doesn't necessarily make money the real cause of the problem.
Your ability to be easily corrupted and influenced in your deep beliefs and values by something as insignificant as money is potentially the real problem.
The fact that the way you use your personal inner power can be easily controlled and influenced by people with money is potentially even more disturbing than the way they govern or manipulate you.
If you think someone or something has power over you, it's because you have already given them that power at some point. Maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, but you participated in this transaction no matter what.
I cannot have any power over you if you have not made the choice to willingly give me that power.
If I can influence or easily change in any way what you believe, what you do, or what you value, you have already made me your 'master' and have offered me the governance of your inner personal power. And it was your free choice and decision to start with.
No one can disempower you against your free will.
You might be caught up in many games and clever systems where you feel completely powerless, but even then, you always have the free will to act according to your inner integrity and in alignment with your authentic self.
The choice is always yours. Your inner power is always within you.
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Why do we choose to give our power to others?
To protect ourselves. And also to simplify our lives a bit.
Let's start with the second. If we took responsibility for every single decision we made, we would all go crazy. With the complexity of the world we live in, and especially the fact that it is now globally interconnected, it’s almost impossible for a single brain to truly comprehend how to make decisions that impact almost everything else.
So, we needed to specialize. You become an expert in one thing, and I become an expert in another. You make decisions for this, and I make decisions for that. It's already a form of sharing and delegating our powers between us. It's based on mutual trust and understanding.
I recognize that you should have more power in your field of expertise, and I consciously give my power to you because I trust that you know more than I do in that specific area of interest.
This is normal.
The trust and our innate capacity to share and delegate our powers between us has given us the opportunity to built the abundant, creative and powerful global civilization we have today.
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Where it becomes a bit stranger is when we invented the position of a 'manager' or a 'director.'
The role of a director is literally to take accountability for all the actions you take at work. He is responsible for your work and its quality. He is the 'master' of your career, and he probably has a 'boss' over him to do the same job for him too.
Because he is accountable for your work, he is also now entitled to tell you how to do your work (even if you are the one to have the expertise!). You gave him responsibility over your actions, so now he actually has control over your actions.
He can tell you what to do because you work for him. It's a bit more difficult to control your beliefs or your deep values. But he knows that if your beliefs are not aligned with what you do, you will not be very productive.
You need to fully believe in what you do to be effective or efficient at work. Everybody knows this.
So, if I want my employees to be productive, I also need to be able to change some of their deep inner beliefs and motivations (it they don't already believe the same thing I believe in).
They need to convince themselves that what they do at work has at least some meaning and value for them. (Or it provides them with something they really need but cannot get otherwise.)
At this point, we can start talking about various types of employees and their adaptation strategies.
(By the way, these are just roles, not labels or character traits. Everyone has the potential to play any of these roles depending on the context or personal preferences. You embody many different aspects at work, and regardless of the roles you assume or don't assume, you are unique and much more than any single role.)
The Actor
The actor has a double life. This is a coworker who, when you meet them outside of work, you might not recognize. They have one personality at work and are a completely different person at home. They don't talk the same, they don't dress the same, and they don't seem to have the same inner beliefs or values when they are at work as they do when they are with friends.
Most employees today are like this. They don't mix their personal and professional lives. They don't play the same role or have the same heart. They do at work what their boss wants them to do, and they do whatever they want in their personal life. And they seem perfectly okay with their consciously managed personality disorder.
The Preacher
The preacher adopts the belief system of their employer or organizational culture. This person will literally talk about their work as if it were a religion of some sort. They will adopt the culture, traditions, and values of their work in their personal lives. Yes, we could say that to some extent, they have been brainwashed by their job and business.
Most big corporations evaluate your career potential specifically by this factor: how easily can you become the preacher of their business, and how much can you let go of your innate principles?
The Rebel
The rebel will not easily change their belief system and will have a lot of trouble following rules or procedures that are not coherent or in full integrity with their deep values.
They are allergic to nonsense; they like things that make sense and are simple and straightforward.
Rebels are the worst nightmare for any manager. They are almost incorruptible and cannot be overpowered like the others. They can take back the power they gave you at any moment. They can leave. They can change jobs.
You need to be an extremely good manipulator to truly control the behavior of a rebel.
If you want a rebel to do something you want or influence their actions, you actually need to make it coherent with what they already believe in. They need to be convinced that what they are doing has value and deeper meaning.
This is why many rebels have a hard time finding a job. Their incapacity to sell their soul for money makes them very unpopular to be managed and controlled.
That being said, the wisest and smartest managers will actually seek to have some rebels on their teams.
Why?
Because rebels keep you honest! They ensure you don't inflate your ego too much and help balance the power dynamics within the team. A rebel doesn't hand over their power or trust on a silver platter; instead, they encourage others in the team to become more responsible and empowered.
They also make your team more authentic, creative, and courageous. Rebels are the guardians of transparency, self-integrity, and a larger purpose.
All real innovation in this world is driven mainly by the 'rebel' type of employees. This is why they are becoming increasingly valuable in the workplace.
If you think innovation drives economic growth, you're absolutely right. Innovation does this, but it doesn’t happen on its own.
People create and lead innovations.
Rebels are the type of employees who has the greatest potential to challenge your entire organization and reveal new avenues for strategic transformation or meaningful change.
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Anyway, this reflection isn't just about the rebel archetype at work and why you should have at least one on your team; it's about governance. So, let’s now draw some connections between the various topics we've discussed.
It's about power.
The Actor willingly gives you their power in exchange for something else, and you can manipulate them to some extent at work. They may not admire or even respect you, but they will listen and obey most of the time. It's a moderate 'investment' if you want real power over someone.
The Preacher gives you their power and thanks you for taking it. They will tell their families that everyone should work for your company, and they genuinely believe it. Not only are they easy to influence or control, but they are also the best marketing investment you can think of.
At some point, they become like walking commercials for your products and services, even at their Christmas parties. They work for you and your business, even when you’re not paying them.
The Preacher is an excellent investment if you want someone who will blindly follow everything you say and do exactly what you want.
If you want control and power over someone, the Rebel is your worst choice. However, they are the best investment you can make for the overall operations and long-term financial health of your company in today’s business environment.
The Rebel's role is actually the hardest to replace with a robot or artificial intelligence. The Preacher is the first to be replaced. Their behavior is too predictable and obvious; we can 'program' them easily. The Preacher has zero strategic value to an organization and usually presents the biggest resistance to change. Their mind just repeats what the team already knows, and they are afraid of too much change.
Actors are more complex and sophisticated. They can draw inspiration from their personal life, and their mental processing is more diverse. If you invite them to do so, they will show you their creativity and inner wisdom. They can more easily display other roles and talents they have if they trust you and if you empower them.
Actors can become powerful allies, flexible and adaptable to organizational change. They will challenge your strategy when necessary but will also be open to implementing change or innovation without much resistance. Actors are your strategic collaborators.
However, actors are unreliable. They will stick around only as long as you uphold your end of the deal as they want. You need to continue paying them well and providing job security and stability. Actors have a very low tolerance for risk and prefer you to maintain real accountability for their actions.
They don’t mind having a boss with power over them for other benefits, so whether you like it or not, you can never completely trust the Actor to be fully transparent and honest with you (especially if they have something personal to lose by doing so).
Rebels will tell you to your face if what you’re doing makes no sense. They will work with you side by side to make it more coherent and meaningful for everyone if you know how to collaborate with them. You can trust them to be authentic and real. They will show you how to optimize the entire system and are unafraid to share those risks with you.
They won’t give you their power, but they will use their power in real co-creation with you, and they will also honor your personal power in this process.
They don’t want your power either. Rebels understand that the most effective system is one where everyone governs themselves and their own belief system.
Rebels operate with a 'power-with' dynamic, not 'power-over.'
And this ability to be equal in power and maintain the sovereignty and freedom of their inner belief system makes the rebel your best strategic choice if you want to truly evolve and be successful more than you want to control or manipulate others.
Artificial computing can never truly replace the role of the rebel in your organization. You can easily manipulate a machine to give you the answer you want (and already know). But sometimes in life, you need to hear perspectives you might not want to know or consciously acknowledge, but they are still crucial for your growth.
Only a person with enough courage to be fully honest and authentic with you can offer you such a gift.
Only someone who can master their own inner power can unconditionally respect and honor yours.
If you want to keep going to the same places you've always been and doing the same things you've always done, get some Preachers and Actors to complete your team and be content.
But if you want to change the system and co-create something truly impactful and meaningful with others, you need to learn how to operate in the 'power-with' (and not 'power-over') model.
You need to listen to people who disagree with you and make an effort to understand their perspective, values, and reasoning behind their disagreement. You need to co-create a shared reality that makes sense, where no one has control or power over anyone else.
We share our powers with purpose and intention, but we don’t blindly offer our power and responsibility to others in exchange for money or protection.
We don't let our jobs dictate what we believe in and what we value in life. We make those choices as adults, through self-analysis, inner critique, and personal experience. Jobs are supposed to pay you for what you do. And what you do should align with what you believe. But what you truly believe in must still be shaped by you, not your boss or others.
To change the system, you need to deeply trust yourself and own your power. And you also need to unconditionally trust others and honor their unlimited power too.
Governance can make a lot of sense and be a priceless tool for many strategies, but we must always remember where we have given our powers, to whom, and why.
We must also keep enough personal dignity and integrity to take our power back from systems we no longer believe in or support.
You should always retain the freedom to choose your 'master' (if you decide to have one), and you should fully trust those to whom you delegate the power of your responsibility and actions.
Trust should not be based on fear or a lack of other options.
Trust should come because you fully believe in the other person to do what’s best for all of us without needing to control or 'govern' them in some way.
Governance is supposed to represent the interests of people who have given their unconditional trust in the expertise of those doing the governing by delegating their personal power to them.
It’s not supposed to defend or represent the personal interests of the individuals playing the role of 'governors.'
Many people in power forget this.
They forget that someone has given them their unconditional trust and that their governance power exists only because others granted them this authority. If we no longer trust them (and are not afraid to take responsibility and accountability for our own choices), we can take our power back from any governance or system very quickly and easily.
If, for some reason, you delegate your personal power to someone, at least make sure you truly trust that person and that their inner values, intentions, and beliefs resonate with your own.
Make sure your 'master' makes wise decisions and smart choices (with the power you willingly gave them) to create a shared reality you also want and desire to experience.
If your 'master' or boss is co-creating a future you wouldn't like to live in or be part of (or you profoundly disagree with their strategy of 'controlling' you), why would you continue empowering them with your time, energy, and intellect to make it happen?
You are literally giving them your inner power and life force to create a future for all of us that you don’t even want or believe in. And you even place all the responsibility and accountability for your own ignorance and laziness on the shoulders of your 'master' in this entire process.
After this, is your 'boss' still the problem?
Or is it you, who still don't know how to reclaim, hold, master, and use your own power with courage and honor? So, you continue to offer it to anyone interested in 'mastering' or 'protecting' you for a bit longer.
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