Let’s stop running in our wheel!

Written by Michel Klingler

As a professional Coach working closely with different businesses for 19 years, I came to truly grasp the concept of holistic wellbeing: my experience has taught me that this notion unfolds the same way within a company as on an individual level. In both cases it’s all about SLOW MANAGEMENT. Let me explain.  

Companies are living organisms that unfortunately do not implement a holistic (or ‘systemic’ in coaching) approach in their operation. As collective structures, they struggle to learn and evolve : a company is a LOT of services, a LOT of employees, a LOT of processes, a LOT of constraints, but it rarely forms a WHOLE because the binder, the sediment that unites all the layers is missing on a global collective level. You might say, what about the company values? They often look well on a poster on the wall but are rarely truly embodied at the head of the hierarchy. Stress is a major disruptor in the learning process, mainly linked, to my knowledge, to 2 factors: organizational problems and those related to relationships and communication between individuals. It's always the same story. 

Why such a predicament for companies (and subsequently for the Men and Women who are part of it)? Because they are evolving in a CONTINUALLY FASTER-PACED WORLD! The continuous acceleration of our professional world, and as result of our own lives, is what prevents us all from learning to take care of ourselves and the others on a collective level. 

The world that we have created from scratch just fuels itself: in fact, we are experiencing an unprecedented increase in technological progression, which triggers accelerated social changes, and with it a relentless faster pace of life. Life, which no longer goes fast enough (for everything we want to do...), leads us to reuse technology, which will sneakily find us new solutions (automation of tasks, specialised systems, artificial intelligence) ... And here goes the spinning of the washing machine, in which we are all caught, while running after happiness, just like a hamster in its wheel!! We are conditioned and addicted to the adrenaline and cortisol rush of permanent acceleration. We have replaced the Carpe Diem of the Roman poet Horace, with the "more to get more" of all the productivity and profitability hunters!!  This undoubtedly transforms us into robots, robbing us from our humanity. We become resources (human resources), on the same level as the parts of a machine.... 

From this perpetual acceleration we are now struggling to live in the present moment, here and now. We end up living in two spaces, one that no longer exists and another that does not yet exist, the Past and the Future. We have lost the notion of taking the time to sit down here and now. There are two opposing ideas defining happiness:  

-Happiness is to live fully in the present moment – when the horizon of expectation coincides with the frame of experiencing life. 

Versus 

-Happiness is to manage to do more in the time frame that is given to us! 

The hamster caught in the wheel prefers the second definition. But after the first stages of learning/upskilling, then from high intensity to hyperactivity, it leads invariably to burnout. 

Let's get out of the spinning wheel, break the paradigm, slow down.... Easier said than done, it seems we struggle to do so. Why is that? 

1. To stop turning the wheel would mean to take the time to sit down, breathe, create some space in this universe of “to do” lists, to refocus on what really matters, our own self and others around us, relationships, interactions, for example... 

2. Yes, but this space, this time that is taken to actually "take the time", generates discomfort, a new form of freedom that breaks the reassuring rhythm of those 500 emails in waiting... Because permanent acceleration brings us a form of "security", a sense of existence, by what we do, or by what we don't have time to do because we are overloaded, and very busy!! That's why when AI will spare me time, I won’t actually take this time but will fill it again as quickly as possible! 

What if we replaced FEAR with ASPIRATION, replace EFFORT with REWARD, what if I thought about what I would get by changing the paradigm, by disrupting it, moving from the world of perpetual acceleration to the one where you can TAKE THE TIME... 

To” take the time” does not mean “to take a while”, it’s to invest your time beforehand to refocus on what matters and being able to take a step back from what is superficial (the acceleration addiction). 

If we get back to our collective structures and the business world, how do you “take the time” with slow management?  It's very simple, it's considering that the Men and Women of the team are not our assets but our worth. Slow management will therefore focus its attention on what matters for the individual person and through his or her relationships to others. And this can only be understood through self-care, to better connect on a collective level. 

The collective and individual worlds are interconnected. It all starts with us on an individual level, as the first company to look after is the one of our own body and mind. Slow management will enable us to take the time to take care of ourselves. And taking the time to reflect about our life choices, being mindful about what we do, what we eat, is one great way to welcome slow management and be authentically alive, on an individual and collective level.