Thriving over Surviving

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Bill Berthel
Welcome to the Get Emergent Podcast. The Get Emergent Podcast guides leaders to creatively strengthen relationships and improve performance of their leadership and those that they lead. We like to provide concepts and ideas that you can turn into pragmatic experiments to help you develop your higher potential in your work and in your leadership. And hopefully you’re going to find some better practices to apply in your work. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone
And I’m Ralph Simone. And Bill, I’m excited about today’s topic because we kind of got there when we were talking about creationism and the idea that Darwin was wrong.

Leadership experts discuss whether Darwin was wrong about survival of the fittest

Bill Berthel
Yeah.

Ralph Simone
So that kind of got us on this other topic. So why don’t you tell the listeners what we will be talking about today regarding, Darwin being wrong.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. So I want to make sure there’s a few possible misconceptions here. We’re not necessarily going to be talking about evolution and, or creationism. That’s a super interesting argument. I’m not sure that’s really in our lane as leadership development experts. And we’re also not talking about Darwin’s restaurant here in Syracuse, folks. Stop by there. It’s an amazing little sandwich shop. Super creative folks there. So that we’d love to get lunch, at Darwin’s. But this idea of survival of the fittest, right. If there was one way to net out what actually Darwin later on his deathbed actually pulls back on, he thought he was wrong as well. So we gotta give him credit. The majority of his theories were around survival of the fittest. And nature demonstrates fitness so many different ways. Darwin was really making keen observations about strengths like virility. And maybe we’d call some of this like physical aggression or you know, in the ecosystem, predator and prey. Right. He was making those kinds of survival based observations. Been reading this book called the Treeline. Super interesting read about the boreal forest. I learned the Amazon forest is actually only third ranking on the list of the largest living organisms on the planet.

Ralph Simone
Okay.

Bill Berthel
Number two is the boreal. We don’t pay attention to that. That’s that forest ring that almost fully encompasses the North Pole.

Ralph Simone
Okay, okay.

Bill Berthel
Number one, the largest living organism on the planet is actually our ocean system, Oceania. Right. So the boreal forest is huge when it comes to being a living, thriving organism. And it’s creative. So while Darwin was focused on fitness from survival, we wonder what about the thriving of the most creative? If we took lessons from both the ocean and the boreal forest as leaders, we would notice it’s not about survival, it’s about Creative living.

Ralph Simone
Well, it seems as if we’ve learned some of that through our work with the leadership circle profile.

Bill Berthel
Yes, yes.

Ralph Simone
When I think in terms of survival of the fittest, I actually think of reactive leadership. I think of muscling things 100%. I think of using force, not necessarily power, which would be more creative.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely. It’s interesting to, you know, look at the natural models that might be there for us. And I love that you’re talking about that, like that force that maybe it’s predator, prey. There’s not a lot of collaboration or cooperation. Right. It’s all about survival.

Ralph Simone
Right. One of my other interests outside of emergent, but it’s tied to our holistic approach is with dynamic health and fitness. And in our facility years ago we had a quote across the top wall which said, are you surviving or thriving?

Bill Berthel
Yes.

Ralph Simone
And I think that those people that are thriving take a more creative, more holistic approach to their lifestyle.

Bill Berthel
So the holistic word. Right. Meaning whole. Right. I think the word holistic sometimes gets us woo woo connotation. It’s truly looking at systems thinking from a leadership perspective that’s different than systemic thinking. Right. So I wanna be really thoughtful in that it’s not just simply systematically thinking, but it’s thinking in systems. Where are their collaborative connections? Where are there innovations, new opportunities, relationships between resources that create efficiencies, new things. Right. Innovation. That’s creative systems thinking instead of siloing.

Ralph Simone
Well, it’s interesting to me that even the word efficiency sometimes could lead us to siloing.

Bill Berthel
Yes.

Ralph Simone
And you know, we just came across a recent article from the center for Creative Leadership on why you should collaborate across boundaries. And I think collaboration across boundaries is an example of systems thinking.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely.

Ralph Simone
There are all of these dependencies or interdependencies, and so whatever you do affects the whole and you want to make decisions that optimize the whole.

I think there’s a difference between cooperation and collaboration

Bill Berthel
So I was sitting with a leader just maybe a week, 10 days ago or so in a coaching engagement. And I really admire this leader in many ways, personally and professionally. I think he’s a great guy, very active in his community, a, compassionate leader, also able to have those what we might call difficult conversations with folks. And people love him. He could tell you you’re doing something wrong in such a way and you’re thankful for it. right. He’s just a really dynamic guy. We were talking about this idea of collaboration and he paused and he said, I think there’s a difference between cooperation and collaboration. Can we talk about that?

Ralph Simone
Interesting.

Bill Berthel
And I don’t know that I spent a lot of time, it was kind of thinking on my feet with him and hopefully I’m a good coach. I said well what do you think about that? That’s one way when you’re looking for a little more time to think about something, maybe the question instead of answering it. Right. But he was in that place of. And I liked this discernment. That’s why I’m sharing it. Cooperation is giving into another person’s wants or needs. Not necessarily negative, but it’s sort of an acquiescing or a giving in. Collaboration is working together on a shared want or need. Right. So that’s subtle difference. So I’d cooperate with what you need or want to do, Rolf. And I might do that out of service and trulyjoy doing it. But it’s your thing. Collaboration is, we’re coming together on our thing, spending our time and effort. So I think it’s collaboration over cooperation.

Ralph Simone
Co creating actually. Even if you take the roots of the word of the shorter version. Co op.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, yeah. Co op.

Ralph Simone
And you know, I think it’s almost like a mini win lose. I give something up. It could be a little bit like compromise. Although I don’t want to go down that road.

Bill Berthel
Yeah.

Ralph Simone
But I do like that distinction that he made between cooperation and collaboration.

It’s relating and achieving in a balanced, equitable way

Bill Berthel
So where do we find collaborative opportunities to be even more creative in our leadership, in our work with our teams and organizations to go from surviving to thriving? Ye.

Ralph Simone
What would we suggest to a leader? I mean how do they either look for, find, create these opportunities for this collaboration?

Bill Berthel
You mentioned the leadership circle profile. I wanna borrow a page from there as one idea to that question, Rolf, is it’s relating and achieving in a balanced, equitable way. So we’re all kind of predisposed to one or the other as a preference. We’re either more interested in task oriented activities or relating. It doesn’t mean we polarize that. But I might be a stronger relator than I am an achiever or the other way around. And so it’s getting balance. Right. Really equitable balance in that. So if I’m sensing that I’m in my preference space of achieving a lot over relying on achieving, I might look for opportunities to relate. I’d start with interpersonal connection. In that place, if I’m wanting to shift from achieving to relating, I think I’d go back to everything from emotional and social intelligence, demonstrating a caring connection, servant style, leadership over being more directive, more supportive. I’d Start leaning in that direction. I might need to flip it the other way. And we can talk about that in a second. I can tell you have something.

Ralph Simone
Well, so there’s a self-observational aspect of this that actually follows an intentionality.

Bill Berthel
100%. Yeah. I might need to flip it the other way. My preference might be in the more relating side of activities such as creating those connections, being highly supportive. Where’s the perhaps structure strategy? Maybe it starts with vision. Where are the systems thinking? How can I get more decisive in getting more done. Getting stuff done. The creative tension between relating and achieving is that higher creative thriving in our leadership?

Problem solving through creative thinking can be very creative

Ralph Simone
I’m wondering. This may be a real leap but as I was reading this morning and a couple of different books, Abundance co authored by Ezra Klein and then a book written in the 90s which is called I think Personal Awakening. And one of the things that I noticed in both books is the over categorization of things as problems.

Bill Berthel
Yeah.

Ralph Simone
And I think that leads to survival. That leads to or thinking that does not lead to the creative collaboration. If we looked at these things as more of tensions to manage and polarities. And I was reading this and these are very smart authors, published authors, well researched. But we seem to gravitate to calling most of the big challenges in life problems. And I don’t think they are.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, I’m aligned with you there Ralph. And I can almost hear some of our listeners wanting to start to defend the creativity they have in problem solving. Absolutely. Problem solving through creative thinking. Critical thinking can be a very creative thing to do in our leadership and in our work. That’s not what we’re talking about here. The mindset of seeing most things as problems different than maybe focusing on what is the outcome. You mentioned intentionality. What’s my intention of the outcome of this process, this work that I’m doing with others or by myself that becomes more creative.

Ralph Simone
Yes. And when we see too many things as problems, we start to force solutions with rules. So we’re going to comply with the rules. We start to get cautious and we protect ourselves. We try to control more. And what we do is we actually silo, we suboptimize, we actually waste energy. So we’re now really in a survival mode, surviving versus thriving. And it doesn’t feel effortless, it doesn’t feel like flow, it feels like muscle and force. And we’re just lucky to get through the day.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely. And I think many of us feel that near the end of the day we might be tired, close to being burned out. However that might resonate. Maybe we’re we’re getting as much caffeine as we can in the morning and self medicating a little bit with alcohol in the afternoon or in the evening rather. You know, I’m not judging any of that. But we might be feeling like we’re not getting what we want done. That’s that lower return on investment, that energy leak. We might be feeling.

Ralph Simone
Well, we need a relief valve. and I think the relief valve is healthier and more sustainable if it comes through some of this creative energy, if it comes through this collaboration, the synergy, the systems s thinking that makes it effortless may be too strong a word, but really, easier to move through the day.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, yeah.

What would you want our listeners to consider getting into action?

What would you want our listeners to consider getting into action? Like where might be a good place to start?

Ralph Simone
You got me thinking earlier about just watch your language. I’ve been paying attention. I tend to default to survival mindset with some frequency. When things are not going my way, I turn it into a battle. I’ll muscle it. I’ll use some force sometimes. That may be effective, but there certainly is a high energetic cost. I would ask them to start by observing their language. Is there language collaborative? Is there language creative? Is there language inclusive? Does it unify or does it divide? Is it the language of war? Is it the language of control? That would be one place I think I would like to start is just observing my language more. And where is that leading me to? From an because language is generative. So the language I use is gonna lead me to an action. Is that an action? That’s creative, collaborative and systems thinking in nature.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, yeah, like that.

Ralph Simone
How about you? What would you suggest?

Bill Berthel
You mentioned intention earlier and I think that’s often where it starts is how can I be intentionally more creative? But I think it starts with noticing opportunities to thrive in. Right. So an intention to be more thriving than just surviving and what that might look like. I think it’s different for each of us. Right. I think that’s the beauty of creative energy and creative activities. It can be very different for each of us. But how can I intentionally look for thriving in my life as compared to surviving? It’s corny, but I think corny things are true and fundamental for me. It starts with some form of gratitude or giving thanks or observing, appreciating beauty and excellence in the world. So there’s something about gratitude for me that shifts it.

Ralph Simone
I think that’s huge. I think it’s a simple, quite often overlooked activity I mean, if we go back to when the earth was taken care of, when we were better custodians, there was a gratitude for the beauty that surrounded us. There was a stewardship. The book I was just reading, they talked about the, I wanna say the harmonious harvest, but this idea of we were thinking that we were part of a system, we were grateful for what we were given, but there was a reciprocity. And the reciprocity was we don’t take more than we need. We don’t take the first or the last one because we see this as part of this beautiful landscape, these gifts that we’re given. And if we saw them as gifts through gratitude, we might manage them differently.

Bill Berthel
And I love that. And that’s looking at the big view. This is a funny exercise I used to do with my son when he was much younger, and he’s a high schooler now. There’s no reason I couldn’t bring this back to him. We haven’t done it in years. You can start with any kind of length of rope, but we always used a piece of rope that was a, piece of string, piece of yarn that was nine feet long. And you tie it so it’s a loop. And you go out in your yard and you make a circle with it just on the lawn, anywhere in the woods, wherever you want to do it. And then get down on your hands and knees, and if you’re willing, get right down on your belly on the ground and just observe what’s inside that circle. If you’re doing it with someone else, have them kind of across from you. I just talk about what’s inside that circle. It’s an amazingly beautiful world at whatever level scope you take. You can look at the whole abundance of the world and have gratitude for that. And you can have gratitude for little ants marching on the blade of grass or the way a little pebble shines in the sun. You can take a micro or a macro look and find beauty.

Ralph Simone
Seems like a grounding activity. Sounds like a beautiful thing to do with someone or alone. And it kind of reminds me I just put in, 11 new plants. And many people are surprised about me regarding this. But I love getting up early in the morning just when it’s light enough to see without any other illumination and to actually nurture and water those plants. Yeah and to see almost imperceptibly the growth. But this is the early stages where the watering is critical. But just to be out there and to appreciate the gift of life and the ability to take care of something. And I think that’s part of the creation, that’s part of the thriving. And it is probably gets us more grounded and a little bit less materialistic along the way.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. What a great way to lead, Right? What a great place to lead from.

Ralph Simone
Yeah.

Bill Berthel
Ralph, thank you. Thanks for this conversation. Folks, thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode and that you’re looking forward to more. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at getemergent or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you pick something up, you’re gonna apply to your leadership and your work. Let us know. Let us know how that goes. Reach out to [email protected] or directly to [email protected] or [email protected]. Thank you.