The individual and the collective

Although not strictly a stickie "moment," this entry has been sitting on my desktop as an actual stickie for some time now. It was written on my commute home one day on a crowded caltrain, after a particularly interesting day at work. Being among strangers always seems to have its own inspirational power.

I always believed that multiple individuals operating as one (cultures, societies, businesses, economies) take on similar qualities as single individuals within that group. Take the recent credit meltdown on Wall Street, for example; even though individuals in the system, not only bank executives but also regular home owners and credit consumers, believed they were only taking a little bit of risk in the privacy of their own space. Yet these small risks began to add up and eventually caused the disaster that we're currently experiencing. Cultures work the same cumulative way, with individuals taking on the values of the collective.

This relationship between the individual and collective has always been part of my fascination -- my interest in cultural psychology (A reality -- How does the individual behave in a set cultural context? How does he/she negotiate a path between values inherited from the surrounding culture with his/her own observations and experiences? What if he/she experiences a contextual change?), the role of culture in medicine (A problem -- how cultural clashes between the individual and the collective can have dire consequences, in this case, ill health), and my own quest to find my own path between my two cultures and contexts (search for a personal solution).

But now I find that I'm discovering another part of the solution -- I'm beginning to see that it works the other way as well. Collectives shift with changes in individuals over time, if that shift is consistently in one direction. In other words, the one and the whole influence and reinforce each other, with neither ever being static. It is the magic to the never-ending complexity in both organizations (business) and individuals (psychology). After only three months on the job, I'm discovering that the new tools or tricks of the consulting trade that I'm learning are not only useful in producing success in a business, i.e. collective, organizational, sense, but they can be easily applied to bring about more personal efficacy as well. By observing and emulating successful organizations, one can discover lessons for living a fulfilling, purposeful, and principled life.

More specifically, I was seeking in this foreign profession experiences such as team work, negotiation with a win-win mentality (firmly standing one's ground but still being flexible in considering the other's perspective), conflict resolution, and even technical skills such as Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and computer programming. But little did I think I'd find more than just application of these skills in a professional context. The uses of Excel to manage due data across a variety of dimensions, for example, can be applied to project management as well as personal budgeting or managing contacts. PowerPoints aren't just "consultant-speak" -- when used aptly, they can attest to the power of visual communication in any context. Learning to deal with difficult individuals is useful whether you're with clients or with friends and family. Thinking like a programmer flexes your analytical brain, helping you understand technology as well as just about anything that has to do with logic. Being able to map an abstract problem, quickly identify its root causes, and operationize its possible solutions not only makes you a great consultant, it also provides you with the creativity in solving everyday issues. Being an effective manager of people allows your professional team to maximize its productivity and satisfaction, but also allows you to handle your personal relationships with more ease.

Business, I'm finding, is after all about the organization of people to accomplish a goal with the lowest cost and highest efficiency possible. Aren't we, as individual human beings, constantly looking for the same end? People constantly assess the value of their life by imagining what they would like to have accomplished when they're lying on their death beds. No matter what it is, we all want to leave a legacy in this world, something that stays behind externally when we're gone. Now I'm not attempting to box in what can be considered "accomplishment" -- this can range from saving dying African AIDS patients to raising a child successfully. Regardless, these are still things to accomplish, which implies that there is a process, or logical steps, one must take to achieve these ends, and some processes will be necessarily better than others. Hence application of business lessons to daily life.

At the same time, the best way for an organization to get its individuals to move in the same direction is by getting their "buy-in," or providing them motivation and a sense of meaning through their work. Even though in this case the group is bigger than its individual parts, each part still needs to be fully engaged and moving in the same direction to produce any kind of meaninful change. Similarly, we too, as individuals, seek purpose in what we spend our time doing. Again, the goals of the collective and individual align in this case.