If I ruled the world
As I begin to write this, what’s on my mind is the opening lines of Harry Seacombe’s “If I ruled the world”, as performed by one of my favourite jazz singers Jamie Cullum at BBC Proms 2010. If you haven’t heard this marvellous version of the jazz standard, you can easily find it on YouTube.
As a performer you will experience moments when you feel literally on top of the world. It feels as if though stars aligned to help you be in the perfect place in the perfect moment, in front of a perfect audience. The performance flows effortlessly and perhaps, struck by inspiration, you add something - a joke, a dance move, a little interaction with the audience - that wasn’t there before but really makes the act shine. During my best performances I recall feeling like having energetic sex with the audience. Their energy and attention fed me and because of it I was able to give more of myself back to them. Just like in a beautiful sexual experience, we gave energy, enthusiasm and love to each other, and received from each other.
The truth is, whether you are a performer or not, each one of us already and unequivocally rules our own world. Some of us find it harder to acknowledge as it’s easy to see what influence those more “powerful” than us such as workplace bosses, landlords, politicians, etc have on our lives. However, there are just as many versions of reality as there are people. We are powerful beings, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it. Everything I do, preceded by what I say, preceded by what I think, rooted in what I’ve been shaped to - or chose to - believe, creates ripples on the stretching endlessly surface of the lake of possibility.
Envision, create and believe in your own universe, and let the universe adjust itself to accommodate you, argues Tony Hsieh in “Delivering Happiness”. The little manifesto book talks about how his wildly successful e-commerce company Zappos not only came to being but stayed true to its values and ideology, also thanks to adopting holacracy, through acquisition by Amazon. I remembered his suggestion to “create and believe in your own universe” for two reasons. Obviously resonates with me but also because - as per his memories in the book - Tony quite coollly used it to chat up an attractive girl who came to one of his raves he used to organise in pre- Zappos days. As he describes all the love that went into the endeavour, I imagine it’s the feeling of rave-like unity created in his community of friends he later sought to reproduce in the business world.
Every voice would be a voice to be heard is far from a cheesy line for me. Our deepest need, while in these bodies and on this planet, is to be heard (or seen, or touched, depending on how you tend to experience the world through your senses). What is your part to play in the run up to the world of the future where every voice indeed is a voice worth hearing? When I sense into mine, creating and being part of organisations where sustainability and wholesomeness meet is definitely part of it. The way I currently act on this calling is to be part of a company I started over nine years ago where people respect one another, and are as a matter of principle trusted to do great work just because that’s the way we’re wired (instead of being bullied into performing).
As per what I outlined above, we work in complete financial transparency, everyone in the company has direct access to company accounts and budgets and knows exactly how decisions are being made and by whom. This is a consequence of different roles with different responsibilities which that they hold being clearly captured and mapped using holacracy constitution. People are responsible for setting their own salaries and ensuring they remain fair over time by doing market research, conducting their self- assessment process and adjusting the salary as appropriate. We strive to do this in accordance with the standards of our market and what’s sustainable for the business at a point when the decision is being made.
This doesn’t mean that work is always bliss or we don’t have some tedious things to do (self management, since there are no dedicated managers in the company, being one for many people). But overall I believe we’ve removed some - not all - barriers that stood in the way of us being able to do great work, which isn’t driven primarily by fear of underperforming and losing your job. We have also added considerable challenges a lot of people never have to face in their work as someone else makes decisions for them and tells them what to do - such as curating your own career, resolving conflicts with your colleagues and calibrating the value of the work that you do, including both the commercial and not directly commercial elements of it. But we believe that a workplace which is challenging in this way brings us closer to the kind of future we can and want to live in. And a surprising amount of other founders and people who contribute to their companies do too. I firmly believe that we are all building a future worth living in.