Читать книгу KAIKAKU: Ups & Downs - Robert F. Carter - Страница 6

In lieu of a foreword, an anecdote about belief

‘A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.’ – Henrik Ibsen

Kaikaku (改革, Japanese for ‘radical change’) can also mean a return to one’s core belief. Therefore, radical change should not be confused with radical renewal or something radically new. A true story will explain what I mean.

For nine years, I dabbled in a variety of esoteric lore – astrology, numerology, enneagrams, feng shui, reiki, etc. – and in the bygone days when the following story took place, I had the reputation of an expert in these unholy fields – unholy because the person this story tells you about had been an observing Roman Catholic for almost 50 years. It should not come as a surprise that we did not always see eye-to-eye. We respected each other’s differing views on the world in general and, in particular, on spirituality, but we did not enthusiastically seek the company of the other, and when we met, beliefs were never the subject of our discussions.

Therefore, I was rather taken aback when she appeared at the door to my office, asked if I had a minute to spare and came in, closing the door behind her. Her red eyes revealed that she must have been crying, and she was not her usual, confident self. I offered her the seat in front of my desk and asked how I could be of help. She fought back tears unsuccessfully and dabbed her eyes with a well-used handkerchief while she extended a piece of paper towards me. To my relief, it did not look like her written resignation from the company’s employ. Instead, it contained two dates. It was not hard to guess that the dates were birthdays. She took a deep, quivering breath and told me that she had been an observing Roman Catholic since her very early childhood, that she attended mass daily and that she would have to confess to her priest about consulting someone like me (at which point I could not suppress a diabolical smile, though it was lost on her as she was speaking to the triangular paper calendar on my desk) about the delicate matter she was about to reveal. I was intrigued, of course, and my eagerness to hear her story made me sit forwards on the edge of my seat. I habitually quip and joke about serious matters (for which I usually receive an exasperated sigh and a ‘Will you never grow up?’ from my wife, Marianna), but this time my inner voice ordered me to hold my sharp tongue in its scabbard and to listen carefully. The dates on the piece of paper were indeed birthdays: one was her husband’s, and the other was that of her husband’s newly acquired lover.

Anxiousness – that I would fail, but also that I may succeed in revealing something valuable – showed on her face when she asked me to render an analysis about the people behind the birthdates – people I had never even seen before. I gathered my wits and delivered, according to her, an impressively accurate description of the two people. Eagerness to learn more chased away the anxiousness on her face, and she asked me what I would recommend her to do.

‘Bake a cake, buy a bottle of excellent wine and a bunch of flowers and pay the happy couple a visit in their love nest,’

was my spontaneous answer. It made me take a mental note to brush up on my diplomacy and to train my inner voice to hold tighter reins on my tongue. When what I had said sunk in, fire lit up in her eyes, and if eyes could kill, I would not be around to tell this story. Mainly to defuse the situation and to lessen my fear of being killed by a pair of severe-looking eyes, I asked rhetorically,

‘One of the pillars of your religion is forgiveness, isn’t it?’

Still shocked by the sheer nefariousness of my proposal, she barely managed to nod in agreement. In a half-hour monologue, I described to her what she would lose if she did not do as I had suggested: almost 50 years’ worth of time attending mass and her authenticity as a Roman Catholic. The very essence of her entire belief system was at stake in this matter, and its survival depended on her decision. After I ended my verbal elaboration on the issue, we sat in complete silence for a considerable period of time. With both of us showing a great interest in the folded hands in our respective laps, she finally looked me in the eyes, said,

‘Thank you, Mr Carter’

got to her feet and left my office. With absolute confidence that true believers are very rare on this planet, I soon dismissed the episode as a quaint interlude. Thus, I was rather astonished when about three weeks later, she again appeared in the doorframe of my office, entered, closed the door and occupied the chair in front of my desk with a radiant expression on her face, exclaiming with sparkling eyes,

‘I did it!’

My face must have revealed my puzzlement, because, with a trace of annoyance, she added,

‘What you suggested – I did it. I baked a cake, bought a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers and visited them in their new home.’

My eyebrows shot up and I chided myself inwardly for shooting off my big mouth again. As a true Piscean should, she noticed my discomfort and said,

‘No, no, don’t worry, Mr Carter. Everything went well – very well, actually. They were, of course, somewhat suspicious and didn’t want to believe in my good intentions and well wishes for their happiness, but after we had eaten the cake, drank the wine and talked for about three hours, everyone was glad that the situation had been defused in such an agreeable manner.’

Speechlessness is not my hallmark, but I could only nod and grin dumbly before awareness kicked in. I extended a hand and congratulated her on her superhuman achievement. She thanked me again for the ‘somewhat out-of-the-ordinary piece of advice’ and left my office as happy as a cricket.

Why did I tell this story and what’s the kaikaku effect?

I am sure there are other people with such strong beliefs. The above story is to remind them of the importance of their being true to their credo even if they have to change radically to revert to it.

The kaikaku-effect in this anecdote is a positive one: I admit that the radical change is not obvious in above story. – When her husband confessed to cheating on her with his new flame, she chucked him out of their home using language that lengthened her next visit at her confessor’s unduly. – Our spontaneous responses reveal our true beliefs. Therefore, her spontaneous reaction was in utter contradiction to her beliefs. – The radical change came about when she visited the flower shop to buy a bunch of forget-me-nots to her rival. With this radical change in her attitude her beliefs and actions became one.

It is hard enough to be in the middle of a crisis, but if it gets even harder – for example, with a wisecracking smart aleck, like an interim manager with an at-times-unbearable manner, turning up – it is a tremendous relief to be able to fall back on something familiar that once worked well. Thus, if you act according to your true and honest beliefs, you are authentic and in harmony with all your senses, your body and your essence – in short, with your entire being. To reach this state of holistic bliss is the ultimate objective of the kaikaku process.

This book is meant as a guide for small and mid-sized enterprise (SME) executives and interim managers. Its motto is the same I assigned to the CQO (Chief Quality Officer):

‘I am not a teacher, but an awakener’ – Robert Frost.

For easier readability, the male gender is used throughout the book.