Try this when you’re ready to judge unquestioned compliance

It’s one thing to say you have a vision for a human-centered system. It’s another to actually live that vision.

What’s so challenging about doing the work? Well, so many of our systems are dehumanizing—school, government, politics, health care, retail, you name it. Dehumanization has become the unquestioned norm…the standard.

Think about the last time you felt unseen, unheard and/or devalued? Dehumanization is waiting at every turn. And it’s hard fighting the inertia to not question it. We’ve been conditioned to comply…just accept it..that’s life.

When I see behavior I don’t like, such as unquestioned compliance, I often find myself first becoming critical of the person and not the system that has created the conditions for that person’s compliant behavior.

Here’s an example…

I’ve been teaching at the university level for fifteen years. Every semester, there are always those students who appear to want the path of least resistance––looking for the easy way out. “Just tell me what you want.” And then I let it drive me crazy.

We have to fight to break this downward spiral and remember this…

It’s not the person. Their behavior is a manifestation of the systems they live within.

When we become curious about the systems and what about them that elicits the behaviors from people we don’t want, we begin to create the conditions for that person’s capabilities to once again be seen, heard and valued.

And then it’s our role––as leaders––to create the conditions for alternate, more desirable behavior to rise to the top.

I love the way Ryan Burke frames it in a recent post titled More Human Systems:

When you talk about problems, frame them as a problem with the system, and not the behavior(s) the system produces. People in the system that are acting in ways that you don’t appreciate are symptoms of this problem, not the problem itself. “Our teachers are stuck and don’t want to change” can become “Our system rewards those that conserve what has worked in the past at the expense of what might be possible.”

What problems are piquing your curiosity these days? How might you frame them in a more human-centered way––Start with the human: Navigating from prioritizing the needs of the system to prioritizing the needs of the people?