Soft is the New Hard.
The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past.Edition 234.
The Walk through Life Howard Walker
These days everywhere the mood seems to be war like and belligerent.
We hear about getting into “Founder Mode”, committing to “ Hardcore” and the need for more “Masculine Energy”.
We are told its time to go to battle, get into the trenches, defeat and crush all that comes in the way.
The end justifies the means.
Outcome is all.
Too bad any collateral damage that may result.
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
When two rocks hit each other both rocks lose parts of themselves in the battle. Its loud and hard but even the winning rock is bruised and chipped.
But water flows over rock.
In time it erodes the rock to nothing and keeps flowing.
Maybe soft overcomes hard by understanding the importance of grace, flow and connection.
Reflection Jiabin Zhu
Grace.
Grace is a fusion of demeanor and deportment.
The graceful combine a generosity of spirit, a sense of respect for others and a humility regardless of their level of excellence and skill.
Generosity of spirit in understanding that much of what is meaningful is not a zero-sum game.
Respecting others by being aware of them and their needs and backgrounds.
Humble in not losing one’s sense of perspective that everybody’s achievement while significant are due to a combination of many factors including luck, opportunity, inheritance, and the specific time and not just due to skill and hard work.
I Climbed a Mountain Steve Walls
Flow.
When in a state of flow an individual is inside and outside time.
Deeply immersed in something while extracted from the ordinary.
It can come in many ways including working on something which is challenging to stretch one but not so difficult that one cannot achieve positive outcomes.
It can come from being immersed in making things, building things, and creating things.
And from helping people grow, learn and flourish.
And it comes from learning and seeking wisdom.
In being able to connect the dots and see and understand things in ways that give one joy.
A Ganges Tale Thibault Gerbaldi
Connection.
Successful and happy people seems to have strong relationships to other people and to a higher cause or purpose.
Humans are social beings and most need some form of connection. The ability to invest and grow connections tends to be associated with joy.
We are living in an inter-connected and multi-polar world of 8 billion people with countries proud of their history and hopeful for tomorrow that all want a place and voice in the future.
Connection turns data into intelligence in AI, a series of words into stories that move us and connection works via genetics into progress across centuries.
Generosity. Respect. Humility engender Grace.
Creating, Learning, Building enable Flow.
Relationships. Purpose. Spirituality elicit Connection.
Intriguingly these are human and not specific to an industry, a gender, a race or a country.
They sometimes result in fame, power, and money but they are rewards in themselves.
Wherever you go, wherever you are and across the time they will give you strength and joy and often bring joy to those around you.
Soft is the new Hard.
My new book Rethinking Work is out this Tuesday. Writing and ideas that will lift you, your company and your career. More here: Rethinkingwork.io
A cornerstone of global wisdom is the principle of Yin and Yang, hard and soft, war and peace, triumph and defeat. When asked about this, Confucius answered that all are necessary. What he meant was that all are needful at some time in Life. He did not reject war for the same reason he did not reject water. All are needful in their time.
Where people struggle is knowing what’s needful now and what isn’t. The struggle comes from picking what’s not needful.
Thank you, Rishad! It's so important to talk about these hard "soft" skills, as both Tom Peters and Alan Mulally (two of my management heroes) have done for years.
I'll add one additional element of grace that I think is important: resilience. The OED defines grace as “the divine influence which operates in humans to regenerate and sanctify, to inspire virtuous impulses, and to impart strength to endure trial and resist temptation.” Grace is what allows us to persevere, even amid defeat or setbacks. It requires reslience.
It's no mistake that my youngest child is named Grace.
https://open.substack.com/pub/scottmonty/p/resilience-and-grace?r=bx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true