“Every day we know more and understand less” – Albert Einstein

Organizations, as we know them today, the ones we are part of and interact with on a daily basis, were designed to respond to the concerns of a time when people worked in one place all their lives and took pride in that.

The world has changed, but we have ingrained values, practices and levels of awareness that are very different from what the new generations demand and, in many cases, even from what we say we want as a society for our common future. Even the wave of Silicon Valley companies and start-ups over ten years old may well be a step behind the speed at which new expectations are being generated.

The world changes at a rapid pace. If we think we understand how it works, we will quickly realize that feeling doesn’t last too long.

This directly influences our capabilities and our effectiveness, our purpose, and our intentions. Let’s take the recurring example of work/life balance, which features prominently in almost every internal corporate survey, without finding a fundamental solution.

Every year, organizations react to their internal surveys with the best intentions of providing solutions to specific problems. However, it is often the same as with the “hamster wheel”: everything keeps spinning without moving forward, with no real effect, because the underlying issue is hardly addressed.

More questions are needed, in this case: When did we start talking and behaving as if life and work were two separate spaces that need to compensate for each other? If we don’t like what we do in one of these areas, can the other compensate us? Is it even effective to think that there is a self that works and a self that takes over to start living when the other one finishes its working hours? Are we asking the right questions?

Powerful question to ask yourself:

What questions should we ask ourselves to really understand the present world, and thus genuinely respond to today’s challenges?

Make change happen:

Try this.

• Think of a challenge you have ahead of you.
• Write down a list of all the things you think you know about it, and without prior analysis, would influence your decision-making.
• Make a list of questions to challenge those beliefs or others you think exist.
• Meet with your team to question all of these underlying issues before you begin to make any decisions.