Follow Your Bliss
By Ginger Grant
“Follow Your Bliss.” Three small words of advice given by renowned author Joseph Campbell that, if taken seriously, will have enormous impact on an individual. This year marks what would have been the 100th birthday of Campbell, who’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, delineates a map that has been followed across cultures throughout history. Each culture has its tales of heroism, and each age has celebrated its heroes. “Follow Your Bliss”—what kind of esoteric advice is this?
Acknowledging ‘The Call’ and Accepting ‘The Heroic Journey’
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"The Hero's Journey" Passes Through Winnipeg
This August, at the CBA Canadian Legal Conference and Expo in Winnipeg, you can sample what it would be like to consciously live your own Heroic Journey. What would your practice be like if you “Followed Your Bliss?” What would your firm be like? What tools are needed? To find out, plan to attend “The Hero’s Journey” CLE session (date and time to be determined).
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What Campbell was referring to when he penned the words “Follow Your Bliss” is the deep yearning within us that calls for some action to be taken, some path to be followed; the “Heroic Journey” that is yours and yours alone. The Heroic Journey that shows you the meaning of your life. Who or what is calling to you? Some famous Roman said “the fates aid those who will; those who won’t ... they drag.” When you hear the call, you will recognize it. You may reject the impulse, but your body will ache to respond. You may refuse to answer, but your refusal bears a huge price. That “something” that pulled you toward a career in law is what Campbell termed “The Call”.
To acknowledge this call is to acknowledge and accept the Heroic Journey, knowing that you do not know the way and trusting that the universe will somehow show you. It is having faith in the fact that many before us have somehow made this journey and survived. There are no guarantees. In the movie “Saving Private Ryan”, we are led into the paradox of archetypal values. When is a sacrifice necessary in order to prevent a greater sacrifice? Tough question. This is the type of situation that leads one directly into a Heroic Journey.
The Archetype of Justice
I believe that the archetypal value of justice is the basis for a Call into the field of law. Those who answer this particular Call have chosen to serve at the feet of Justice. I use those words deliberately, for those who pretend to serve an archetype that matters so much to so many will incur unconceivable rage when caught in their deception.
Any betrayal of an archetypal value is at great cost and can destroy a law firm. Have you ever felt betrayed by someone you trusted?
Rebuilding Trust in our Corporate Environments
Enron, World.com, Tyco, Bre-X and other corporate scandals have created a current corporate environment of mistrust and scepticism. How do you change an economic and corporate culture that has been damaged by misuse of power, greed, lack of trust and/or betrayal? It is not easy and in some cases may be impossible.
To answer this question requires that we ask more. To follow your bliss means to follow your passion; to heed the knowledge so dearly paid for through suffering and loss. What passions live in your firm? What are the stories of loss and suffering that produced the Heroin(e)s who live on? Aristotle argued in his Rhetoric that the ethos or trust in a speaker by a listener depends on three archetypal characteristics: expertise, honesty and benevolence. What is the ethos of your partnership? Can the associates and other knowledge workers trust your expertise, your honesty and your goodwill? Are the stories told around your water coolers those that support such a heroic ethos or do those stories resemble the foundational values of an Enron?
Honouring the Investment of Intellectual Capital in your Firm
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Your Heroic Journey
Try Joseph Campbell’s advice for budding myth lovers and apply them to your own journey:
1. Read myths with the eyes of wonder: the myths transparent to their universal meaning, their meaning transparent to its mysterious source.
2. Read myths in the present tense: Eternity is now.
3. Read myths in the first person plural: the Gods and Goddesses of ancient mythology still live within you.
4. Any myth worth its salt exerts a powerful magnetism. Notice the images and stories that you are drawn to and repelled by. Investigate the field of associated images and stories.
5. Look for patterns; don’t get lost in the details. What is needed is not more specialized scholarship, but more interdisciplinary vision. Make connections; break old patterns of thought.
6. Resacralize the secular: even a dollar bill reveals the imprint of Eternity.
7. Myths can be generated anywhere, anytime, by anything. Don’t let your Romantic aversion to science blind you to the Buddha in the computer chip.
8. Know your tribe! Myths never arise in a vacuum; they are the connective tissue of the social body which enjoys synergistic relations with dreams (private myths) and rituals (the enactment of a myth).
9. Expand your horizon! Any mythology worth remembering will be global in scope. The earth is our home and humankind is our family.
10. Read between the lines! Literalism kills; imagination quickens. |
Many firms spend countless dollars on external marketing and spend nothing or little on the internal development of intellectual capital—their associates. The infamous "Clifford Chance" memo that was circulated to lawyers worldwide over the Internet, exposed a corporate culture that was (in an understatement) less than desirable. In an economy that has instant access to information via the Internet, any betrayal of trust can be easily disseminated across the globe by disgruntled employees, customers or shareholders. For organizations that behave in a less than honourable way, there is now nowhere to hide.
The Internet provides a watchdog with immediate global access, and knowledge workers are adept at doing their own research before committing to any investment, including that of employment. Knowledge workers, and lawyers are certainly no exception to this rule, provide investment in any organization through the donation of their intellectual capital. A firm that does not recognize and honour this investment will quickly lose it—it has been shown time and again that assets now have feet.
Last month I recommended The Trusted Advisor as a potential bible for employee development. It may be an unpopular view but, if you want to foster a passionate commitment to the survival of your firm, you need to recognize each individual’s right to a Heroic Journey. To reawaken the desire that created your firm in the first place, you need to revitalize each partner’s ability to tell the stories of suffering and loss that produced the passion to create. What is your “Call”? How did you heed the summons? What aspects of that journey need to be retold? How did you survive, and how do you continue to survive, the day-to-day routine of your practice and also keep alive the passion needed to persist in the face of adversity? What needs to be changed and what needs to be kept in order to provide a sustainable organization?
To honour the investment of intellectual capital in your firm, you need to re-examine the traditional definition of ROI (Return on Investment). In organizational theory, when we previously spoke of ROI, it was always with the emphasis on the benefit to the organization. This is now shifting and, because of our changing demographics, will continue to do so. What is the return on investment to your associates; how do you feed and nurture their passion? How do you invest their intellectual capital? How do you demonstrate that a lawyer’s “Call” will be best answered within your firm rather than any other? What sets your organization apart in the marketplace?
Finding an Environment that Supports The Call
Today, there is ample evidence to suggest that insatiable greed that has overtaken some firms; it certainly seems to be a hallmark of the command-control environment. But such continued emphasis on bottom-line profit and in the practice of law (the almighty billable hour) damages if not destroys the relationship between the law firm and its knowledge workers.
In an environment that is characterized by greed, it is almost impossible for any associate to believe in the direction and vision of the law firm. In such a situation, your work becomes just a job that needs to be done in order to survive. This type of atmosphere creates an environment that promotes selfish, short-term thinking and behaviors that do not support long-term innovation. There is no “community” of belief that supports the firm moving onward. There is no mythos that serves the archetype of justice, no Hero(ine)’s Journey to follow, and the Call has been heard but then distorted if not refused.
If your current community will not support such a Call, find one that will. I believe that there exist law firms that serve the archetype of justice. I believe that there exist partners who have survived their own Hero(ine)’s Journey and that are willing to mentor those that follow in the spirit of service to such a Call to the Bar. I believe that there are partners who will honour the intellectual capital of all of their investors. These are the only law firms that are truly sustainable, that deserve the trust of their clients, that have earned the trust of their associates and that will ultimately thrive.
As an investor, whether partner or associate, the choice is yours to make. Is your voice an authentic one?
About the Author:
Ginger Grant, M.A., is the President of Creativity in Business Canada Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in corporate culture, generational diversity and change management. Ginger is the only Canadian certified to teach the unique Stanford Graduate School of Business program “Creativity in Business”, recently adapted for corporate use. Her new book, entitled When Assets Have Feet is scheduled for publication in early Spring. Ginger can be reached at: ginger@creativityinbusiness.org or 604-924-5360 or through http://www.creativityinbusiness.org.
Neither the author nor the CBA should be construed as endorsing any product or website listed in this article. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CBA.
In this document, any reference to "jurist" or "lawyer" includes, where appropriate, "Québec notary". |
