June Culturati Magazine
By: Eugene Sepulveda
Tags: Mental Health, Racial Justice, Culture, Mindfulness

What do our people need today to feel safe, respected, a part of the team, and inspired to meaningfully contribute in the midst of all this turmoil?

I started off asking this question on behalf of our members companies. But then it dawned on me, we should be asking the same for our neighbors, for their neighbors, for the men & women all over the country as we mourn the loss of George Floyd and so many others and rise to demand social and economic justice.

Several weeks ago, Culturati Summit speaker Drucker Professor Jeremy Hunter kicked off Culturati: LIVE. He spoke about how we manage ourselves so that we will emerge even stronger after the “storm.” At that time, there was only the pandemic. Obviously, the storm’s gotten worse as riots have broken out across the country.

“But one thing is certain, when you come out of this storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm is all about.” — Haruki Murakimi, Kafka on the Shore

How do we make the storm(s) a positive, growth oriented event so we’re stronger, more effective, more loving? Professor Hunter told us — during the April Culturati: LIVE — this is a matter of skill.

Jeremy builds off Peter Drucker’s idea of knowledge workers as someone to invest in, develop, help actualize — acknowledging that our inner state impacts our productivity and creativity, thus meriting attention from management.

Especially as managers, we must take responsibility for ourselves, which requires being self aware. And, we’ve got to teach others (knowledge workers) how to take care of themselves.

Jeremy lists the three principles of awareness for managing ourselves during a storm:

Acknowledge what you are experiencing. [body, emotions, stories] Accepting inner experience allows it to flow; resisting/fighting/denying it creates struggle. [Accepting what you’re feeling helps you keep it together.] Attention needs somewhere to go. [Too easy to get over focused on the threats. How do you manage your fear, or is fear managing you?]

Managing ourself means managing our nervous system — the parasympathetic system (relaxation) and our sympathetic nervous system (the “gas pedal”). We need to learn when we’re in overdrive (that unsustainable, flight/fright or massively creative state), from which we’ll crash if we’re not careful into a lethargic, angry, unproductive state. The middle, what Jeremy calls the Green Zone, is when we’re sleeping, calm, humorous, feeling safe, relaxed, fun, easy to be with. We’re an “island of coherence in a time of chaos.” The place from which we manage best, where we can sustain.

I’ll share more about Jeremy’s ideas on attention as the most essential human resource & how attention affects everything we do in a later issue.

You’ll find Jeremy’s Culturati: LIVE presentation here.

I don’t intend to make this introduction about the protests against police violence against Black Americans — the riots happening across America. I’ll simply ask for prayers for the memories of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Freddie Gray, Sam Dubose, Atatiana Jefferson, Philando Castile, Terence Crutcher, Alton Sterling, Jamar Clark, Jeremy McDole, William Chapman II, Walter Scott, Eric Harris, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Ramos, David Joseph and so many others.

I recommend watching Trevor Noah on George Floyd, Minneapolis Protests, Ahmaud Arbery & Amy Cooper, here.

Fondly,

Eugene Sepulveda