Learning what we’re capable of

JJL contributing author Greg Balanko-Dickson challenges us to “Live Large,” and in my response to Greg, one of the living large goals I had written, was to creating “The freed-up time in my own life to curl up with a new book at least once a week, completing it in the smoked-and-signed way that Dave Rothacker talks about.”

I find I am continually in awe of the mind-opening possibilities within reading the written words of others, and when a new book is released, magazine articles in which the author has been challenged to write more concisely about their book-long thesis are concentrated goldmines. A recent example added these new phrases to my mind’s library:

• the banality of evil
• the banality of heroism
• heroic imagination

This is taken from an article in which famed psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo, PhD, talks about the horrific prison abuses of Iraqi prisoners by young American soldiers revealed at Abu Ghraib in April of 2004. He had been called on to be an expert witness for one of the military policemen involved.

“Historical inquiry and behavioral science have demonstrated the ‘banality of evil’ —the fact that, given certain conditions, ordinary people can succumb to social pressure to commit acts that would otherwise be unthinkable … men and women did terrible things to other people in part because responsibility for their actions was diffused, rather than focused on each of them as individuals; we find ourselves in a similar position whenever we witness someone else’s trouble but fail to help because we assume others will.”

I’ve learned that professor Zimbardo has written a new book called The Lucifer Effect, Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, and I’ve added it to my list for future study. In Managing with Aloha I continually assert that we are born good, and that factors outside of us can turn our behavior toward the less than good

• when we neglect to work on our own ho‘ohana (intentional life’s work),
• when we do not mālama (keep healthy in our self-care), and
• when we do not cultivate the habits in our living with aloha that keep us grounded in pono decision-making (in rightness and balance.)

This is an important concept in my coaching of managers and leaders, for I coach them to assume — to KNOW and to trust — that the good IS always living in all their staff; it may be dormant, asleep, nervous, afraid and in hiding, or even lazy and unexercised, and it’s their role to draw it out in people, by creating the working environment in which their staff’s goodness and aloha will newly flourish.

This is what Professor Zimbardo says about my assertion;

“We want to believe that we are ‘good,’ moral, and self-aware. We want to believe that we are different from ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ people. Thinking so is essential to maintaining a sense of personal dignity and worth.

But the line between good and evil is permeable, like the cell walls of our body that allow movement of chemicals across their boundaries. Anything that any human being has ever done – anything imaginable – is potentially doable by any of us in the same circumstance.

This is not to excuse immoral behavior; the point is simply that understanding how someone could have engaged in wrongdoing, rather than dismissing it as a bad deed done by a bad person, allows us to identify corrosive social forces – the very same forces we need to counteract if we want to avoid going down the same wrong path.”

I believe that responsibility seeks opportunity. The sense of personal responsibility affords us a way of learning what we’re capable of —for the sake of creating more good. In turn, this kind of opportunity creates energy and excitement for us. Living aloha with responsibility as a personal value weaves ownership into this captured opportunity, and there is a transformation of self-actualization that in effect, comes from keeping a promise to yourself; the promise is to BE yourself and not succumb to outside, “corrosive social forces.”

More from Professor Zimbardo, and why I’m planning to read his book;

“You should always demand the respect that you deserve, from everyone. I believe we can all benefit from exercising our ‘heroic imagination’ – our capacity to envision physically or socially risky situations, to mentally struggle with the hypothetical problems these situations generate, and to consider our actions and their consequences.”

So do I.

This is the part of his article about the ‘banality of heroism;’

“When everyone else is doing the bidding of unjust authorities or bending to the will of corrupt systems, the few who resist are heroes. But you don’t have to be a Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, or Martin King Jr. You can be a Joe Darby, the army reservist who revealed the Abu Ghraib photos to a criminal investigator and thereby ended the abuse.

The heroic act of this average young man (whom residents of his hometown describe as the most ordinary of Joes) reveals what I call the “banality of heroism.” We think of social heroes as superhuman, beyond comparison to the rest of us.

But in fact, the response of many such people is to deny that they’re special —“I’m not a hero.”; “Anyone in the same position would have done what I did.”; “I just did what needed to be done.”

Brings me back to something else I’d written in Greg’s Live Large challenge. Another goal of mine was to see this in our world;

A complete absence of negativity about our future. Yes, there are huge issues like poverty and global warming for us to deal with, however one of my un-limiting beliefs is that answers DO exist and we just have to find them.

I’d suppose that Professor Zimbardo would say we just have to practice “the banality of heroism” everyday for those answers to reveal themselves.

It’s good to be a part of a community like this one, where people get involved in learning what they are capable of when they just do what needs to be done.

Related articles;
By Greg Balanko-Dickson: Living Large: Shrinking Does Not Become You
On Talking Story: Live Large with ‘Imi ola
On Managing with Aloha: Kuleana, Self-Responsibility, and Self-Determination

If you wish to read Professor Zimbardo’s article in full, you will find it on page 199 of the April 2007 issue of the O Magazine; unfortunately it is not included as one of thier online features this month. Appropriately, the article is called For Goodness’ Sake.

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Post Author:
Rosa Say is the author of Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawaii’s Universal Values to the Art of Business. She fervently believes that work can inspire, and that great managers and leaders can change our lives for the better. You can also visit her on www.managingwithaloha.com.  Writing on What Great Managers Do is one of her favorite topics.

Comments

[Rosa Say]

Another point of interest;
I wonder that Professor Zimbardo chooses the word banality. From www.dictionary.com:

Banal:
–adjective. Devoid of freshness or originality; hackneyed; trite: a banal and sophomoric treatment of courage on the frontier.

And another:
Drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite: "Blunt language cannot hide a banal conception" (James Wolcott).

Yuck. Not a word I’d connect with heroism, though I understand why he did, making the point that we can all be heroic. However no one wants to be banal!

Need to read his book.

[Greg Balanko-Dickson]

Aloha Rosa: I love this... "and there is a transformation of self-actualization that in effect, comes from keeping a promise to yourself; the promise is to BE yourself and not succumb to outside, "corrosive social forces."...

Carol and I were talking about the experience of being self-employed more than 20 years and married for 31 years this May...

You have reminded me of a promise I made to myself, "to never give up"... ever. A lot has happened in 20 years, not always the way I had hoped or dreamed... through it all... my faith in my ability to learn and adapt has been tested.

There were many days I had serious concerns about my business and the results (or lack thereof). Many of my friends, family, and a few times Carol would say, "Why don't you get a real job."

Each and every time I had to choose again to keep the promise I made to myself - to "never give up".

I can confirm that a transformation actually did take place, when I honored myself by keeping my commitment - my integrity - intact.

What is amazing is that it has a cumulative effect. Each time I choose to honor and keep my promise it adds to my "self-actualization" and self knowledge. It creates the personal conviction and knowing'ness that I will prevail regardless what I face and that the answer is out there - I will find it.

[Rosa Say]

That’s what ho‘ohiki (keeping your promises) will do for you! Thank you for sharing your personal story Greg.

[international professors]

Heroism and evil can be or not be banal, you think?

international professors project

[Rosa Say]

Yes, according to Professor Zimbardo.