Too long, didn't read: Antimatter principle is a powerful thing to use in ripping down destructive power structures inside an organization. But for some reason the concept of empathy is not something we see "real" or tangible, even though there's little that's more of so.
Antimatter principle is something that is catching fire in the wild. That is something splendid. I'm ever so happy that I got interested in the matter. I'm hugely thankful to Mr. Bob Marshall for being ever so insightful to come up with methods like this, and to Torbjörn Gyllebring to make me dive deeper into soothing waters.
Not long ago I was invited to talk about Rightshifting to a local office of one certain company. Experience that I can only describe as "very pleasant one", and one that hopefully has some further consequences of the better kind. Rightshifting, as a subject is pretty fun to talk about since it tends to resonate very well with the crowd. Most of us do have experiences that are easily recognizable from the Marshall model segmentation, so we're very happy with the image that gets painted.
However, I can't really say I'm surprised that when the subject starts steering towards the actual transition on the model to the right (thus: Rightshifing) the discussion gets toned down a little.
There's demand for something tangible. We start to be desperate for something that's... mechanic. Something that we can install on our system to steer onto right path. Shit, we might even want to give a dollar to someone who asks us how we feel and what we should do to get better, and we might pay the dollar to the darling and think we're fine. We're fine, since we do. But we ain't fine, because we ain't.
We need to be.
And being something and reflecting on something that we'd might want to be. just don't come easy to us. Especially after we're rigged on exploring the system which holds the mechanics on steering our work. And that is a powerful thing, and we should clean up the waste as we encounter, but that will only get us so far.
We don't work with our hands.
Thus, in that context, after explaining the basic property, and the only property of Antimatter principle, which is "Attend to folks’ needs", it might feel a bit peculiar why there's still need for something more tangible.
Because that is pretty tangible when you think about it. That is about as tangible as it will ever get in organizations that suffer, that are ill. Many, most, are ill because of fear. Fear is tangible. Fear enough, you shit your pants. That is tangible.
Things we fear are many. We fear we don't do enough. We fear that when people don't do as we are taught things go awfully wrong. We fear, that if we can't keep the position we're in, we're forgotten. We fear getting fired. We fear getting bored. We fear each other. We fear we don't understand the process. We fear we lose the big bid. We fear change, we fear change making us obsolete.
The fear is what we must change. The fear is our needs coming unmet. Now imagine if the fear would lose its value. There's very little to fear if you can be sure that, in the event of change, it would be taken care that you would not feel obsolete. You might then even initiate the change yourself.
The fear is what can be fought against by attending to needs. It's self-accelerating cycle; less space for fear will be fodder for building up caring. It doesn't get much more tangible than that.
We don't work with our hands.