It’s no secret now that my wife is starting a new job (career?) today. And of course, I wish her more than well. I seem to be better at writing my thoughts here than conveying them in person. I possibly suck at the second part. So here goes…

Here is some advice to my young woman as we are both in the so-called “culture change” business. In any change there is bias. So it is important to ask ourselves deep questions about what we do at work. Corporations are nameless, faceless entities that in reality have no real meaning. And there is always an underlying survivorship bias driving the profits and experiences. So within those constraints, it is about how to work with morals, ethics and justice.

I have written about Howard Gardner and his work on truth, beauty and goodness. It seemed relevant to extract it here.

One needs to balance truth, beauty and goodness in everything we do. What is true might not be beautiful or good. What is good might not be true or beautiful. And what is beauty might not be either good or true. There in we are left with this conundrum all our lives as we work our way through this. And as long as some higher truth, beauty, and goodness emerges from our journey, perhaps we can consider having done well with it.

Are we doing change for the sake of change, so that our work counts? To what end? These have no simple answers as we mess with the lives of humans. Favoring some over others. Are we really making their lives better? Do we know for sure that we are? And how do we know?

I used to believe that my work is about creating happiness and joy. Now I believe more so that is for the individuals to figure out what they want from their lives in their own contexts. So I have narrowed my work to constantly remove “unwanted suffering”. That might lead to building a better world. For all of us.

Now you go girl, keep these in mind and go paint your town red.

The image above: Fushimi Inari Shrine