all for one
one for all
It doesn’t matter where I go, even at work, I seem to attract right-wingers who want to talk about politics. If I start a conversation with someone about politics, which is rare, then I aim to be explicit that I’m a socialist as early as possible in the conversation. If nothing else, it gets the other person’s attention. I rarely have lefties bring up politics with me. Perhaps it’s because I look to pius to be anything but conservative, or perhaps because we on the left have been told our views are considered extreme and taboo. I’ve certainly felt uncomfortable in the last ten or so years when people have asked me where I sit on the political spectrum.
This week I’ve been talking to a close acquaintance who is a unionised train driver. The last few times I’ve chatted with him, he’s told me how he thinks everyone should have access to unionisation, how amazing his union is, and all the benefits it provides him. I’ve been quietly surprised by these statements, as they seem a long way from the conversations we were having a decade ago, when he voted for Brexit, saying that making the country poorer to regain our sovereignty would be worth it.
The more I listened to him sing the praises of his union and complain about the politicians, the more I could see this was the same dynamic I’ve seen on every team I’ve worked with. Teams that would talk themselves up and complain that everyone else slowed them down.
This week, my friend admitted the Brexit campaign had duped him, and boy, was he angry about it. I was bitterly triumphant. There is never enough joy to be had in the victory of someone realising you were right all along.
He started listing all the propaganda he swallowed during the Brexit campaign. And the one that really stuck out, the one that gets so many people every time?
The lie about NHS money on the side of a bus. The same old story: say you’re going to save it because it’s inefficient, then give it less money, and keep complaining that the service is getting worse.
The promise of neoliberalism that it would be our saviour is starting to become increasingly transparent to people. It’s a system designed by the elites to restore their class power by selling off public assets without permission, underfunding public services, and causing class division on every small difference. We’ve walked so far away from solidarity in favour of the myth of individual freedom that we’ve lost many of the institutions that once brought us together.
Freedom is great if you have nothing to lose. But who wants nothing to lose? I enjoy being part of an organisation, a family, a social network, a professional network, a charity, a neighbourhood. I gratefully give up being able to put myself first and support others to be part of groups of people who, in return, will give up putting themselves first when I need their support. I recognise we’re a social species, the importance of having social contact, and that what makes us an incredible species is what we achieve when we work together.
As coaches and leaders, we need to recognise that we’re only as strong as our weakest member. To make a group stronger, we need to support the people who need help. This might sound like charity to some, but it’s selfish as much as it is compassionate. Raising the group’s baseline makes everyone more capable, more productive.
We all do better when we all do better.
And those of you who have had me coach them before will know my favourite saying:
We rise and fall together.
This is true for the team at work, the family, and the country. If you’re waiting on a team member to deliver something because they have too much work for their capacity, you should be helping them by picking up some of their work with your slack capacity. A team that has someone twiddling their thumbs won’t deliver and won’t have the resilience of a team that pitches into each other’s domains when the workload is unbalanced.
When individuals show compassion and support one another, the group benefits from the pooling of resources.
Apologies for the recent duplication and repetition of posts. Not sure what’s happened there, but I’ll blame mum brain!
How interesting.
> perhaps because we on the left have been told our views are considered extreme and taboo.
That may have been true in the 80s or 90s, possibly even the 00s, but in the last 10-15 years certainly not true—and the last five (really since lockdown) it is the so-called "right wing" view that is considered radical, extreme and taboo. I no longer identify as a socialist, a label I was comfortable with most of my life. It took about ten years to disentangle from it, but by mid-lockdown it was clear that socialism or leftism (Labour in UK, Canada, Australia, Democrats in USA) was on par with authoritarianism. No thanks.
I never liked the binary separation of left/right, finding it divisive and over-simplistic, and even more so this past decade, with social media amplifying the divide to greater and greater extremes. We all live in echo chambers now, and those who recognise that we do, have to work really hard to to seek out alternative views. Most don't know it's where they live, don't care, or even enjoy the "us" group identity. Hating on someone else, or some group, means we never have to look at our own part in the dysfunction of the world.
My views today are somewhat more aligned with what people are calling "the right" than with the liberal left—especially my social values. I'd say I am fiscally socialist and socially conservative. I could say more, but living in a sea of opinions increasingly counter to my own makes further revelation unsafe. My views would be considered by most people I know to be "extreme and taboo".