The Superman Syndrome
by
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America came roaring out of the recession of the early 1990’s with unprecedented force. As I write this early in the spring of 2000, the country enjoys the most vital economy and lowest unemployment rate in thirty years. We have a federal budget surplus...something no one believed we’d achieve this quickly. A new economy has emerged, borne on the shimmering wings of information and communication technology. Yet, despite all this good news, there’s a great deal of emotional and spiritual pain across our land, not just among those who have benefited least, but also among those who have benefited most.
In a recent workshop at a national business convention, I asked the successful entrepreneurs and managers in my audience to raise their hands if they felt their lives were generally moving faster than they had been just three years ago. Upwards of ninety-five per cent did so. Next, I asked for a show of hands if they commonly had a hard time shifting mental gears after work "to really be present, really listen, really be connected" to spouses, significant others or children. Again, upwards of ninety-five indicated the affirmative. The technology revolution, the rise of the global economy and exponential consumer demand have combined to create a world of blurred boundaries and vanished time, a world no one has ever experienced before. But for all its flash and rush, many of us are discovering it requires we negotiate away central elements of our existence, most notably the sweet enterprise of parenting. Parenting calls us to live at depth, but we cannot live at depth when we live at speed. In the aftermath of numerous school shootings, particularly the one at Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado, we’ve heard some passionate rhetoric about responsibility. Rarely addressed with clarity or insistence is the core truth that superb parenting is not possible when businesses place unlimited demands on their workers and when workers are unconsciously complicit in their own subjugation to those demands by dint of their fear of job loss...amplified by the last recession...and their unbridled hunger for the latest material trappings of the American Dream. Yes, individual parents hold responsibility for the speed of their lives, but not exclusively so. Each of us functions within a system of powerfully interdependent relationships. Businesses are not exclusively responsible either, but they do comprise a significant part of the larger cultural system. Though many business leaders have been reluctant to acknowledge it, they have a broad impact on the current and future states of society. Given the pace of change, the expanding population of the planet, the degradation of the physical environment and the impact of all these on our children, it’s now more critical than ever that we discuss our personal and business lives in the same breath. Even as we blast forward on a shock wave of powerful assumptions concerning what the future will be, we need to understand with a new and broader vision how we arrived at our current state, what our future state should be and how we can create it. In the Information Age, every day, every single one of us is a pioneer in a new land, so great is the pace of change. We are facing the critical challenge of learning to balance speed and depth as no people before us in the history of man on earth. This is to say that accountability to self, family and society are not optional for anyone, certainly not business leaders. It’s one thing to make this statement and quite another to find a way to help good people free themselves from a system whose tendrils are entwined both within and between them. The work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming has been an extremely valuable guide in helping me find a way. Like many of his students, I wasn’t particularly enamored of his technical teachings. Working in a service industry surely has something to do with my bias. Of course, measurements matter and I do use them. But it’s my conviction that the powerful insights and philosophy expressed through The Fourteen Points, Seven Deadly Diseases and Obstacles embody much of what can legitimately be called The Wisdom of the Ages. They hold all the guidance necessary to transform any organization...business or otherwise...if we’re only willing to dig deeply enough. Though Deming gave Psychology its due importance, making it one of the four pillars of his Theory of Profound Knowledge, it was not his forte. Consequently, as I moved forward working to implement those Points that had the strongest psychological implications, I found myself asking a lot of questions Deming did not answer in detail. Point Eight, "Drive out fear" was the most riveting for me. In my experience, business environments are commonly designed by the hands of fear, sometimes subtly and sometimes quite visibly. In fact, there has long been a willingness in business cultures to ignore a host of psychologically abusive behaviors in the pursuit of financial performance. It struck me that anyone committed to driving out fear would have to develop highly dynamic experiences for its principle perpetrators in order to awaken them to its damage and lead them to manage from a significantly different internal stance. By the same token, those who have a vested interest in being victimized by fear would have to be helped to find their way to greater self-assertiveness and responsibility. This would be a major undertaking for which there was no handbook. Point Twelve, "Remove the barriers to pride of workmanship," caused me to journey further down the same line of thought. If fear and mistrust constitute the principle barriers to pride of workmanship, is conventional empowerment sufficient to bring them down? Can structural changes really reach to the depths where these dispositions lurk? What are the limits of conventional business practices? What new approaches are called for? All at once, I found myself setting aside the usual consulting agenda to devote my energies to these questions. I soon came to understand each business, and sometimes each department, as having its own special mythology, its own struggle with Destiny involving villains, heroes, bit players and chorus chants of woe and celebration. I saw individuals with their frail magic moving on and off stage in search of treasure, power, recognition, satisfaction and, above all, a depth of meaning that would unite their emotional life with their life of obligation and action. A new reverence emerged, a richer respect for each business as a complex living organism. It became obvious to me that exceptional expressive and interpersonal skills were necessary to stimulate sustainable humanistic transformation. Without them, how would it be possible to help people peer over the walls of their current paradigms to fully imagine the marvelous tribe they might become? This spirit of inquiry compelled me to assemble a more diverse tool kit than the traditional one provided through my management and consulting training. I knew I was going to have to bring broader learning and more of myself as a total human being to the undertaking. I was drawn into studying areas that are normally considered off-limits or irrelevant to business consultants...anthropology, physiology, neurology, psychology and the broad realm of counseling, child development, sociology, religion, mythology, literary and film criticism and the art of autobiographical story-telling. Gradually, I was able to develop potent personal and group change processes, processes that yielded implications and insights far beyond the normal scope of business consulting. These were learning ex
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Buy Robert H. Kamm's CD, Johnny McConnell September 11th Suite and other Songs by Bob Kamm at
In his unique book, the superman syndrome, consultant Robert H. Kamm looks beneath the obvious advances of the shimmering new technology-centered economy. He finds increasing evidence of substantial emotional and spiritual pain across America, not just among those who have benefited least, but also among those who have benefited most. In a realm of blurred boundaries and vanished time, business people and their spouses are negotiating away central elements of their existence, most notably the sweet enterprise of parenting. Parenting calls us to live at depth, but we cannot live at depth when we live at speed.
Why are we so easily caught up in the flash and rush of The Information Age? Why don’t we hold our ground against its momentum? Why do we seem to lack the vision, strength and determination to truly structure our lives around what we espouse as our most deeply cherished values – God, family, friendship, community – rather than around work? American parents are spending dramatically less quality time with their children than was the case thirty years ago. Why have we allowed this? Why have we gone so far off track? What are the dangers? How do we master this new world and put speed in the service of depth?
Drawing on extensive experience in the front lines of business, Robert H. Kamm asks and answers all of these questions in a highly readable exploration of myth, the human psyche and workplace practices. His profound insight and unusual consulting style have already touched thousands of individuals and numerous companies. Bottom lines have thickened. Market share has increased. Customer satisfaction ratings have been catapulted. The long-term prospects of businesses have been girded while simultaneously honoring and supporting, as never before, the personal and family needs of the individuals that comprise them.
the superman syndrome is bound to become a household phrase and touchstone for those fighting to bend the new technology to help them become real and present parents without sacrificing the joy of creative work.
About the Author
Robert H. Kamm is a speaker, author, coach and consultant who inspires extraordinary devotion in his clients. Under his tutelage, they have achieved competitive advantage by creating great workplace communities. He was one of the pioneers of "Haggle-Free, Stress-Free Car Buying" in the early Nineties and gained national notoriety as the most outspoken advocate of ethical transformation in the automobile retail business. After more than twenty years as an innovator in the trenches of retail, and thirteen years as a single father, Mr. Kamm created a unique consulting practice that spans the gaps between personal, professional and organizational development. His clients revere him as a Renaissance man of deep life experience and wisdom, someone with the rare ability to blend the pragmatic with the ideal. Corporate clients have included Ford Motor Company, General Motors, J.D. Power and Associates, Maritz Corporation, the Canadian Olympic Synchronized Swim Team, Mercedes-Benz of North American, Toyota of Canada and Honda American Finance. Individual clients attending his widely praised leadership workshop, LeaderOne, have come from fields as diverse as teaching, medicine, nursing, healthcare technology, the performing arts, real estate, public relations, engineering, consulting, counseling, psychology, a broad array of entrepreneurial endeavors and, most important of all, parenting. He lives with his wife, Della, in California. The Superman Syndrome is the first work in a trilogy. Robert H. Kamm has also released an album entitled Johnny McConnell September 11th Suite and other Songs. For further information concerning programs and practices, please call: Kamm Consulting
(805) 544-9726
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Kamm Consulting
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