Every person, team, or nation moves under the influence of guiding principles that set the course. When this principle fits the moment, the system thrives – when it's outdated, the system starts to hurt itself.
I've lived that pattern from the inside and watched it play out in the culture around me.
In this series I want to explain how that gives me hope.
In the context of this post, a System is considered a collection of parts that affect one another and create a pattern, like my physical body and consciousness working together, forming me as a person. Every system is usually interconnected with larger systems and contains smaller ones.
A Guiding Principle is an adopted directive – belief, rule, or value – that channels a system’s behavior towards a chosen aim, acting as an enabling constraint until shifting conditions render it limiting.
How my mind turned against me
My psyche is healthy and invincible
This guiding principle carried me through the first 35 years of my life. I considered myself mentally strong, intelligent, creative – it appeared impossible that my joy and drive could leave me.
That was until a few years ago when I was proven wrong.
I found myself in situations where I'd freeze for hours. I felt as if I had lost all perspective and dealt with suicidal thoughts. It became evident that this principle was outdated and needed to make way for something that could help me move forward.
My psyche is healthy and invincible
I need help with my psyche
Letting go of what I considered an unshakable truth of my life felt like a betrayal – but ultimately enabled me to face the challenge and accept the support I needed.
I was diagnosed with depressive episodes and that guided me to explore my inner subsystems – realigning beliefs, befriending demons, caring for the outlaws of my internal family.
Yet, with time, this principle also became limiting.
I had wandered so far into my innermost depths that I somehow got used to it.
I consider it great fortune that my therapist had taught me not to say "I am depressed" but instead to view my state as temporary – as something that can be changed. And when the time was right I did change.
I need help with my psyche
My psyche is a complex system that thrives under love and care
I was able to shift from deep introspection, the sense of needing support and feeling broken, toward a state of oscillating balance and connection. I still often look inwards, but from a state of compassion, interest, and fascination rather than the need to fix me.
Looking back I can clearly see how my guiding principles needed to change over time so that my system could recover and eventually continue to evolve.
It is also evident that all of this not only affected me, but also challenged a whole lot of related systems: my marriage, my job, my family and friends – all needed to adjust to my state and I needed to adjust myself to theirs.
It's likely due to this background that I came to observe similar patterns in other systems. And there is one in particular I find deeply concerning right now.
Guiding principles in startup culture
I have worked in the tech industry for over 15 years, most of which in startups and scale-ups following the unofficial anthem of Silicon Valley.
Move fast, break things
What a wonderful and deeply enabling principle!
I remember when it was first introduced to me as a junior developer. It encouraged me to be less
hesitant and to become comfortable with making mistakes. I was able to let go of fears that held back my creativity. I started to think further outside the box and began asking for forgiveness rather than for permission.
Anyone who has worked in startup culture can confirm how "move fast, break things" individuals influence the company's operation and direction. In the best case this principle becomes the fuel of rapid growth and radical innovations as it moves from the individuals to the collective.
Right now in the United States of America, we can see this guiding principle trickle up even further – into society and politics. And we can observe the shift from being enabling towards being damaging.
The people applying this principle aren't hesitant juniors that benefit from being a bit more risky. The "broken things" are no longer bugs in a software affecting the workflows of a few users – tech fascism is breaking very real lives of very real humans.
"Move fast, break things" is deeply horrifying when applied by people who are already enabled and operate on a state level.
At a societal scale the interplay of systems and principles is chaotic and many other aspects inform the status quo. I won't attempt to fix U.S. politics in a blog post... Still, this is my bubble, realization is always the first step towards taking action and any angle can serve as a starting point towards meaningful change.
Becoming aware
When we identify a guiding principle shifting from being enabling towards being destructive, we gain the power to adjust it, along with the unsettling knowledge that no action means inflicting damage.
This is scary and enabling at the same time.
Taking action requires bravery, timing and commitment. The adjustment can cause insecurity, instability and feel highly vulnerable.
Yet, changing the guiding principle is the only way to maintain the system and support its natural evolution as otherwise it's forced to adhere to an outdated course.
In part two of this series we explore approaches towards implementing change, how to find levers and where to apply them.
Also, unfortunately, it seems as if we always need to witness the intense disaster of collapsing systems before we start taking action.
In part 3 of this series, we go over some preventive measures that help us detect shifting principles earlier.
Thank you for your attention ❤️