Fatal Illusions Still Abound

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I came across this book on my shelf. It calls out and addresses all the Fatal Illusions in the workplace that I’ve discussed and care about so deeply. It is a very important book, very authentic, very true. It gave me pause because it was written in 1997! I tip my hat to the author of Fatal Illusions, James Lucas.

My thoughts first went to my ego; my work is done. Mr. Lucas did a terrific job; there is “nothing left for me to contribute.” Then I thought, holy crap! Everything we need to address in organizations was clearly and poignantly spelled out in the 1990’s by multiple authors, their books all sitting on my shelves and yours. What’s up with that?

Well, let’s revisit James Lucas’ book entitle Fatal Illusions. The only discrepancy between his premises then and my premise now is, well, you. Lucas‘ approach purports that, “The world doesn’t care about our opinions or feelings. [It] rewards only those of us who catch on to what’s happening, who invest our energy in finding and seizing the opportunities brought about by change.” He is actually quoting a 1994 source (Price Pritchett, New Work Habits for a Radically Changing World). Lucas goes on to talk about the courage to seize opportunities and the necessity of shedding our illusions, which in common-speak sounds a lot like “cut the crap” ;-).

In 2022, assuming that the world doesn’t care about our opinions or feelings means you haven’t met the Internet and world-wide-web lately, or have children, or understand the stock market, or what being on a board of advisors or trustees is really like, or understand how corporate scandals start, or have been in a leadership position with a bunch of other senior leaders and saw first-hand how much emotion organizations are truly running on. I find it mind-boggling and at times soul-crushing, so here I am.

Why haven’t the many bright and talented gurus been able to effect enough change to reach critical mass for transformation in organizations and industries? Maybe they have and we are in the motion of transforming. Or maybe it takes one more voice, your voice, to tip the scale and trigger transformation. In fact, my foray into higher education was for just that purpose. I was exhausted trying to change the world of work myself, one organization at a time. So, I decided to teach graduate school, then run a graduate program, then build a new one, then create and institute. That was all good, productive, meaningful, and useful. But it still wasn’t enough.

Returning again to Lucas’ Fatal Illusions, I realized that for all of the wonderful teaching, with specific tools, instructions, guidelines, steps, and advice, we, for no reason other that that we are fully human, just aren’t very accomplished at executing good advice. And for the very same reason, we are not very accomplished at changing, at transforming. I know it and you know it. In my experience, the root cause of this and all our woes, is our…let’s call it “reticence”, to honor what we truly feel because we’ve bought the illusion that it doesn’t matter, doesn’t mean anything important, doesn’t affect anything import. Well, it does. So, let’s cut the crap and let the real adventure begin!