In less than a month, the United States will be celebrating a reminder. The word reminder is carefully chosen. Though we often think of it as such, the Fourth of July is not the date a document was created. The manifesto tied to it, the Declaration of Independence, was in fact written over months of careful contemplation and mostly in June of 1776. The date isn’t a signing date either. The fact is, most of the delegates signed the Declaration on August 2. Truth be told, it’s not even a birth date. After the Declaration and before the colonies became a country, we weathered a long odds war that lasted five precarious years. In fact, the first real document binding the states together (the Articles of Confederation) wasn’t even executed until March 1, 1781. So, as we celebrate the 250 mark, what should July Fourth remind us of? It should remind us of a single word: Still.
Peel back the red, white and blue bunting and what you find is that what July the Fourth actually signifies is a grand experiment combined with a willingness to ask two core questions: Why are things the way they are? and How might they be better? Though we hone in on 1776, the questions had been tried and tested for a very long time. They began with a small group leaving a world they knew for one they did not, and as part of a business venture, no less. The questions evolved. Repeatedly. Further experimenting, failing, innovating and succeeding enabled the establishment of other business ventures, new communities, even new forms of leadership and management. Some worked. Some needed retooling. All needed is ongoing asking and experimentation. Yet, successes did come, and because they did, the cycle repeated. More than repeated, the practices of asking and experimenting are embedded in – and shaped – a culture. It was only later that the people within that culture decided that establishing a new country and a new way of governing themselves was a warranted expression of it all. Though there are times when we have trouble recognizing it, this cycle continues still. And there’s that word again: “still.”
There is a truth every seasoned leader knows: asking and experimenting, though often challenging, are also necessary. Absent questions, it’s hard to discern threat, opportunity or the difference between the two. Indeed, without asking, there is no improvement, no innovation, no ever after. In concert with our questions, an unwillingness to experiment suggests that we believe that the way things are will always be how they are. Reflect on that for a moment. Then, take yourself back in time. Pause and wonder if Benjamin Franklin, a leader and founder not just of a country but of a business, more precisely a newspaper, could have ever imagined social media. After you chuckle at the thought, think about Franklin, the leader (including being one of the five collaborators who wrote the Declaration). Even if he could not have foreseen the advancements we’ve made since his time, Franklin would have been at the very front of the line, reminding us that what made the experiment work then makes it work now as well: asking and experimenting still.
Life in 1604 (Jamestown), life in 1776, and life across the 250 years between then and now were their own daunting forms of what we today call VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. How did the people of those times meet their world? Not timidly. Not stubbornly relying on old ways or fearing to try new ones. They asked and experimented. They kept looking at every evolving version of why things were the way they were, and wondering how they might be better still. Every July, that is what we actually celebrate, or should. Even in the current abnormal, as perplexing as it is and as much as we might dream of going back to some imagined idyllic point in time, what we need most is to honor the “still” part. To ask. To experiment. To continue both, ceaselessly. That is, at least if we want to be around to celebrate on future July Fourths, what got us to this one.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
____________________________________
Take advantage of SmartBrief’s FREE email newsletters on leadership and business transformation, among the company’s more than 250 industry-focused newsletters.
