In an increasingly multi-connected global world, UbuntuLab connects Africa to the world and to itself. (Photo: Moshopyadi Heil)
Our Ubuntu.Lab Hub and Reputation Custodians Network is in response to the reality that we human beings live in a world of competing narratives. These must be revisited for the benefit of all of us, rather than the few deemed to matter more than others. We are invisibly interlinked and interconnected in the most basic and simultaneously complex sense. We are one, as quantum physics has found, one in all ways and always, even though it appears otherwise to the average unsuspecting human who is focused on the needs of the self.
Consider Joseph Stiglitz’s admissions of IMF and World Bank shortcomings in his book Globalization and its Discontents.
Or consider Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics, in which she posits a challenge to the idea of the “rational economic man” and proposes seven ways to think like a twenty-first-century economist, which lie at the centre of her systems thinking approach that rattles the cages of traditional economic theory.
Our oneness is also found in Sheryl Sandberg’s words in Lean In, where she states that “it has been an evolution, but I am now a true believer in bringing the whole self to work. I no longer believe people have a professional self for Mondays through Fridays and a real self for the rest of the time. That type of separation probably never existed, and in today’s era of individual expression, where people constantly update their Facebook status and tweet their every move, it makes even less sense. Instead of putting on some kind of fake ‘all-work-persona’, I think we benefit from expressing our truth, talking about personal situations, and acknowledging that professional decisions are often emotionally driven.”
The oneness that begs wholeness is also in Kim Scott’s radically candid assertions in Radical Candor on what she calls the “abrasive trap” in her treatment of the question: “Why gender bias makes Radical Candor harder for women”, following BBC Radio4’s recent broadcast after PwC published its BAME pay gap statistics (https://www.pwc.co.uk/press-room/press-releases/PwC-publishes-BAME-pay-gap.html) as well as following divergent views on Serena Williams’ experience and expression of concerns at the US Open. While Kim Scott’s primary focus is not on oneness, she nevertheless manages to shine light on the seemingly natural inclination to treat “others” that are “unlike us” with inauthentic deference or obnoxious aggression or manipulative insincerity when it comes to radically candid conversations that are necessary.
Relating to the indivisibility of a human being, there is much to contemplate in the realm of “private” domestic life. Abandoned partners may conceal their grief and shame as they face financial ruin over adulterous spouses determined to chase self-gratification at the expense of family well-being and security. This is a very important matter that often gets swept under the personal-matter, do-not-touch magic carpet of invisibility, beneath which transgressors are socially permitted to hide.
The May 2017 State Capacity Research Project, convened by Mark Swilling, was titled “Betrayal of the Promise: How South Africa is being stolen”. We can also express inauthenticity and violate our integrity in our possible personal denial or indifference to the revelations and impact of reports such as this.
In all these spheres, we human beings live in a world of competing narratives where, as in the deep forest settings that are fast disappearing, the loudest, most prominent, most gifted and strong, most agile, and most familiar holds sway and centre stage, regardless of their authentic value and what they deliver for the All-of-Us in our interconnected whole.
Through guided conversations in Ubuntu.Lab, people can take off their masks in a safe and sacred space. The space is designed to nurture what Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now recommends: “Have deep roots within … The key is to be in a permanent state of connectedness with your inner body – to feel it at all times.”
Our hope at Reputation House is that perhaps, through our TheoryU conversations, we can provide an avenue for all to nurse these deep roots within in a way that allows all engaged to foster the higher vibrational frequencies required in order for people not to lose themselves in the loud world where values can be easily set aside or completely abandoned.