Something about Harmony

Revisiting Ideas of Vocation

As things change, there is always an inflection point, when we become aware that where we thought we were going is disappearing, and a confusing array of alternatives appear on the horizon.

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I sense many of us are entering 2025 somewhat out of balance. The uncertainties we face, from geopolitical to local political, climate change, and our individual prospects, make balance difficult and ask some challenging questions of us.

One of those questions asks, “Not what we can do for our organisation, but what does our organisation do for us?” We have spent so long being educated and trained to “fit” into organisations that when those organisations are slow to adapt to new realities, we can find ourselves adrift. As I wrote last Sunday, we can become mired in the metaphorical engine room of the Titanic, working all hours but unaware of where the ship is headed. The social contract between employer and employed that has been understood for generations, even with all its inequities, is being rendered null and void, and traditional “career paths” are increasingly overgrown and hard to make out.

The traditional career path involved compromise. We traded our early dreams of what we might do for the practical realities of a well-defined job or profession, and in return, we were given a path to follow, defined in part by our qualifications, though mainly by the circumstances into which we were born. Nonetheless, with all its challenges, it was a stable working relationship.

The changing landscape is something we will be exploring outside the walls. Here, we are more interested in what we do as individuals to navigate our way through it.

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I have decided to take a breath and have a “ctrl-alt-del” moment. I want to revisit our relationship with work, and in particular, the idea of vocation—the “work that calls us”—to see what has happened to it, whether any embers are still glowing, and what we might do to kindle them into something valuable as the workplace evolves.

There are many places to explore, and I have a pile of books building as food for thought. Some of them are older texts from a different time, whilst others are old friends on my bookshelf who respond to being read from a different angle of inquiry - a quality that separates thoughtful books from the mass of “how to” self-help stuff. They include Parker Palmer’s “Let Your Life Speak”, David Brook’s “Second Mountain”, and Charles Handy’s “Second Curve”, which approach vocation from a philosophical perspective. Then there are more academic works, such as David Shenk’s “The Genius in All of Us”, which comes at the question from a neuroscience angle, And James Suzman’s “Work - a History of How We Spend Our Time” which comes at it from an anthropological angle.

Then there are the wild cards, such as Daniel Heller Boazman’s “The Fifth Hammer - Pythagoras and the Disharmony of the World”, which examines this space from a mathematical angle.

None of them, of course, have an answer, but they all ask questions which, if addressed in the right company, such as here, can move us forward.

Here, by way of example, are insights from “The Fifth Hammer”. According to tradition, Pythagoras was the inventor of harmony, understood as an account of a limited set of musical sounds and, more broadly, a doctrine of intelligibility of the natural world. The lessons of “The Fifth Hammer can be summarised as:

1. Embrace the Limits of Perfection Strive for excellence but accept that imperfection can be part of the creative process. Often, these “flaws” lend character and authenticity to your work.

2. Recognise Harmony Amidst Imperfection Focus on creating balance in your craft. Even if individual parts seem imperfect, the overall composition can still resonate deeply with its audience.

3. Pursue Continuous Discovery Keep learning and experimenting. Mastery is a journey, and curiosity should drive your evolution as an artisan.

4. Value the Interplay of Theory and Practice Blend intellectual understanding with hands-on practice. Understanding why a technique works enriches one's ability to innovate and adapt.

5. See Failure as Insight Treat mistakes as opportunities to refine your craft and discover new possibilities. A “wrong” note might lead to an unexpected masterpiece.

6. Accept the Mystery of the Unknowable Relish the mystery in your work. Allow space for interpretation, surprise, and the unknowable. These elements often connect deeply with your audience.

I cannot help but think that as AI inexorably takes what we know and handles it as well or better than we do, our strengths lie in this thinking. Our challenge is understanding what energises us enough to do the work. We must move beyond the confines and constraints of performance and productivity to identify where we can work with what we were meant to, not shaped by an education based on a narrow definition of economics.

Easier said than done, and we have to start somewhere.

So, for this evening’s Zoom Call, at 5 pm UK, a question:

What does vocation mean to you?