The burden of change

There are often times when I trip and stumble along the path of the manifesto. Sometimes so much so that I wish I could get off the path and hide in the dark forests of stagnation and systemic discontent. There are times where my ego won't accept another's mistakes on my shoulders without saying it's so, times when I'm unable to absorb personal criticism and turn it to constructive advantage, and times where I allow the burden of other work to brush aside the pillars of manifesto thinking.

Whenever the melancholy from this difficult task looks to be winning the battle for my soul, I have to dig deep and re-find my conviction that the change I'm trying to make is a change that ultimately benefits everyone. I have to try to suppress the all too dominant ego and to absorb criticism, ridicule and blame, because I know that these are simply the pressures that have built up through neglect, and which burst free from the first outlet provided to them.

I've recently begun to contemplate whether any manager can have both the necessary emotional control to remain calm in all situations and also the emotional vigour to promote the cause of change. I know that I struggle continually to remain neutral in the face of criticism without losing the energy that created the need for change in the first place. In fact, I'd be ashamed to list the number of times I've told myself to just give up fighting for the manifesto because I've taken a hit or two.

As I considered what sort of person it would require, the words of the classic poem by Rudyard Kipling came to mind. I've always remembered the first two lines but that's about it. I looked up the poem and was shocked to find that the first two verses travelled so closely to the life of a manifesto manager that it could almost be a motivational sermon printed on the back of the managers' guide to manifesto life.

Here are the first two versus:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

Does this person exist? Can this person exist? I know that I wish a thousand times over that this person was me, and maybe if it was then the manifesto would be stronger and I would be a better manager. However, on the other hand, it could also be possible that the only way to be this person is to travel the journey of a manifesto manager, to be crushed almost flat by the pressure of failure and doubt only to pick yourself back up to take another step forwards. Maybe it's the journey towards this ultimately impossible goal that is the true purpose of the manifesto, and the resulting changes within the manifesto managers are the rewards.

Some say it's better to journey in hope than to arrive at a destination and if, after all, the journey turned me into a better manager with happier teams, then the scars picked up along the way will all have been worth while.