I first noticed the collusion of mediocrity in a restaurant. A friend’s starter came and was not what they ordered. When the waiter offered to change my friend replied: “No, it’s fine. I’ll have this.” It soon became clear it was not what they really wanted. On another occasion one of our party remarked that…
Tag: Collusion breaking
Wretched Contentment
Wretched contentment is a state of happiness that is akin to a calm-looking lake that hides dangerous, swirling, even chaotic undercurrents, hidden below the surface, sometimes, so deeply below the surface that they may never make their presence known at the surface level. Wretched contentment is often a side effect of colluding with mediocrity- where…
How wretchedly content are you?
This is a self-assessment questionnaire that looks at wretched contentment. You can read more about wretched contentment here. (Read it after doing the test) Score these from 1 – 10 where 1 is “This describes me least” and 10 is “This describes me most” 1. I have enough money (with some on top) but it…
Tips for Collusion Breaking
When the pervading way of things becomes a comfort zone, the status quo, a situation can be at once a very happy but also a risky or dangerous place. The word often evoked here is complacency. We ‘fiddle while Rome burns all around us”. A business may be growing and yet it is this very…
Challenging the Status Quo
When the pervading way of things becomes a comfort zone, the status quo, a situation can be at once a very happy but also a risky or dangerous place. The word often evoked here is complacency. We ‘fiddle while Rome burns all around us”. A business may be growing and yet it is this very…
The Collusive Awayday
Over the last twenty years I’ve encountered quite a few collusive away days. Businesses and other types of organisation often take their team or group (which could be the management team or a team from a particular part of the organisation) out of the day to day office or working environment for a day (or…
Why Do We Collude?
Does Collusion Make Sense? Collusion, in a lot of ways, is very understandable. Avoiding the “zone of discomfort,” by risking the very discomfort that often makes honesty possible, keeps us in a state of emotionally, and even physical, safety. Mediocrity can be seen and experienced as the price worth paying for maintaining a status quo…
Naming – a level 1 intervention
Calling something by its real name is a key to unlocking parts of the creative process. If you feel hypocritical about something you are writing about, be sure to name that hypocrisy to yourself. If you hope your writing will change the world for the better through some kind of written critique of that world, be…
More About Collusions
Collusions can be conscious – we can choose to collude and we can KNOW we are colluding. This may be out of a sense of helplessness or because we apply a rule which goes something like this: It may be better to collude when the damage done by breaking a collusion is greater than the…
Collusion-breaking Questions
A powerful set of questions to check for a collusion of mediocrity, mapped onto the Levels in the model.
The Radical Shake Up
Are You Ready for The Radical Shake Up? This three-day process will turn your business or organisation on its head. This is one of the most revolutionary processes in becoming a conscious business. A radical shake up is rarely easy, can be hugely painful, but also releasing and invigorating. A radical shake up can save the…
The Dangers of Compulsive Light-Heartedness
Humour can be a wonderful thing. When all around us (and maybe inside us) is falling apart, humour and the resulting smiles and laughter, can make our world more bearable. There is plenty of evidence that humour can serve a valuable purpose in a crisis. It has been documented as a way to treat depression…
Paul Levy 