The biggest fear you shall have is without fear!

Photo credit to: https://artistiassociatigorizia.it/

Yesterday, I bought a book - Italo Calvino’s Italian folktales. The original purpose is to brush up my Italian and understand Italian culture. But soon I found myself absorbed in it. The first story I encountered, is called “Giovannin senza paura”. The English version is called “The dauntless little John”.

The little tale tells about a fearless young man called Giovanni who was led to a castle by the god of death. He passed all the tests without the slightest fear and broke the spell. He got all the gold and the castle and was enjoying a rich life. However, one day, he was standing by the window-still bathing the sun and turned his head, he was so shocked to see his own shadow and died.

You see, the fairy tales are not only for small children. As adults, now and then reading the fairy tale which contains our primordial way of looking at the world for the first time, will get us in touch with the uncanny truth that we tend to forget nowadays.

Every man has shadow. When light dims, the shadow grows long. We hardly notice it, as we like to face the sun. It reminds us about the hope, power and the successes. Yet when power and light grow, the shadow becomes darker too. If we are not humble enough to be aware and befriend with our shadow, we might, like the little dauntless John who became so foreign to his own shadow that one day he can be shocked to death at a glance of it.

Teams and organizations have shadow too. It could be a set of fixed mindsets, destructive patterns, fight or flight responses, toxic dynamics, unspoken suppressive norms. If left unaddressed, it may just like a cancer grows. Till one day the ill functioning organization while blinded by its ambition and glory will suddenly be shocked to realize it has lost its ability to feel fear, hence the ability to learn. That will lead to the eventual loss of the ability to innovate and change.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

― Nelson Mandela

Fear is not a bad thing. If we do not let it possess us, it makes us humble. When it may throw us into the darkness, it may also offer us the opportunity to triumph the fear. And once we do that, we harvest the growth. As parents, we often hear our small children say, “I am scared”. Instead of saying “oh, don’t be silly, it’s nothing.”, perhaps the best thing we can do to our children is to acknowledge their fear, and encourage them to surmount it with their creativity, and then when they are standing on top of the “fear” hill they have just mounted, celebrate together. And that counts too for the leaders of the organization…