Grateful for Gravity

It was a simple thing, really, that reminded me to be grateful for gravity. I sat on my deck this morning looking at the view. A plastic bottle I had used the day before tipped as a gentle breeze pressed it from one side; its weight allowed it to settle back on its base. I pondered the opposing forces of the wind from the side, and the pull of gravity. I thought about gravity, and how we seek to defy the very thing that we need on a day to day basis. We want to fly. We want to fall and not hurt ourselves. We want to soar like eagles… we want to defy gravity.

Then I imagined how much extra work would be involved if there was no gravity. The furniture on my deck would have to be tied down, if we still used furniture. If gravity was weak, the slightest breeze would have my umbrellas in a neighbor’s swimming pool. “Where did you park the car, honey?” — only to find that all the cars are up against the fence because a wind came up. Do we really want to defy gravity, or should we appreciate it more?

My mind went on the businesses and other corporations. Pretty much daily we encourage businesses to dream bigger, to get a broader vision, and to find a greater Purpose. This is fun stuff… but it is useless stuff unless the corporation also has gravity. Unless the organization is grounded it will be like one of the many helium balloons that escape a child’s hand and eventually disappear. I thought about our logo at The Institute and “the pillar of integration” that provides the base for the face, the grounding for the grandeur. Vision can me imparted in a meeting, dreams in a workshop or on a walk, but integration is the disciplined daily doing that establishes corporate gravity.

Do you have gravity in your business? Many today are dreaming of “doing well while doing good.” All of the innovation and all of the investment will come to nothing unless there is integration–alignment, if you like–between the head in the clouds, the hands on the wheel, and the rubber on the road.