In this lifetime, our job is to develop ourselves into functioning adults. Freud defined that level of maturity as the ability to do two things: to love and to work. It’s become increasingly clear to me that it is not enough to understand ourselves. And, it is not enough to understand another person. To be fully human, we need to do more than understand ourselves, understand others, to love, to work. We need to team. We need to acknowledge our interdependence. We need to honor all humanity, to connect with each other, as if our very lives depended on it. Because they do. Thus, this Declaration of Interdependence.
- People matter. All people. No exceptions. Period.
- We are all here together in the same small place. Call it Earth, call it Gaia, call it Deep Space Nine: we are all in the same lifeboat.
- If there is no vision, our lifeboat is adrift without direction, and people only seek to survive. But when a vision is born, a direction emerges.
- As people align themselves with the vision, they form enterprises. These are personal (called families) and social (called communities) and commercial (called businesses.)
- Enterprises have missions. Each mission needs a team. And each team is an entity unto itself.
- A team is an organism with specific needs, as determined by its service to the enterprise: planning, organizing, supplying, solving, and so on. When the needs are met, the organism can grow, develop, and fulfill its mission. When the needs are not met, the organism falters, withers, and dies.
- To restate: The Team is an Organism. It lives. It breathes. It has needs.
