“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
~Carl Jung
Last week, as we at VIM Executive Coaching were having a “fast food” type luncheon with a few friends, one of our friends pointed out a sign displayed above our table. It asked us to please clean up our dishes and put them in the tub near to exit.
“Gosh, they expect us to do everything,” they said. “Why don’t we cook our own food?”
For an unfathomable reason, we recalled a quote by Swiss psychologist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung! It is a connection we would like to explore with today’s post.
What is your vision?
While we would doubt that Carl Jung “bussed” his own tables in the finer European eateries where he “held court,” we are confident he would have endorsed patrons of the restaurant complying with the wishes of the proprietor.
In other words, in the absence of waitstaff, that clientele clean up after themselves. He would have seen it as a reasonable request. Perhaps it would have served as a novelty to be taken with a smile.
Dr. Jung was a proponent of “going inside,” and of patients looking within to deal with their problems.
As to our dining associate’s observation that the fast-food place expected us “to do everything,” that was not quite true. We (thank goodness) had nothing to do with ingredient procurement, food preparation, or cleaning the establishment or shoveling the front walks during snowstorms.
All they asked us to do was to help them out and “bus” our tables so that they could save on labor costs – and keep their prices down. The food establishment asked that we meet them half-way.
Unfortunately – and in a much broader context, many people seem unwilling to do the work these days. Dr. Jung would clearly be mystified at current societal indifference for so many to take responsibility for their own lives.
Liam Patterson, writing for Medium, an online psychology magazine (January 9, 2025), explored the current concerns among the psychological community over the lack of accountability and subsequent blame shifting.
Patterson noted there are at least five things people can do when they find a personal pattern of blame shifting: Greater Self-Reflection, Reframe Failure, Embrace Feedback, Practice Mindfulness (our favorite) and, if the problem is truly troubling, cognitive therapy.
To that end, we are not be surprised that our fast-food eatery encountered at least a smattering of complaints from people who refused to bus their own tables. Dirty plates and glasses are left behind. This is no idle chatter; we observed it.
Why do individuals want to spite such a meek request?
Perhaps some patrons felt that for their purchase of the $5.99 lunch special, they expected “white glove service” by an attentive waitstaff. They were not about to meet the establishment half-way and help ownership out to keep down costs. Indeed, they could only see their own agenda and expect everyone around them to comply to their vision.
Back to the work place
Unfortunately, the same types of behavior may be found in the work place; in-person, hybrid or remote. When things go wrong, there are those who refuse accountability to figuratively bus their own table. They pass the blame the mess on to others. The lack of mindfulness sometimes runs through organizations like an errant freight train.
As Dr. Jung stated: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” The employee who uses their narrow vision as a substitute for taking authentic responsibility and interaction with others weighs down teams with their narcissism and the entire organization with burden.
On the other hand, the employee who is mindful, reflective, reframes failure and embraces feedback is treasured.
Can mindfulness be taught to teams as well as to individuals? Absolutely, we do it all of the time. In fact, the best organizations are often the most mindful on a team-to-team level. Mindful organizations share common visions and common goals. They are awake with purpose.
Dr. Jung would like that.