Giving An "A"

Sometimes it takes a unique voice to tell us something which is so obvious and so simple that we stop paying attention to it. One such unique voice is Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, teacher at the New England Conservatory, author of ‘Possibility Thinking’ and a speaker who inspires corporate as well as world leaders.

At the beginning of the term of his graduate class he hands out their final grades. And everyone gets the same grade “A”. The only condition is that students need to write a letter to him at the beginning of the year dated to the end of the term describing who they have become in order to retain their “A”. To some the idea seems trivial even frivolous, but Benjamin notes that the society at large tends to treat the “A” students very differently compared to the “C minus” students. By giving an “A” to all students he levels the playing field for all, the students don’t have to do anything to earn their “A”, all their efforts now have to be made in order to retain their grade. Simple but powerful.

In the movie ‘My Fair Lady’ Eliza Doolittle is asked “ what is the difference between a flower girl and a lady?” she answers “the only difference between a flower girl and a lady is in the way people treat them”. Simple words, but which deliver one of the biggest truths of human interaction. No matter how powerful or helpless we may be, how rich or poor, how strong or weak we expect people to prove their worth in our eyes before they can be awarded our respect and admiration. In other words people have to ‘earn their A’. We tend to treat people who have proven themselves worthy of our respect and admiration very differently from those who we are evaluating. The former group is treated like stars while we are judgmental with the latter, watching with bated breath lest they slip and we can cross them out.

When students write their letters to Benjamin on who they have to become in order to retain their “A” they delve into the realm of possibilities of who they can be. They embark on a fascinating journey of self-exploration and co-creation. They are free from the pressure of evaluation and judgment.

We are perhaps one of the most judgmental societies on earth. We tend to evaluate people and hand out our verdicts based on minimal data. How a person talks, how educated (or not) they are, which ethnic community they belong to, their socio-economic class etc are all enough for us to put a label on them, without even the most superficial exploration of what the person really is. We forget that God himself has kept one final Day on which He will judge us even though He has all the data he needs on every human ever born, then who are you and I to pass judgments on a minute-by-minute basis?

Whether it is our insecurity or our conditioning, but we tend to be very miserly with our appreciation of others. We want to be appreciated, we want to be respected, we want to be acknowledged, but we do not want to reciprocate these actions. Someone once told me that in life is there is something you are not getting enough of then chances are it is the very thing you are not giving enough of – if you want respect give it, if you want love then give love first. How true. In my training sessions one of the biggest complains of people is that they are not appreciated and their boss does not acknowledge their effort. But when asked how often they appreciate their peers, or juniors or even their boss dead silence accompanied by uncomfortable expressions is usually the first response I get. This is quickly followed by a protest listing all the reasons why they “can’t” do this (not why they don’t but why they can’t). We have somehow learnt to expect only the worse from people, and since according to Zander people rise to the level of expectation we have of them – our thinking gets validated over and over again. Not because all people are bad, but because we expect all people to be so – a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What is amazing about us is that for a nation in which every second person is a self-proclaimed religious scholar out to let everyone know how their interpretation of Islamic rituals is wrong, the more fundamental concepts of our religion have been conveniently pushed to one side. We have forgotten that Allah gave us an “A” the day he created Adam and asked Satan and all angels to bow to him declaring him to be His “Supreme Creation” (Ashraf-ul-Makhluqaat). Our job as humans beings is to retain our “A” but instead all we do is find new ways of ensuring how to lose it.

In order to retain our “A” we have to live up to the expectation that God has from us of being the Supreme Creation which means we must step out of our comfort zones and step into the world of possibility thinking. We need to embark on a glorious journey of self-exploration and re-defining our limits. But this requires effort, and in a society where finding quick fixes and short cuts has become the primary motivation such a journey of growth is perhaps just a dream shared by a handful of people. Complacency is the most rampant of all our vices and blaming everyone for our problems is the other. Avoidance of responsibility has become our hallmark. Nothing we do is wrong, it is done to us!

If our society must transform, then we need to take responsibility of our own circumstances and step out of our comfort zones. We need to expect only excellence from those around us and treat them in a manner befitting stars. See the world through a filter of negative thinking and that's what you will see, change the filter and your experience will change.