Anyone can come up with a new word, a new term or new concept, right? Here’s one for you for today: Ubuntelligence©. This is the ability and courage to seek out and connect to other, seemingly different, fellow human beings. It is about establishing meaningful connections with others within given timelines and without due regard for individual or personal gain. It focuses on collective value in the medium and long term. It combines Ubuntu attributes and common-sense intelligence of putting others before our unnatural selfish interests. Ubuntelligence© is inherently about selflessness and service to all humanity.
A good example of Ubuntelligence© is the capacity to make meaningful connections with others, especially total strangers. One of the tests for one achieving Ubuntelligence© is in the ability of a new connection to recognise you when you meet again after a relatively lengthy period, like a year. It is the essence of building meaningful relationships among humans. If your said connection cannot recognise you after a year or you cannot remember them clearly enough to link name and face, then there is something amiss with your capacity to make a meaningful connection, you need Ubuntelligence© training.
I must confess that it’s happened to me when I did not find or foresee clear value or potential value-add in making an acquaintance or connecting to a person. I’ve been told that we are all inextricably interconnected and that all differences that we claim are just mere constructs. Physical differences are just about environmental adaptation, nothing more.
Okay, I am no zoologist but I gather that though cats and dogs, horses, whales and even birds can sniff or sense each other easily for recognition after many years, human beings easily forget and cannot clearly recognise faces of those they met after a relatively short time. I have seen dogs sniff each other back and front and others then jump on each other in fierce fights. It’s not recommended for humans to greet this way, but I’ve seen it happen on the road and labelled road rage! No time for sniffing either and boom, someone’s dead. Human beings? Why did you kill him? He cut me off. Come on now, is that it? Well, I’ve got other anger issues … the bloody taxis never observe road rules. Not always true. I know taxi drivers that are among the best drivers on our roads.
Surely we will have to change these stereotypes and judgments before the Fifa World Cup visitors who drive on the right-hand side of the road hit our shores.
As the Fifa Soccer World Cup approaches in a few months’ time, I challenge you to make real connections with total strangers and give them the gift of connectedness. This is the one thing missing from among all of us today, globally. It’s the source of wars and exploitation. Yes we connect through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. It’s too detached and impersonal most of the time.
I must share that I have been having fun with this connecting thing. It has been an absolute blast meeting strangers and connecting and sharing a part of me and of us southern Africans, with them. Many of them seem surprised at how humane we are in this part of the world from the stories they have heard out there.
Back to the concept of Ubuntelligence©. It speaks to the isiZulu greeting “sawubona”, which literally means “I see you”. The internet cannot address that most human of needs, to connect to others in a real way. More than ever, we need to see each other as connected human beings today. Mother Theresa, the famed humanitarian, once said:
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
All over the world tradition says that you must listen to your mother. We haven’t listened to Mother Theresa now, have we?
Often we are too eager to see, and heighten our differences when we meet. We generally tend to emphasise our similarities or connectedness when we want something from the other.
With the Fifa World Cup around the corner, it is our duty as South Africans and Africans (of all backgrounds) to give a lasting gift to everyone that will visit our shores in 2010: how to connect. We must seek to make connections that will last … give the gift of Ubuntelligence©. This means that we must start by examining ourselves and our ability to live out Ubuntelligence© through our behaviours and our interactions with others, especially with those that we are not that familiar with. This would include, for example, the neighbours across the electric fence for starters.
The anticipated value of the concept of Ubuntelligence© during this looming massive year of 2010 for all Africans, especially for South Africans, will be great.
The idea is to develop a simple toolkit to help measure each person’s capacity for Ubuntelligence©. This will be useful for recruiting appropriate civil servants, client-relation experts, and other human-contact services personnel around the country. No more rude cashiers, unreceptive receptionists, insecure security personnel, uncivil civil servants and unrepresentative politicians. It will test everyone’s aptitude and attitude to adapt to serving others first and not themselves. It must be doable. Surely!
Next, a test for your Ubuntelligence©.
I dont care much for the copyrighted “Ubuntelligence” – just give me common decency, courtesy and the freedom to live my life as I choose, and I do the same for others.
Welcome,
And looking forward to more connection, hey.
I like the concept of Ubuntelligence – where can I sign up for a course?
Gerry, the copyright thing is a hoax. It doesnt exist yet. I’m working on it. Ubuntelligence is too new to be copyrighted. Thought of it last week.
Mark, no Modules on it yet. The only training material that exists and that I have used are on Coaching Towards Ubuntu Intelligence. Thats mainly for practicing Life Coaches and Leadership Coaches. I can share some material with you if you send a request to: dumi@netactive.co.za.
Look out next week for the posting on the Ubuntelligence Test… its fun.
And I am very excited about 2010 being the year where all South Africans will unite and join hands in unity … no more division!
Dumi
The worst thing you could do is to ‘copyright’ a potentially valuable word.It would just restrict its use. Just think how the world would have been poorer if Jan Smuts had copyrighted his world “Holism” which is heard almost daily by people who have no knowledge of it origin or real meaning – But Einstein did when in 1936 he said that Smuts was only one of 11 people in the world who understood his theories of Relaticity. Maybe the time is right to begin to understand just what a legacy this son of Africa gave to the world
Antony, you are spot-on with regard to opening up such new concepts and terms and not locking them up in ‘ownership’ volts.
I agree with you on the poor local acknowledgement of the work of Jan Smuts. In fact, he not only influenced the work of people like Einstein on Relativity, but led to the emrgence of a whole school of thought that has successfully challenged the work of Signmund Freud, and has led to the formation of what today is known as Gestalt Psychology. This was through one of the well-known proponents of Smuts’ Holisim theories, Fritz Perls, the father of Gestalt Theory.
I think a piece on Holism on Thought Leader would be a great idea. What do you think?
Ubuntu, like communism, is great in theory but disastrous in practice. As long as human beings are competitive and strive to improve their lives, both theories will fail.
Communism always leads to corruption and Ubuntu will always lead to crime.
The reasons for this is that people ARE competitive and they do want more. In the case of communism a person will work the system which leads to coruption.
The problem with Ubuntu is that it is too “nice” a system. An ubuntu based society will give people another chance, regardless of the transgression and it doesnt take long before people realise that nothing is punishable.
Just take a look at our politicians.
Well its like this man, I haven,t had such a good dog read in years. i’ve missed ubuntu. i copyright everything (C) Te Matapuna 1972 (my birth year). for the copy right to hold up in a court of law there has to be a clear documentation of whatever intellectual property you want to protect. See the secret is that your idea has to have a documented “flaw” and/or a “foot print” also called a “water mark” known only to the authentic creator – note though that we only have knowledge, and its ours shared conscience that conceives wisdom. I see you have a new name …