Congruence

The most important C to keep in mind when becoming a Change Agent is Congruence.  All of the C’s are importance, but I feel that Congruence ties them all together in the fact that you can know all of them, and maybe even practice most of them, but without Congruence an individual is not going to last long as a Change Agent.  At Beta’s version of CPLI, we talked about what Guyland is and how difficult it is for someone to put up a façade for an extended period of time.  It really wears a person down trying to act one way if their beliefs steer them in a different direction.  Being congruent is a challenge because it asks you to be willing to be the bad guy and to bring up the uncomfortable issues that maybe others want to address, but have not been vocal about.  It is where the rubber hits the road; knowing your values isn’t good enough if you will not do anything with that knowledge.    

Part of the chapter on Congruence that sticks out to me is the section on content (what is the end goal?) versus process (how is that goal reached?).  It points out that in general we make the mistake of putting too much emphasis on content, rather than process.  Keeping with the Gandhi example provided in the book; what if he had resorted to violence, but still achieved the end goal of liberation, would the victory still be as meaningful?  I think what we would see in that scenario is similar to current day examples of liberation through violence, and that is continued violence and power struggle.  By changing the process the victory is only temporary.  If the process is valued as much as the content then when the end goal is reached it will be more complete and meaningful.