FootprintsintheWind.com

Chris Corrigan has a post about the groan zone, the place in between seeing the problem (divergence) and coming together with how we will address it (convergence). It is here that chaos looks like bedlam or pandemonium, with no rhythm nor reason.

But it has a rhythm and there is a strange attractor or many, and the tune is always heard.

This is valid description of group process. We do always seem to go from a simple statement of the problem, to seeing a mess—and then we stop.

The good of the group is that it shows the way beyond to imagination. This is the same thing I have noticed about myself, often getting stuck in the other person’s groan zone. This Is a way to see toward imagination. Imagination is the answer, and it comes with hope. This is Meg Wheatley’s I do not know why it is so.

:- Doug.

What is going on in our day is not the compressed single movement of freedom v. tyranny of the French revolution nor the bread riots of 1800 England; rather we see movements to eliminate all Muslims or all Christians, hatred of minorities, and minorities marching. Great diversity and swirling chaos contribute to our confusion. We choose, if we choose at all, but tentatively. Ours is the Age of Confusion, we lament.

But it is not so; Complexity is its true name. The age demands to meet all of us.

Great diversity and swirling chaos: this is the stuff of prophecy. If we keep on addressing only what presents itself, if we seek merely for underlying causes, we get what we have got: great diversity and swirling chaos. We must go even deeper. We must seek to bring all of our emotions and all of our individually limited reasoning to bear until we get past the groanings where we can bring all of our imaginations to bear. Then we weave the chaos into the service of all.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 799

How can we have a complete picture if we do not include all the parts? Does everyone want a complete picture? Probably not. But when we see the results of a complete picture, then we want it.

Completing the picture completes us.

If we simply seek after our own pocketbook, we will always be seeking to fill something which cannot be filled; to be compassionate and complete takes something else: a giving out, an emptying.

Please pass it on.

© c 2007, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Money is a place holder, like a zero. It stands for something else you need. What?

:- Doug.

People who care—engaged.

:- Doug.

Complex problems are easy: just put a complex system to work. People are that complex system: people engaged, engaging good.

:- Doug.

The answering is not in words.

:- Doug.

To plait hair you need more than one strand.

:- Doug.

This is an incredibly complex world. No George nor Hillary can solve it: only together can we turn the world.

:- Doug.

I help people figure out how to change the world: together.

:- Doug.

To be voiceless
To be voiceless
Is called Tyranny if from without
What shall we name if a child within?
Pain, Anguish, Torment, Agony?

Try. Fumble. Someone may hear
However strong our voice
Some will choose not to hear
To our weak voice some
May cup the ear of their hearts

:- Doug.

Perhaps
and yet again perhaps
blinkers and choice help us
keep us focused on the goal
beyond the goal is reality
truth—love—
Is our horizon as large
as the all there is?

What is the temperature
of the soul of the planet?
Cold as steel I’d say
able to cut stone or flesh
not knowing the difference

What if it were fiery red
and caught glimpse
of some larger horizon
found a way to weave
humanity into a single person
Perhaps—and perhaps

:- Doug.

To tell what water is
To lead us to the well
To let us hear it drip
Yet cup it in our hands
And bring it to our lip
And cause it do our work
Tastes sweeter—and gives us us

:- Doug.

This work is disorganizing in at least two senses: One, to change something for the better necessarily disorganizes the old. Two, it takes things out of the hands of the established organizations and places it with the people.

:- Doug.

If you want to get something done, you can boss people, you can lead, or you can get out of their way. Which you choose depends upon the job to be done. If you want breakthrough you engage more imaginations.

:- Doug.

In business terms, what we’re doing in open space is increasing the repertoire. When you start out, you learn all about management techniques, then you add leadership, and here we move the next step to doing together. It is similar to the progression I went through from speaking to more and more participative work to, so far, getting out of the way. We don’t throw any of it away; life has it all; there is still a place for management and a place for speeches. They just aren’t as effective if you want committed action. So from this point of view helping things emerge, making way for them to emerge, is a distance, at the other end of the spectrum from, is antithetical to, selling.

:- Doug.

All this is holy.

:- Doug.

If we lifted our eyes from here, what then is possible?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 798

I saw a woman trying to run an art center alone—booking the artists for shows, setting up classes, registering people, tending the website, doing press releases, buying food for a monthly pancake breakfast fund raiser, and cleaning the latrines. I saw, with less than 2 weeks notice, 26 people show up to help her re-image and re-draw the art center and take on key functions. People are whom we need.

Please pass it on.

© c 2007, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Making things better is disorganizing.

:- Doug.

Strangers are better for the question of the most important work because of their holy intimacy. Then we can draw in used people….

:- Doug.

Keep the conversation circulating….

:- Doug.

The story field lives in our collective consciousness, or almost-consciousness (the same place individuals call “on the tip of my tongue”).

:- Doug.