Organizational Communication and Development since 1980
Listening deeply. When I hear something through a projected filter… and the projection is in error… the ass hole box gets checked. Sitting with a set of projection error awareness.
The questions were in the wrong order. The hearing filter was set in the wrong place. The kind offer was heard as accusation. So… in this sudden awareness, the steps to make amends can form.
Just a short muse on the day.
I know that the bears, sitting with their figit spinner, are all focused on the day. It makes sense that they are focused. For, that is the pose that is their world.
I didn’t wake up thinking about a blog. I woke up thinking about the incredible beauty of the valley. Washed from days of rain. The sun is bright and makes believe that it is warm. Later today, there are meetings to ponder important issues of water, the cost of infrastructure, completition for resources… all of that concern that rings so important in the rising tide of leadership.
It is important work. Suddenly understanding that an old friend is positioning to take on another role in the fishbowl. That of moving from back bencher to an on the dais face. From gentures on the floor of the chamber to the raised seats. Even if he is not successful in this shift, he is working hard to create the option to ‘explore’ such a place.
Listening to young children, confronting leadership with great passion. That same leadership is equally passionate. Two blunt objects slamming into each other. A great deal of passion. A great deal of energy. The breakthrough is when both parties begin to listen and learn … shared passion, engaged in agreement of outcome. Understanding that it is not a place to which we go back. It is a journey that moves with time. So, there is not a place to return. It is a journey with story arc.
The wonder of engaging is that we look easily to being collectivly for what we are against. I hear it in my own conversations between. The power of a movement, a sustained movement is to be for what we are for. The whole of the idea; a collective of human movement. It is messy. It takes time. It is about seeing beyond the next quarter. In that, and in the description of those areas where I can not engage this larger vision. There are some things that are not negotiable. The sacred moments where there is not the energy to argue into a void or against a tide of being for what we are against…
This muse of engaging systems for which a binary is a violent reduction of both the depth of system and the sustaining connections that feed and foster. In so many arguments of being for what I am against… the reduction to A or B… straw man standing… a great joke. The humor of efficient argument. And… of a Saturday morning in February, a place to stop. For, the wonder of the morning is that it is a gift, this day. Moment to moment, a gift. With thanks.
Chris Alexander
Brene’ Brown
Viktor E. Frankl
Murray Bowen
Lisa Feldman Barrett
Richard Feynman
T.H. White
Atul Gawande
William F. Buckley
Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza
Gabor Mate’
Barbara Brown Taylor
Ernest Becker
Daniel Botkin
Temple Grandin
Steven Pinker
John Sarno
Peter Wholleben
Richard Rohr
Parker Palmer
Anne Lamott
Christopher Cowan and Don Beck
Clare W. Graves
Seth Godin
Michael Gungor
Peter Block
Daniel Tammet
Edwin H. Friedman
Donald Miller
Harry G. Frankfurt
Jay Harman
Janine M. Benyus
Adam Kahane
Jackson Katz
Rebecca Solnit
David Graeber
It is a partial list of authors who have demanded attention this past year. Even as I tap this sentence, asking forgiveness for those forgotten, more raise pages to be included. Ah, such a rich place of learning to tap. In that demand is also a grand invitation to look at the foundations of much of my thinking. An invitation to evaluation, discarding, even wholesale remodeling. Along with this list of amazing thinkers, a larger context of the universe in which we all dance has also emerged. The simple question of, “Around what do you organize?” This simple question turns much of the narrative of the past several years on its head. The deeply shaken set of held belief, life narrative, story arc… all dumped upside down. The grand humor of seeing some of the foundation stones… turned over to reveal so much richer a vision. …
In song, in writing, in listening to the hopes and dreams of many clients… in the growing that happens each day in the fields around the house. In the deep seeds of thinking, observation and listening that the fun and challenging partnerships around and surrounding demand…
All of this, a tradition of taking stock. A tradition of pausing to give thanks for so many teachers. A gift of this huge classroom. And so many partners in that learning.
It all started with a review of the current list. The list that shifts and grows each year. For, there is so much to learn. In each new learning, the reminder of … the more I learn, the less I know.