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Lens on Unfoldment: Nurturing Emergence in Communities of Peace and Learning

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Lens on Unfoldment: Nurturing Emergence in Communities of Peace and Learning

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Join leaders from Euphrates Institute and Metis Collective for a cross-sector conversation on creating the conditions for transformation to emerge in classrooms and communities.

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Lens on Unfoldment: Nurturing Emergence in Communities of Peace and Learning | Giving Lab at Tenacre Foundation

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Join leaders from Euphrates Institute and Metis Collective for a cross-sector conversation on creating the conditions for transformation to emerge in classrooms and communities.

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The creative Principle — Life, Truth, and Love — is God. The universe reflects God. There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected.
— Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 502:27

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Central to Tenacre's work has been the conviction that what appears humanly as an institution — a group of people

living and working together to provide a valuable service — is really a spiritual idea, the atmosphere of Love. Just as

every aspect of human experience indicates, directly or by reversal, the existence of a divine truth, and human beings hint at the true man as God's reflection, an institution doing selfless work is an expression of spiritual qualities.

These qualities constitute the highest idea of organization, and include harmony, structure, order, economy, balance,

supply, usefulness, purpose, fruition, and so forth. These are the counterparts of the mortal image of organization, which includes conflict, chaos, waste, weakness, imbalance, shortage, and excess.

— A SUMMARY OF KEY CONCEPTS, ISSUES, AND FACTS IN THE EXPERIENCE OF TENACRE FOUNDATION

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If you want to be a great leader,
you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.
The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.

Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass.
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 57, trans. Stephen Mitchell

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Nature, humankind, relationships: everything evolves, driven by a life force, to adapt, transform and grow. From a Teal perspective, organizations are viewed as an independent energy field with a purpose that transcends its stakeholders. In this paradigm, we don’t own or run the organization; instead we are stewards, listening to where it needs to go and helping it to do its work in the world.

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"Nothing endures except change"' Heraclitus

Nature, humankind, relationships: everything evolves, driven by a life force, to adapt, transform and grow. From a Teal perspective, organizations are viewed as an independent energy field with a purpose that transcends its stakeholders. In this paradigm, we don't own or run the organization; instead we are stewards, listening to where it needs to go and helping it to do its work in the world..

"Like any living system, every organization co-evolves. Its character and capabilities emerge as it plays with possibilities. It messes about with others until a workable system appears. This system has abilities and beliefs no one planned. It accomplishes work in ways no one designed. It has relationships no one mandated. While we worry about designs and structures, tweak procedures and rules, insist on compliance and control, we never succeed in creating an organization by these activities. Organization wants to happen. Human organizations emerge from processes that can be comprehended but never controlled." A Simpler Way, Margaret J. Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers

What is the "purpose" of an organization? While many modern organizations have "mission statements", these statements often ring hollow, do not actually guide decision-making and in fact are often altogether unknown to employees. Rather than collective purpose, behavior in most organizations is driven by a desire for self-preservation. The fear-based nature of the ego in Red, Amber, and Orange predisposes leaders and employees to see the world as a dangerous place with competitors everywhere trying to steal their lunch. The only way to ensure survival is to seize every opportunity to make more profit and to gain market share at the expense of competitors. In the heat of the battle, who has time to think about purpose? Sadly, this fear-based fixation on competition plays out even when the self-preservation of the organization is not in doubt. In organizations that are somewhat shielded from competition (for example the military, public schools, and government agencies), the fearful ego still seeks safety, this time in internal competition; managers fight for the self-preservation of their units in turf wars with other units, to secure more funding, talent, or recognition. With the transition to Evolutionary-Teal, people learn to tame the fears of their egos. This process makes room for exploring deeper questions of meaning and purpose, both individually and collectively: What is my calling? What is truly worth achieving? Survival is no longer a fixation for Teal Organizations. Instead, the founding purpose truly matters.

In a Teal organization, the ego driven desire for self-preservation is replaced by a powerful drive to do work that has meaning and purpose. The concept of 'being the best' becomes a hollow aim unless the organization is doing something worthy of the energy, talents and creativity of the people who work there. The Teal paradigm accepts that each organization has its own identity, life force and calling. Brian Robertson, the founder of Holacracy, uses the term evolutionary purpose to indicate that organizations, just like individuals, have a calling and an evolutionary energy to move toward that calling:

What is the organization's identity? And what does it want? ... The metaphor is like the parent-child journey: ... we recognize our child has its own identity and its own path and its own purpose. And just because I might be really excited at the idea of my child being a doctor, that doesn't mean I get to project that on my child. There is a harmful, co-dependent process when I do that. We've learned as parents that the healthy parent's journey is a differentiation process, and ironically that differentiation of parent and child allows each to have their own autonomy and identity more fully, which then allows a more conscious integration where we are in relationship and interconnect, but it's a relation of peers, of equals. ... It's us humans that can tune into the organization's evolutionary purpose; but the key is about separating identity and figuring out "What is this organization's calling?" Not "What do we want to use this organization to do, as property?" but rather "What is this life, this living system's creative potential?" That's what we mean by evolutionary purpose: the deepest creative potential to bring something new to life, to contribute something energetically, valuably to the world. ... It's that creative impulse or potential that we want to tune into, independent from what we want ourselves.

The evolutionary purpose is not the same as a vision statement. A vision statement usually reflects the ego-driven state of consciousness of the management team, who decide what they want the organization to be.

The evolutionary purpose of a Teal organization reflects the deeper reason the organization exists. It relates to the difference it wants to make in the community it operates in, as well as in the marketplace it serves. It is not concerned with competition or outperforming others; it is serving the 'greater good' that matters. Some examples are:

"Helping home-based patients become healthy and autonomous" - Buurtzorg, healthcare organization

"Use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis" - Patagonia, outdoor clothing retailer

"Two fundamental purposes: the first is to provide meaningful work in the area of Hallencourt, a rural area in northern France where good work is rare; the second is to give and receive love from clients" - FAVI, foundry and engineering firm.

For Teal organizations, this transition to evolutionary purpose has profound implications for how they view such fundamental concepts as competition, growth and profit. While Orange organizations seem to be obsessed with beating the competition (as exemplified by the title of the ex-CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch's. book, Winning), Teal organizations seem to lose the very notion of competition. Since the Teal organization truly lives for its purpose, anyone that can help to achieve that purpose is viewed as an ally, not a competitor. For an example of this in practice, see "Concrete Examples for Inspiration - Buurtzorg" below.

Growth, in the same vein, is only an objective insofar as the purpose can be manifested on a larger scale, but never an objective in itself. Buurtzorg, for example, actively helps patients build a network of support with their families, friends, and neighbors. It basically tries to make itself irrelevant in patients' lives as quickly as possible, which it does very successfully: a 2009 study showed that Buurtzorg's patients get released from care twice as fast as competitors' clients, and they end up claiming only 50 percent of the prescribed hours of care. Buurtzorg's core strategy- helping patients become healthy and autonomous- in fact comes down to pursuing less growth, not more. Similarly, Patagonia is famous for having run full-page ads reading, "Don't buy this jacket." The ads were part of its "Common Threads Partnership." Patagonia reckons that many of us in the developed world have enough clothes in our closets to keep us warm for a lifetime. And yet we keep buying new clothes, which are environmentally harmful to produce and will end up in a landfill. The Common Threads Partnership takes a serious stab at reducing (making clothes that last longer), repairing (Patagonia repairs clothes for its customers), reusing (the company resells your used clothes on eBay or in their stores' Worn Wear section), and recycling (you can return your old clothes to Patagonia and they recycle them). Will this initiative harm Patagonia's growth in the short term? Yes. Every repaired and every reused jacket is one less jacket bought. Will it increase its growth in the long term, through higher customer loyalty? Perhaps. But Patagonia's decision wasn't driven by forecasts and financials. The company chose the path its purpose called for.

The notion of profit changes fundamentally in Teal as well. Increasing shareholder value has become the dominant perspective of Orange Organizations. It states that corporations have one overriding duty: to maximize profits. In many countries, this perspective is legally binding; management can be sued for decisions that jeopardize profitability. Under the spell of shareholder value, public companies focus relentlessly on the bottom line. Teal for-profit organizations have a different perspective on profit. Profit is necessary and investors deserve a fair return, but the objective is purpose, not profit. Teal founders often use the same metaphor: profit is like the air we breathe. We need air to live, but we don't live to breathe. Tami Simon, the CEO of Sounds True, gives the definition of a business's purpose: "We have this idea about business- everything we do has to help us make more money, be more productive or whatever. But that's not my view of business. My view of business is that we are coming together as a community to fill a human need and actualize our lives".

In Teal Organizations, profits are a byproduct of a job well done. Philosopher Viktor Frankl captures this well: "Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side -effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself."

The purpose of a Teal organization is rarely static - thus the term "Evolutionary Purpose". It will evolve over time, as the organization itself grows and adapts. For example, Buurtzorg, the Dutch homecare organization, was set up to "help sick and elderly patients live a more autonomous and meaningful life." Its activities have grown beyond looking after the elderly, and it now focuses on helping "patients become healthy and autonomous".

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"Nothing endures except change"' Heraclitus Nature, humankind, relationships: everything evolves, driven by a life force, to adapt, transform and grow. From a Teal perspective, organizations are viewed as an independent energy field with a purpose that transcends its stakeholders.

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Suppose we try to remember that God's work is already done; that the hickory tree, to Him, is already as beautiful as the weeping willow, because He can see that which is still hidden from our dull eyes—the perfect, finished spiritual creation; and that in His way (not ours) and in His time (not ours) this eternal fact will be made manifest to human consciousness.

— Louise Knight Wheatley, The Problem of the Hickory Tree

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THE PROBLEM OF THE HICKORY TREE - The Christian Science Journal

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A CERTAIN hickory tree which shades our lawn has lately been the means of teaching so valuable a lesson that its story is here told for the benefit of others who, figuratively speaking, may have hickory trees on their own premises.Each year when the arrival of spring causes t…

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Emergence violates so many of our Western assumptions of how change happens that it often takes quite a while to understand it. In nature, change never happens as a result of top-down, pre-conceived strategic plans, or from the mandate of any single individual or boss. Change begins as local actions spring up simultaneously in many different areas.

— Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale, Margaret Wheatley & Deborah Frieze

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There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.

— Margaret Wheatley, turning to one another

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By the author of Leadership and the New Science (over 2…

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P. 28 “[Some organizations] think of organizations as machines, a heritage from reductionist science and the industrial age.  The engineering jargon we use to talk about organizations reveals how deeply (albeit often unconsciously) we hold metaphors in the world today.  We talk about units and layers, inputs and outputs, efficiency and effectiveness, pulling the lever and moving the needle, accelerating and hitting the brakes, scoping problems and scaling solutions, information flows and bottlenecks, reengineering and downsizing.  Leaders and consultants design organizations.  Humans are resources that must be carefully aligned on the chart, rather like cogs in a machine.”

P.136 “In an ecosystem, interconnected organisms thrive without holding power over another.  A fern or a mushroom can express its full selfhood without ever reaching out as far into the sky as the tree next to which it grows.  Through a complex collaboration involving exchanges of nutrients, moisture, and shade, mushroom, fern, and tree don’t compete but cooperate to grow into the biggest and healthiest version of themselves.”

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At the heart of Theory U is the practice of presencing, which involves a shift in consciousness from ego-centric to eco-centric awareness. Presencing means to operate from the emerging future: sensing, tuning in, and acting from one’s highest future potential—bringing to life the future that depends on us to bring it into being.

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Theory U - Learning from the future as it emerges | Otto Scharmer | TEDxTUHH

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A Simpler Way: Margaret Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Rogers

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A Simpler Way: Margaret Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Rogers

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P. 44 “If we see life as a brutal contest among separate entities, we focus on individual contribution, individual change.  This worldview not only makes us feel afraid and isolated but it also causes us to hope for heroes.  If evolution is the result of changes in individuals, what we need are a few individuals who can outsmart nature and win over the competition.  Yet in a systems-seeking, coevolving world, there is no such thing as a hero.  Not even a visionary leader.  Everything is the result of interdependencies--systems of organization where we support, challenge, and create new combinations with others….No one forges ahead independently, molding the world to his or her presence while the rest trail admiringly behind.

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Dare to Un-Lead: The Art of Relational Leadership in a Fragmented World by Celine Schillinger

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Dare to Un-Lead: The Art of Relational Leadership in a Fragmented World by Celine Schillinger

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P.102: “Margaret Wheatley argues that ‘we are all self-authoring.’  We choose to notice or incorporate certain things rather than others, in order to be consistent with who we already are.  This urge to protect our existing self is, paradoxically, the only way we change.  As Wheatley observes, ‘Whenever a living system changes, it is attempting to save itself.’ Unlike a machine, a living system can never be directed.  That’s why initiatives aimed at ‘changing people’ are flawed and useless.  As change agents we should never delude ourselves that we can change our colleagues, our manager, our CEO.  That should never be the objective.  A living system can only be disturbed in such a way that its identity generates change, through dialogue and co-creation, the result of which can never be assumed.”

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A Simpler Way: Margaret Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Rogers

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A Simpler Way: Margaret Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Rogers

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P.73 “An emergent world asks us to stand in a different place.  We can no longer stand at the end of something we visualize in detail and plan backwards from that future.  Instead, we must stand at the beginning, clear in our intent, with a willingness to be involved in discovery.  The world asks that we focus less on how we can coerce something to make it conform to our designs, and focus more on how we can engage with one another, how we can enter into the experience and then notice what comes forth.  It asks that we participate more than plan.”

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I have no knowledge of where the universe story might be fully or finally heading, but I can see what it has already revealed with great clarity—that knowledge builds on itself, is cumulative, and is always moving outward toward ever-greater discovery. People who cling to the past and resist change have a hard time participating in God’s and their own future. Perhaps this is an appropriate application of Jesus’ somewhat problematic words, “Anyone who has will be given more . . . but anyone who has not, will lose what little he has” (see Matthew 25:29). This is only true in the realm of spirit and wisdom which increase and evolve with use. Material reality decreases with usage, which is why our consumer worldview is unsustainable.

— Richard Rohr, An Unfolding Future,

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Evolution An Unfolding Future Tuesday, February 27, 2018 To fight the concept of evolution is to fight the core meaning of biblical faith, which is a

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Unfoldment: The Art of Leading Without Control

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Unfoldment: The Art of Leading Without Control

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Unfoldment: The Art of Leading Without Control

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I recently had a rich conversation with the Giving Lab community at Tenacre Foundation and a colleague from the Euphrates Institute about leadership, trust, and what it means to release control, which led to these reflections. A big part of my leadership journey has been learning to let go, to trust

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UNFOLDING

LOUISE KNIGHT WHEATLEY.

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Probably there is no theme which has so touched the fancy of poets of all ages as that of the coming of the spring. Literature sparkles with gems laid at the feet of the dainty maiden whose footsteps carpet the earth with loveliness, whose fingers hang the boughs with bloom, and whose smile wins the migrant birds back to their old trysting-places. But one need not possess the soul of a poet to love the spring; even the prosiest of us finds himself standing still, at times, to watch in rapturous delight the marvel of a sleepy world's awakening. At such a moment the thoughts of the Christian Scientist turn naturally from effect to cause, and he realizes, in gratitude inexpressible, that this ever-recurring incident is but a type and symbol of the Life which is ever present, though the material senses would tell him otherwise. And as he notes the glad response which all things about him make to the beneficent touch of May, he rejoices in the knowledge that sooner or later to each of earth's inhabitants will come, in like manner, the same sweet stir and unrest which always accompany the reaching out toward higher and better things. As naturally as the petals of a flower unfold, so does the heart that feels the invigorating touch of Truth and the warm sunshine of Love arouse itself from its long sleep of materiality to find its life already "hid with Christ in God." This world of ours is like a garden, where the flowers are all unfolding, each in its own way and after its own fashion. As there are many varieties of flowers, so do there seem to be many varieties of disposition; and perhaps we would do well to remember this in our relations with those for whom we would gladly see the long, cold "winter of [their] discontent made glorious summer." The pussy-willow, for instance, puts out its downy buds before the snow has quite melted from the northern slopes, while the crocuses and violets open their eyes almost at the first touch of the spring sun; but while we love these for their bright responsiveness, we turn from them to the bare little shrub in some remote corner of our garden, and love it none the less because the uneasy stirring of its stiff branches is the only response it seems disposed to make to the gentle touch of the spring breeze.