Downstream: the 'hard' measures through which you track what you're up to.Upstream: what makes it all possible - the intentions, commitments and relationships from which everything flows.If you commit to changing a downstream measure without doing the upstream work that supports it, you could easily end up having a very different effect to that which you're intending.An example. You commit to answer the phone every time within three rings (a downstream measure). And then you discover that everyone feels so much pressure to perform that they're abruptly cutting off conversations with customers, frantically interrupting them as they speak, and failing to listen deeply to their concerns.If the downstream change is going to have a chance of meaning something, you're going to have to attend to the upstream source that gives it a home in which it can flourish. In this case that's the genuineness of your intention to serve your customers, and everyone's capacity to stay receptive, grounded and in relationship to others as they learn new ways to act.Without this attention the shiny little fish you're throwing in the downstream waters will survive only for a short while. And when people see them wither once again, you'll be adding to their cynicism and resignation rather than doing something that could have your intentions flourish.
Irritated
Next time you're super-irritated by someone else, consider this: perhaps it's something in yourself that you can't stand, rather than them.The inner critic can play games like this, disguising self-judgement and turning it into judgement of others.And then what you're really doing is projecting a part of you onto them, where it's more comfortable and where you can pretend it's nothing to do with you.Your irritation won't resolve by insisting they change. But it might when you start to welcome all the shadow parts of you that, in the end, make you human.
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Not of service
It's not being of service to say 'yes' to everything you're asked by the people you consider to be your customers. Especially if you have any discernment, expertise or wisdom to offer them.'Yes' to everything turns you into an automaton, with no capacity to choose.Soon you'll be overwhelmed with requests that you can't fulfil without running yourself into the ground.And you'll be left with no capacity to bring what only you can see, that they could never have asked you for.
Where the stories are
We can't help but live in stories.But you may not find the story you're living (the one that opens or closes possibilities for you) in your thoughts. In fact, the narrative you've taken up in your life may hardly be visible to you by looking there at all.Mostly, the stories we're inhabiting that shape us so much are in the background. Or, put another way, they're often so close to us we can't see them. See this previous post, this one, and this one, for an idea of what I mean.So, where to look?You could start off by watching your actions closely for a while: who you speak to and who you avoid, and what you actually say; how you get your needs met; how you ask for things; the kinds of places you go; what you do impulsively or repeatedly; what you pay attention to and what not. So often what we're doing is not what we think we're doing, and our familiar explanations of ourselves miss so much.And you could watch what happens in your body: when you tighten up, and when you relax; the situations in which you hold your breath more than usual; when you collapse - even just a little - and when you are able to support yourself with more strength; when you armour yourself so you won't have to feel something; when strong emotions - love, disgust, rage, hope, resentment, gratitude, fear - arise.What kind of story accounts for what you find?Sometimes a compassionate, skilled observer who's willing to share their impressions can help: a friend, a family member, a colleague, or a coach. They may be able to find words to express what's harder for you to see about the narrative from which you're living, leading, and acting.Seeing our stories for the first time can be enormously liberating. Because then you can find out that you are not the story itself. You're way bigger than that. And you can allow yourself to have your story rather than being had by it.And this, at last, opens up the possibility that there are other stories you could live - stories with much more space in them, and way more possibility.
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Dry and lifeless
Here's the difficulty.What's downstream is more often what looks measurable, or at least easiest to talk about. Behaviour, output, hours worked, jobs done, calls answered, sales made, targets reached.What's upstream - from which what's downstream flows - often seems harder to talk about and harder to address:
The background culture and narratives of your organisation. The kind of person you are. How alive you and the people around you are willing to be. The conversations that are being had, and aren't being had. People's inner worlds of meaning, hope, doubt and longing. The quality of openness, courage, truthfulness people embody. The pervasive and often hidden effect of the inner critic. The background mood - fear, commitment, sincerity, cynicism, resentment.
What happens upstream profoundly shapes what happens downstream, but there's no simple, predictable relationship between one and the other.We've become terrified of working with what's upstream because it's not measurable and because we can't establish a straightforward cause and effect connection with what emerges downstream.Working with what's upstream calls on us to face ourselves and others, to turn away from what we're denying, to change ourselves rather than expecting everything else to change around us, to admit that we don't know.But more and more we want to control everything, to predict everything, to never be surprised or disturbed. And so we treat only what's downstream as 'real' and dismiss what's upstream as irrelevant.And rather than face our fear and uncertainty, it leaves us failing to work in the place that could most address our concerns, and adopting dry, lifeless initiatives, change programmes, and measures instead.
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For granted
Ordinary life can seem so - ordinary - that it's natural to slip into taking it for granted, as if it were obvious and straightforward that we're here, and as if it will go on this way for ever.Many traditions have practices to remind us that it's anything but ordinary to be able to move, breathe, think, make breakfast, travel, work, love, argue, sleep, produce, write, speak. And that it's anything but ordinary to have a body that can do all this again and again, which can heal itself so often without us having to do anything. And that none of it lasts nearly as long as we might hope.Here's a morning blessing from Judaism, said by some as they use the bathroom for the first time in the day, that I think is particularly brilliant for its combination of straightforwardness about life and death, piercing insight, and gentle humour.
Blessed are you, Eternal One, Creator of everything, who formed human beings in wisdom, creating within us openings and vessels. It is revealed and known before you that if any one of them is opened or closed it would be impossible to remain alive and stand before You. Blessed are you, Eternal One, who heals all flesh and performs such wonders.
Finding daily practices to remind us of our bodies' unlikeliness and wonder - even in the most ordinary of circumstances - does not require religious belief of any kind of course (and in Judaism, by the way, belief is secondary to practice, the actions that shape the world of possibility and relationship again and again).All it requires is opening to life. And reminding ourselves that we are each here on account of nothing that we did.And that by one of the most unlikely miracles imaginable we each find ourselves for a brief time, embodied, in a world ready and waiting for our participation.
Getting soaked
If you want things to change in your relationship with others, it's no good just wishing for it.You're going to have to change: first changing your story about the situation (everything you think you're sure about, especially who's to blame and why you're so stuck), and then you're going to have to change your practices: the actions you're taking that are keeping you just the way you are, so that others stay as they are.Wishing that other people will change without you doing this is like going out in the rain without an umbrella and hoping against hope that you won't get wet.If you want others to join you, you're going to have to commit to being someone who can be joined rather than one who puts up barriers and obstacles along the way. And you're going to have to give up being someone who waits to be found, but reaches out actively to find others and draw them close.Like I said, if you want to change your relationship with others, it's no good just wishing for it. Because if you do, you're going to carry on getting soaked.
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Upstream
Downstream: 'Behaviours'Upstream: The kind of person you are.What's downstream flows from what's upstream.All too often, at least in the organisational world, we try to work with what's downstream without paying any attention to what's upstream.We invent behaviour frameworks, cajole people, and tell them what to do without giving any consideration to what it takes to be the kind of person who has new ways of acting available to them.We're looking at what we so urgently want to be present without looking at its becoming.It's like tipping fish into a dry river and expecting them to survive without doing the difficult and important work of attending to the spring. And just because it's quick and obvious doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, or that it will go any way to addressing the difficulties you're experiencing.
Soft clay
If you're always taking action, producing, making, shaping the world...... do you leave open any space for the world to shape you?What happens if as well as being the potter...... you allow yourself to soften enough that you can also be the clay?
The way we're working isn't working
I know. You take getting things done seriously. In fact, it's pretty much all you think about - how much you've done, how much is yet undone, and all the consequences if you don't stay on top of everything all the time.But how seriously do you take your capacity to get things done?So many of us are running continuously on empty, or near to empty, because we've forgotten about this. We think that if we just keep on pushing ourselves, perhaps eventually we'll have the opportunity to rest. But we know, really where that ends. In exhaustion, in collapse, in burn-out, in illness. And, more immediately, it seriously erodes our capacity to do anything important, to do anything well.So instead of looking all the time at how much you're getting done, how about shifting your attention to how much energy you have? You'll reap huge dividends by attending seriously to sleep, to rest, to exercise, to eating well, to cultivating a wider range of interests that touch you, to building and maintaining supportive and nurturing relationships with others.if you're struggling and suffering, it may be because you haven't looked here yet. Or you've looked but haven't take action.If you'd like some support in this - rigorous research, and many practical suggestions - 
