Your team weren’t nearly as excited as you wanted them to be about your proposal.
Your colleagues didn’t deliver the report you were relying on.
The company changed its plans and now some of the work you did isn’t needed.
There were 300 mails in your inbox this morning.
The shoes aren’t lined up neatly in the hall.
You’re leaving the house in a hurry and you can’t find your keys.
The train was three minutes late.
An accident ahead of you held you up on the way to work.
You got ill and had to stop everything for a while.
Isn’t the world supremely irritating at times? Sometimes it’s downright exasperating. And there are times – perhaps often – when you just know that everybody and everything is out to get you.A huge move, that will free up so much, is to begin to distinguish between what’sobservable in the world, and what’s your assessment of it. What’s observable is what you could bank on others being able to see too, even those with very different personality or preferences to you. And your assessment is the interpretation that you bring to bear on it.You can start to see just what a powerful role your assessments have by considering how other people would be in the same situation.Stuck in the car, in traffic, you might rage at the frustration, the unfairness, the sheer wilfulness of others to get in your way. All of which does much to stir you up and little to address the situation. Or perhaps you’ll take the jam to be part of a much bigger picture that’s far beyond your control, and figure out how to use the time for something that’s genuinely of value.When your team didn’t go for your proposal, you could blame them, judge them for their incompetence and laziness, and let them have the full force of your disapproval – all of which is likely to stir up judgement, blame and resentment in them too. Or you can get curious. Find out what your part is in it all (perhaps you didn’t make your original request skilfully) and what’s going on for them that had them take up something else they felt was important.When the shoes aren’t lined up neatly in the hall, you can strop and strut and despair that nobody in your family seems to care about the home you live in, or start to look for the myriad other ways they’re already expressing their love and commitment to family life.In every case, start to see that it’s not the world that is irritating, but that it’s you who is irritated. The arrangement of the world (observable). Your irritation (an assessment).When you can own your assessments as yours, you can find out that there are assessments that bind you up tight and others that free you to act. And when you have your assessments rather than being had by them, you’ll find you’re way more flexible and powerful in moving the world than you’ve realised so far.
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Convergent problems are the kind for which diligent, patient and repeated efforts produce answers we can trust. Many problems in mathematics, for example are convergent, as are the vast majority of engineering problems. Such problems are convergent because a suitable methodology and sufficient effort allow us to converge on a single, practical, true answer to the question at hand.Convergent problems lend themselves to solution by technique and process. And once we know what to do with a convergent problem, we can repeat the technique and expect to find a reliable answer, every time.Divergent problems are those for which, with diligent, patient and repeated efforts, we could expect to find many different answers. For example, in sentencing someone who has committed a crime, is justice or mercy more appropriate? Or, in the midst of many competing financial pressures, should we centralise our operation, seizing control of all the details, or should we decentralise, allowing the people with the most local expertise the opportunity to bring their own insights to bear? Is discipline or love more important in learning to do something well? Should we dedicate ourselves to conserving tradition, or supporting change? And in organising a society, is freedom to do what we each want most important, or responsibility to the wellbeing of others?Divergent problems are divergent precisely because it is possible to hold so many different perspectives. The more we inquire - if we are prepared to do so with sincerity and rigour - the more possible responses we discover. And such problems are inherently the problems of living systems in general, and human circumstances in particular - circumstances in which our consciousness, values, commitments, cares and many interpretations enter the fray.Divergent problems do not lend themselves to easy answers, to platitudes, or technique. Instead, divergent problems require us to make a transcendent move, in which we step out of the easy polarities of right or wrong, and good or bad. Such a move, which is clearly a developmental move in the sense that I have described previously, calls to the fore our capacity to live in the middle of polarities and complexity, uncertainty and fluidity. In the case of justice and mercy, this move might well be called wisdom. We run into enormous difficulty whenever we treat divergent problems as if they were convergent - as if there were some reliable process, however complex and sophisticated, by which to arrive at a correct answer. When we do this, we treat human situations as if they were mathematical or machine-like. And we strip ourselves of the possibility of cultivating discernment and genuine wisdom, reducing ourselves to rule-followers and automatons.It can never be justice alone - for strict justice is harsh, and unforgiving, and has no concern for the particulars of a human life. And it can never be mercy alone - for mercy's kindness without justice can be cruel and damaging to many in its wish to take care of the few. And it is never sufficient to say 'well, it must be mercy and justice' as if there were some simple, easy to understand combination or position between the two.And all of this is why paying attention to development 
Have you noticed that there are people around whom things get said that matter?It’s as if their way of being in the world is a huge invitation to speak, to say what’s true. People like this offer us safe ground on which to stand, and space into which to articulate what’s important, without fear of judgement or rejection.They make it possible for us to say what we didn’t know even needed saying, and in the process to discover much about who we are and what we’re up to.You could say that people like this are a disclosive space for others.It is possible to cultivate this way of being over time, if you wish. It takes attending to the discipline of listening, of course. And beyond that it takes working on:
What could become possible, I wonder, if we treated life and aliveness with as much seriousness as the bottom line, key performance indicators, and productivity measures? And what kind of world do we create when life is treated as a mere secondary consideration, or not at all?Two wonderful and provocative pieces of writing on this topic to share with you, both by George Monbiot.The first, 
'What game are we playing?' can be a powerful and fruitful question, especially in organisational life. Because what we think we're doing, and what the game is, are often not the same.Meetings, for example.Is being in meetings, back to back, day in and day out, actually productive? Does it help you to make better decisions? Does it help you do the work, the work that matters, what really needs to be done (to make a difference, to be of service, to create something new)?Or are meetings, mostly, a game we play to give us a sense of participation, of being important, of being inclusive, of being busy, and of feeling safe?Or planning. Do the predictions in your forecasts often come to pass? Or are they a game in which you and others get to soothe your anxiety and feel like you're taking action, rather than facing how unpredictable the world can be?One of my games, I'm starting to see more clearly, is asking for help then secretly doing it myself. It's a game in which I get to feel righteous, inclusive and democratic, and simultaneously hold on to control.And, like many games, it is one which I play at quite some cost to myself and others, and which rarely produces the results I really long for.Naming the game is risky, difficult, and takes some courage. Mostly we do not like to have the mythology of our personal and collective games punctured.But sometimes it's what's called for in order to free us to do what we really came to do.
It increasingly occurs to meThat my relationship to the parts of the world(most significantly, others)Is most often a reflectionOf my relationship to parts of myself. And that until I learn how to give upHating, despising, fearing and judging my interior worldI can expect to have a tricky timeLoving the outer world, in which I live every day,As fully as I could.
How easy it is to be up to something while simultaneously denying it.I have sophisticated strategies for trying to be in control while looking like I'm being inclusive, for trying to get people to love me while looking as if I'm just trying to help, and for being stubbornly attached to my own view while looking as if I'm asking what other people think.All of these allow me to hold on to a particular kind of self-image (kind, accommodating, self-effacing) while simultaneously getting my own way. And they involve some sophisticated kinds of denial - spinning stories that blind me to my real intentions.When I relate to other people in this way, things can get pretty complicated.Sometimes, though - sometimes - I am able to see what I'm doing while I'm doing it. The intentions which I was subject to become object, moving from the background to the foreground, and then I have a chance to intervene and to take responsibility for what I'm doing.I am less had by my strategies. I become someone who has them.This move, making what we are subject to become object to us, is at the heart of all profound developmental transitions. Every time something moves into view (a part of us, or a way we're thinking, or a way we're constructing the world, or a way we're being shaped by our interactions with others) it affords us more freedom to act, a more inclusive view of ourselves and others, and a greater possibility to take care of whatever and whoever it is that we care about.And this move requires that we get onto our own con-tricks - all the ways we'll convince ourselves of our rightness and deny our part in what's happening.Often, it seems, what I'm hiding from myself about my intentions is pretty much the worse-kept secret of all, known to everybody else but me. And that is why, for each of us to develop, it's so important to be surrounded by people who extend love our way, who see us for our goodness, and who extend the kindness and respect required to tell us the truth (with care for timing, and in ways we can hear and understand), rather than keeping what they see to themselves.
Mostly, we’re so committed to knowing where we’re going, what we’re up to – planning, organising, setting goals, planning again – that we forget the enormous value of losing our way for a while.It’s in not knowing which direction to turn – and being prepared to admit that, most of the time, we really can’t know where life is leading us – that we can discover a part of ourselves that’s often hidden. The quiet, steady, still centre from which everything arises. The part of us that can never be lost, even in the depths of our confusion. The part that’s trusting of life as it is, however it turns out. The part that actually looks at the world as it presents itself, instead of clinging tightly to how we’d like it to be.If you’re living a life in which you’re expending enormous effort in an attempt to stay on top of it all, you might be missing all this, especially if you’re denying to yourself and others that you’re ever confused or uncertain. But, sometimes, allowing yourself to lose your way is a blessing, a way of encountering the part of you from which creativity can arise like a fresh, bubbling spring.What would it take, do you think, to soften your grip on certainty so that any of this might become possible? 
I'm tired of organisational 'stretch' goals, increased productivity year on year, more-better-faster, doing-more-with-less, change after change, restructure after restructure. I'm tired of the push for endless growth, non-stop better performance, climbing the pole, getting to the top, being a 'world-class' whatever-it-is. I'm tired of squeezing out extra profit, running a lean-mean six-sigma machine. I'm tired of people being human 'resources' instead of people, of the way we've replaced the simplicity and directness of conversation with procedure and process, and of the increasing bureaucratisation of our workplaces that replaces practical wisdom with monotone rules and repeatability. I'm tired of endless criticism, not-good-enough-yet, and the self-judgement that comes with it. I'm tired of busyness and back-to-back meetings and no-time-to-talk and a million emails in my inbox and staring at my smartphone to see if anyone needs me. I'm tired of impossible targets and five-year-plans that everybody knows won't come to be and corporate visions and values that box people in and try to make them all the same.I see all of this in so many organisations I work with. And I see much of it echoed in myself. And I'm tired of it all.I think there's a chance you may be tired of it too. Even if (especially if) you're one of the people arguing most to bring all of this about.We enslave ourselves to the idea that we'll be saved if we can just keep going faster - an idea that produces so much of the difficulty above, and so much stress in each of us.What would happen I wonder if, instead, we freed ourselves into the possibility that so much of what we do is just fine as it is?And that we, and all we are up to, are good enough already?
Moods happen, sweeping in and out of our lives, but they don't just happen by themselves. We are always, in one way or another, participants in them.Each mood shapes our engagement with what we experience, bringing forward some features of the world and obscuring others; and each mood opens or closes a particular space of possibility for us. And because of this we each have the opportunity - the responsibility - to understand how to shift our moods, so that we can respond appropriately to what the world is bringing us.I'm writing this tonight because I've found myself, since this morning's first light, most prominently in a mood of despair. It had crept up on me overnight, as such moods often do, and although it brings with it a certain attunement to the troubles of the world, it also robs me of joy, and of connection to others, and of hope.And then, tonight, I find myself dancing with increasing abandon at a