Rigid

Are you so sure that everything you've decided should be left out of your workplace is left out for a good reason?Or is it left out simply because "that's what we do around here"?The danger of this second position is that you inherit what you're able to do, and how you're able to be, from those who came before you. And their understanding of what was required might be based on quite different assumptions from what's called for now.Much of contemporary practice in the world of organisations still draws upon the principles of the early industrialists who were trying to turn people into efficient and predictable machines for the running of orderly and productive factories. They were interested in suppressing emotion, keeping people tightly in line, constraining creativity, preventing anything new from arising and keeping everything ordered like clockwork. It produced a particularly contained, constrained way of being in work, founded most strongly on the principle of always being in control.In many quarters we still think that this is unquestionably what it means to be 'businesslike' or professional. We can hardly see the roots of this position, so taken-for-granted have they become. And we so invent constraints - subtle and overt, within ourselves and on behalf of others - to keep it all in place.And it's amazing that this is the case, when it's clear how often what's called for now is creativity, genuineness, imagination, responsiveness, care, aliveness, collaboration and a commitment to do what matters rather than rigidly follow the rules.

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Something you are doing

You’re never just in life, this situation, this moment. You’re also in a particular relationship with it.So often this is transparent, like the air you’re breathing as you read this. But it's illuminating to understand that the world you're experiencing isn't ever simply 'the' world.Perhaps your relationship is to welcome whatever is happening. Perhaps you’re pushing it away, or denying it. Perhaps you’re treating what's happening as a huge opportunity. Or perhaps as a curse or problem. Maybe you’re relating to what’s happening with a longing that it be over. Or maybe you’re trying to cling on to it, already mourning the end of it, even before it’s gone.Another way of talking about this phenomenon is mood. Every mood - anger, joy, love, resentment, frustration, cynicism - opens up a particular kind of relationship to what’s taking place.Can you see how your relationship to it all shapes so much of your experience and what’s possible for you at any moment?That each brings forth a distinctive kind of world?That what’s possible from resentment is different from what’s possible from anger or love? That what’s possible from relating to it all as a curse is different to what’s possible from an orientation of welcome?Once you see all of this, you can first become an observer of your relationship to everything. Reflective practices can help here - a regular journalling practice and sitting meditation are two that are enormously helpful.Much more importantly, once you can observe you open up a second possibility of taking responsibility for your relationship to it all.Because while what’s happening might be just what’s happening, your relationship to it is something in which you're always a participant.Or in other words, the world you experience is never just happening but also, inescapably, something you are doing.

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On Words

To be a human being is to live in a house of words.Words that can move others into action, or sow seeds of doubt and confusion.Words that can coordinate our efforts, or scatter us apart.Words that can reveal hidden depths in the world, or cover them up.Words that can build relationships, or undo them.Words that can heal, or hurt.Words that can bring our intentions into being, or our hide them away.Words that are congruent with what matters, or words that twist or distort it.Words that bring out the best in people, or words that stifle it.Words that illuminate, or words that cast into shadow.Words that bring life, or words that deaden.In all of this, it helps us to remember that the human world is founded on words.That words matter.And that this brings huge responsibility and huge opportunity, in every moment, to address our human difficulties and possibilities through how we listen and how we talk.

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How to look at others

Can you allow yourself, for a while, to look for what you're grateful for about others?It's such an easy habit, perhaps supported quite powerfully by your own inner-critic, to keep on looking for all the ways in which people are disappointing, hurtful, irritating, obstructing, confusing and frustrating to you. You may not even quite realise that you're doing this - how your background mood has quietly become one of scepticism or cynicism or despair.So perhaps you could take up the practice of looking truthfully for a while in a different direction: at what you can be genuinely grateful for in each person, however small.Write it down. Make a list. A long, ever-growing list of what you come to see.The point of this is not to blind yourself to your difficulties or frustrations but to open your eyes to a wider kind of horizon than is available to you now; to bring about new kinds of possibilities, conversations and relationship with all the people who, right now, you can only see as obstacles to your intentions; and to find how out they might be supporting you and taking care of what matters to you in many more ways than you can currently see.

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What to look for in others

What would happen if you oriented more often towards the basic goodness in other people?Not some simplistic, positive-thinking way of pretending to yourself that everyone around you is nice or has your best interests at heart. That way lies a comforting and often harmful kind of self-delusion.No, actually looking for the genuine goodness in each person that may not even be known to themselves. And trusting that everybody has it - is it - simply by virtue of being human.Being able to find this in others might take some patient observation and discernment on your part, some practice. So that you're not guessing. And so that you can overcome your own cynicism, disappointment, or frustration.You might get a clue by observing closely what another person most consistently tries to take care of, even if inexpertly. Justice and fairness, looking after people, achieving important goals, bringing a unique and personal expression, developing knowledge and understanding, keeping options and possibilities open, having things actually happen, harmony and coherence - these are but a few examples.Finding the basic goodness in others and in ourselves is a powerful project because it gives us something to rely on as we navigate the complexities of work and the rest of life alongside other people.When we can't see it we're easily locked in a cycle of mistrust, defensiveness and judgement, seeing ourselves and others only as accidents waiting to happen.But with it firmly in view, we have the best chance to call on and bring out what's most noble and dignified in each of us - the part of us that wants to serve life even in the depths of our most troubling confusion, conflict and uncertainty.

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Ten ways to avoid learning

Ten skilful ways to avoid any learning that really matters:

1. Demanding that you know what you'll learn before you begin
2. Fitting what you're learning into existing categories and classifications
3. Scepticism - the mood of "I'll only engage when you prove the worth of this"
4. Cynicism - the mood of "I've seen it all before, and it doesn't amount to much"
5. Insisting that you like it - that nothing troubles, upsets or confuses you
6. Insisting that you understand every step as you go
7. Forcing it to fit your schedule instead of giving it due time
8. Demanding immediate results and obvious 'takeaways'
9. Trying to look good, or expert, or knowledgable
10. Forgetting to play

How many of these are already the taken-for-granted practices of your workplace? Of your personal life? With what consequence?And are you willing to do the risky and important work of standing up to any of them?

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Learning in London in September

I've just finished a two-day introduction to integral coaching with a wonderful group of ten people, held by the river in central London.Two days of rich conversation, music, study, practice and the chance to learn how to powerfully support other people in their development in a wide variety of contexts. And an occasion for me to share some of the work that I find most joyful and most profoundly helpful to others.The next opportunity to join a programme like this is coming up on 1st-2nd September, once again in London. Perhaps you'll choose to join us.

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Constrain or Liberate

Everything you take to be true about another person can only ever be part of the situation.For one part, you can only see the other from where you stand, from in amongst the commitments, values, expectations and way of making sense that are particular to you. To see this, just think for a moment about how differently someone's brother or sister, lover, parent, friend, colleague or customer might describe the person in question.For another part, there's much more to every person than any of us can tell. Unfathomable depths, history, hidden intentions and wishes, longing, suffering, hopes, fears - many of which will be available only to the person in question and some hidden even from them. You can only guess at these, and your guesses are just that - a hunch about the inner world of the other. You can easily be wrong about all of this, even when you're feeling most certain.The consequence is that whatever account you have of another is never simple truth but always an interpretation on your part: a fitting together of what you can see and experience directly in a way that makes sense to you, in your world.For any set of observable 'facts' there are a host of coherent interpretations you could choose, each which lead to different places. And there are better and worse interpretations available or, said more simply, better and worse ways of accounting for the other.Some interpretations imprison you, and often the other person too. Interpretations that involve blame, resentment or rigid judgments tend to produce this, committing you to tight circles of action and emotion that cannot easily be broken. These are I-It interpretations, fixing the other as if they're an object rather than a person.Other interpretations can free you both, particularly those that invite curiosity and inquiry on your part. These are I-You interpretations, treating the other as a mystery to be understood rather than as an obstacle to be circumnavigated or a problem to be solved.Which kind of interpretation you choose matters, because each leads to different kinds of action, to different kinds of conversation, and ultimately to different kinds of relationship.

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Decide

When there's something important that needs deciding, on the basis of what do you decide?

What you like the most?What will avoid feelings you dislike - fear, anxiety, shame?What will win the approval of others?What will have people like you?What people seem to do around here?What has integrity?What's ethical in this situation?What will benefit you the most?What will benefit those who come after you?What will give results immediately?What gives you a feeling of progress?What creates something for the long term?What's expedient?What you can get away with?What has genuine value?What's wholehearted?What's art?

It's easy to fall into a habitual, unexamined way of deciding - a reflex that shapes everything you do.But you owe it to yourself and to others to become aware of what principles and habits guide your decisions, because it's the cumulative effect of your many decisions that makes first a career, and then a life.

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Us and Them

It seems so obvious that the 'us and them' you're experiencing in your organisation is really down to 'them'.If only they'd

grow upsee some sensedrop their cynicismstop imagining thingsactually listen

But something can begin to shift when you understand that in order for them to carry on being 'them' you have to actively be carrying on being 'us'.By looking at all the ways you are involved in keeping things going as they are (even the label 'them' is probably part of it) you'll open up possibilities that weren't there before.What if you got as serious about growing up, seeing sense, dropping cynicism, stopping imagining things and actually listening as you demand of them?You might even find out that beyond your story of 'us and them', you're much more alike than you ever knew.

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