I write largely for pleasure and as a way of making sense of what I see and feel around me. That means there is no plan, plot, or predetermined purpose in my words other than to wander outside the walls of the increasingly frantic writing on organisations and politics and see what I notice.
I write to create temporary islands of sanity and occupy them until rising noise levels submerge them.
That does not mean there is no purpose to what I do; it is just that I am not writing towards a predetermined purpose, in much the same way as most of us do not think much about the purpose of our work beyond making a living within the bounds of decency.
Writing, though, leaves a trail. I brought together my blogs, here and at New Artisans, as PDFs, fed them into Chat GPT and asked it to identify the key themes and messages arising from three years of random jottings.
It told me that my key themes have been embracing uncertainty, the nature of authority and leadership, the importance of craft as strategy, values and beliefs, and conversation and connection as catalysts for innovation, creativity, and regenerative thinking.
I find that quite reassuring and satisfying. It is like wandering around the garden that I have wandered around for over thirty years—all of it familiar but with something new every time I wander. It’s the same ground, but the seasons change, trees grow, new plants arrive unbidden, and other important but less welcome visitors come in the form of slugs and snails who seem to see us as a fast food outlet.
It means I can appear to repeat myself, except that because I write to notice, it is not precise repetition; it is something familiar seen from another angle, in a different light, containing new information. Getting to know something well enough to notice small differences requires that I think. It gives us somewhere to come home to when everything else seems to be in flux, somewhere we can feel grounded and able to observe what is going on from a place we trust.
This seems important right now, as we see the exhausted familiar in our businesses and politics giving way to what we’re not quite sure about. Businesses with fat balance sheets cutting costs for want of finding other ways to satiate shareholders, brilliant technology being forced into service before we really understand it in the hope of a few temporary points of margin, and people being treated like parts in doing so. In politics, a welcome (for me) move to the Left here in the UK and a less welcome move to the Right in France are playing out as you read this, and indications of moves in the USA towards territory that four generations ago in Europe led us towards worldwide conflict.
We have no idea how things will play out. Although we have a natural bias to fear, I think the turmoil may be the wake-up call we need to pay attention to, to critique rather than just accept the media we are targeted with, and recover the agency we have mislaid in a world of corporate dogma.
There may be a time for craft as a personal strategy, for testing our values and beliefs against what we find ourselves doing in pursuit of that, for many, superfluous dollar in order to create room for those for whom it is not. Most of all, perhaps, we should recognise conversations as catalysts for surfacing and exercising those vital, energetic sources of innovation and creativity that obeisance to efficiency and productivity (in very limited terms) allows to wither in the workplace.
In a world of “getting stuff done,” the conversations we need have become unfamiliar. They are the equivalent of wandering in the garden, looking at the ground we know with fresh eyes, and wondering why things have appeared rather than reaching for the Roundup to get rid of them.
Busyness is to necessary creativity what Roundup is to Gardens
These conversations happen outside the Walls, in what Gal Beckerman calls “The Quiet Before.” A time to give space to what we do not understand to explain itself to us rather than forcing it into compliance when all it wants to do is point out the otherwise bleeding obvious.
Creating space is a practice. One habit I have developed is having on my desk a collection of books that I can look at for a few minutes between calls or other work when I want something more active than mindfulness that will nonetheless divert me.
One of my favourites is “The Yes of the No” by Emma Cocker.
Know Your Limits
Limits mark the edges of what is deemed acceptable or permissible, what can be done or seen or said.
They differentiate the known from what remains unchartered; distuinguish the sanctioned from the improper or taboo.
Limits determine capacity, how much something can tolerate before it begins to break; the degree of pressure it can withstand.
The most insidious can be self imposed, or voluntary, those that have been nutured lovingly in the dark over years. However, limits - whether social or spatial - are rarely staked out with any real clarity. Lines on a map are often invisible at ground level, psychological limits revealed only one they have been broken or pushed too far.
To know your limits does not mean to dutifully remain within their bounds, but rather - like the poacher or pioneer - to develop the border knowledge that will allow the limit to be negotiated differently or rendered porous. to learn where the boundaries are and be mindful of how to facilitate their crossing.
Page 14.
Staying within the bounds set by others will not let us grow, other than into something misshapen by their interests. One of the greatest services we can offer is giving ourselves and others room to grow into what they might be.
A quick reminder that this year’s edition of The Heretic is available. To get a copy, head over to the website.
For paid subscribers, I’m turning my attention to the fourth part of my exploration of conversations - conversations about systems.
For my free subscribers, have a wonderful week. Times are interesting.
Do not let them go to waste…
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