On one day, Otto Scharmer may be just the right thing to nudge people ahead. On another, we may pull out some Art of Hosting rules to make sure everyone’s listening openly, or we may map out a series of Agile-inspired sprints to get everyone’s sleeves rolled-up. None of the theories above are big enough to hold what we do. We use pieces of them all and are attached to none. Isn’t it freeing?

A story goes that The Beatles felt they played their best music live, in front of an audience. That people listening is what made the music come alive. It’s the same for every art, every interaction, and every collaboration: the quality of listening you give will impact what people say and how well they say it.

At a working session on systems change last fall, Tim and Tuesday's opening remarks focused on how to show up. If we’re going to approach difference differently—in the interest of different (better!) results—how should we fend-off the shut-down of our automatic turf protection mode?

Here’s more on why depth is such a primary actor on the stage of change, whether we’re embracing it or hiding from it: good change requires good vulnerability. If we embrace it, we all step forward. If we hide, our capacity dulls.

Treated with care, the heat of friction can cure how we live together—not a ‘cure’ as the word refers to the eradication of disease, but the kind of curing that makes things solid, resilient, and fully-formed. Preservation, flavouring, osmosis. The kind of cure that requires patience.

To me, alignment is something both bigger than and more foundational than being alike. Alignment asks: Are we going in the same general direction? Do our fundamental ideals allow us to do some good work together? Maybe we won’t do everything together, but when we’re aligned, we can see that there is something to do together. 

In addition to getting results swiftly, people get really excited to learn a whole new suite of tools and a new way of thinking about problem solving. It immediately starts to be applied all over the organisation. As one client put it last week: "What we do is not hugely different—the structure is not undergoing big re-design—but how we do everything is changing".

What's the minimum order we need to navigate change meaningfully and productively? Too much control and we kill learning, too little and everything falls apart. My go to is the chaordic stepping stones. I use the chaordic stepping stones all the time: project planning, meeting preparation, long term strategic plans, my own personal reflection, designing events and trainings, writing proposals … the list goes on.

Ok, so there's some questions I ask every time before choosing to work with someone on a project, event or long term initiative. They help me get a sense of the landscape and discern if the conditions are in place for me to do my best work.