“Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.”

(Marianne Williamson)

The flowers over our gateway have fallen away now.

I’ll be anticipating their return, full of beauty, next spring.

Yet, by then, I wonder who I will be?

I’ve spent the week working virtually with a globally dispersed group of leaders charged with organisational transformation. Within the usual contractual constraints and expectations, I’ve been offering creative prompts and provocations to encourage inquiry into the emerging patterns that are swirling around us.

But I’m ever more convinced that, if we hope for organisational transformation, we need to go first.

And we can’t rationalise, intellectualise or analyse our way through our transformation. Our theories and frameworks exist in the world we hope to leave behind, not in the one we seek to create. The case studies of how we got here won’t help us get there.

Transformational work is now aesthetic, sensual, artful, nuanced and delicate. The world is too fragile to bear anything else.

This winter, as we struggle to find the form of new organisations and our place within them, we will stumble blindly. We will wander, muddied and confused, along barely discernible pathways, before we can stand and stare differently into the emerging reality of a new season. The transition will be tough, but rather than add to the rage of frustration, anger and resentment for what is being lost, we need to find each other in the generative space of new conversations.

Conversations that support each of us through our personal revolution.

Meanwhile, I’m already anticipating the return of the flowers. They will beautifully reorganise as they tumble again over our garden gateway.

But I wonder who I will be?

And who will you choose to be?

Notes:

You might like the ‘Making Sense’ podcast. In episode 207, host Sam Harris says, “For what we are witnessing, in our streets and online, and in the impossible conversations we are trying to have with one another in our private lives, is a breakdown in epistemology. How does anyone figure out what is going on in the world? What is real? If we can't agree about what is real, or likely to be real, we will never agree about how we should live together. And the problem is, we are stuck with one another.'“

In her beautiful work, ‘When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chödrön offers three methods for working with chaos: holding a non-judgmental attitude, using ‘poison as medicine’ - fuel for waking up and, finally, to regard with whatever arises as a manifestation of new energy. The book is sub-titled ‘heart advice for difficult times and is a resourcing and trusted read.

Finally, take a look at Peter Block’s revised edition of ‘Community.’ It’s a fantastic source of advice and anecdotes about convening groups for organisational (and personal) transformation.