Fabric
Fabric: iPhone11
“What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
The hand-woven fabric hanging in our hallway connects us into different parts of our lives.
Running through the muted tones of the visible weft are are the tied-off threads of the supporting warp; the mostly hidden fibres that give the fabric its fundamental structure. While the surface colour, design and characteristics of the material are seen mostly in the weft, it is the warp that offers strength and holds the weave together.
Our simple decoration holds memories of travel, distant places, fabulous friends, time well spent; moments in our lives that we will never repeat but deeply reflect who we are and how we have come to be together..
In every organisation, whether family, social or workplace, unseen connections form the ‘social fabric’ that bind us together and bring life to our experience. They provide the core strength that supports our day-to-day efforts and endeavours.
But, even though this kind of ‘connecting’ is work in itself, it often goes unrecognised and unrewarded. The emotional intelligence and empathic, relational behaviours we need to ensure that the ‘work’ gets done are typically ignored. They rarely win accolades, they don’t appear on the bonus calculation spreadsheet, nor do they encourage the simple '‘percentage rule’ thinking that quantifies the onerous work of ‘fee-earning.’
Yet if our social fabric begins to fail, our organisations (whether they be clubs, companies or countries) starts to unravel. We slowly lose faith in each other and resort to crude, transactional, quantification that treats each of us as units of production or resources contributing to an abstract profit centre.
We become a line on a spreadsheet.
And so part of our new work is to become social weavers, attending to both weft and warp. Not just to the visible behaviours and and surface appearances, but also to the deeper structures of relationship, care, and connection that offers a place for every one of us to bring our gifts.
Antoine de St Exupéry preceded the opening words n this blog with, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.”
And it’s through the heart that the true warp of our lives is laid.
Notes:
Take a look at Antoine de St Exupéry’s charming tale of ‘The Little Prince’; his only children’s book but with one with a timeless philosophy that applies to adults too!
Joyce Fletcher’s research question in ‘Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power and Relational Practice at Work’ attempts to shed light on how relational work in organisations is not just invisible but is actively ‘disappeared’ by specific practices, processes and structures.
Finally, another academic book; ‘Leadership and Cultural Webs in Organisations: Weavers’ Tales’ by my friend and colleague Adrian McLean is a fabulous summary of 35 years of consulting experienced framed within the rigour of business academia. It’s an illuminating read for anyone in the cultural change business.
