Report from the Field

Last week I learned something important at a much deeper level. I attended Otto Scharmer’s Leading Profound Innovation training in Toronto, and flew directly into the mix at the company where I now work. What a juxtaposition. From the safe warm confines of working with 50 other folks who where all dedicated to the concept of developing group consciousness in the world of business to the harsh reality of working within an unconscious group.

This isn’t going to go where you think it might. It is awfully popular to rail against the machine, to blame the system and to be indignant about “the man.” That I won’t do. That wasn’t the learning, anyway. The problem is not the company I work for, not the unconscious behavior, and not the people who are acting unconsciously. That isn’t a problem. That’s just the situation.

There are four people at the top–the CEO, the President (CEO’s right hand guy), and to other senior execs. Each one, a good, likeable man. Each one quite skilled and successful. The problem? They won’t have the tough conversations required at that level. They keep things just squiggly enough between them that each can jiggle enough to do whatever they want. But that show isn’t going to work any longer. They’ve grown too big, too fast and the current business opportunities and challenges are simply too great.

When I was simply consulting, I tried to help them work on that dynamic. But, do you want to know something? With the best of intentions, I actually ended up supporting the continuation of the craziness. When problems bubbled up from this dysfunction, I’d help them “solve” the issues. Solve the face value of the issues we did, but the root kept going deeper and deeper. The tree kept growing higher and higher. And here I am. Me and my tree.

So there I was, a little jet-lagged and tired, sitting in my first meeting at the company down south after learning about leading profound innovation up north, and I think to my self, “Oh, shit.” At first, I didn’t know why I thought that. Then, I had to check to make certain I didn’t actually say it out loud. (Good news, I hadn’t.) It was not “oh, shit” in terms of “why in the world did I commit to this company and this craziness,” but the kind of “oh, shit” that comes up with you see the writing on the wall regarding your own behavior and culpability.

Mind you, I’ve had family, friends and mentors who love to rail against the system. And I’ve joined them. But that is an old, worn-out record isn’t it? It is for me. So there I sat, with a very sinking feeling. My ego, very much wanting to see myself as being separate from the system, merely a witness to the insanity, possessing such high emotional intelligence that I could be there in it and not have it stick to me. But then, the one, crystaline “bing” rings into consciousness. 

I am not separate from this system: I must change.

Listen. Like you, I’ve read the whole Gandhi “be the change you want to see in the world” quotation. Yes, I got that intellectually. Yes, I’ve quoted it. But you can wax mentally on that notion all you want, but just wait until it nails you between the eyes. When the intellectual delight turns into your fingers going cold.

It is not whether the system changes as a result of me changing, either. If my motive is to change the system through changing myself, I will get whacked sixteen ways to Sunday. I took on this responsibility to learn about myself, to become a leader.

It is about me becoming the very best Otis I can be. If I do that, the system may change, the system may no longer affect me, the system may cough me up and spit me out, or I may become clear that I’ve taken all from it I can and it is time to go. But it comes down to this, I guess.

It is just as impossible to become a leader by subrogating to the system as it is to rail against it. So there lies the middle way. To simply become the best Otis I can be, to become the leader I know in my heart I am capable of becoming, and to accept the consequences–”good” or “bad”–of doing so. It is a fool’s game to see myself as outside of the system. It is a fool’s game to lose myself in the political games within it. It is a fool’s game to assume that if I do it well, then my reward is I’ll get my way.

So here I am. The System. And Not The System. And I am getting a feeling for what that means. I am getting a feeling for the way forward. I find that a very exciting possibility. Now. To do. Me and my tree.

Busted

I talked with my wife today, and she busted me. She said, “Otis, I read your blog post. Would you like some feedback?”

“Of course!,” I said. Actually, it was a little more hesitant than that, LOL!

She reminded me that on this new blog, I was going to focus on becoming a leader and sharing that journey. Not on being an evangelist, LOL! So, since it is all about learning, I am going to do what is technically called a “do-over.”

Therefore, let it be known for the record that I just did my first “face plant” on my own blog, LOL! I’m a snow skier. When you go straight over the tips of your skis and smack into the snow, that’s a face plant. Face plants happen so fast you don’t have a chance to finish a full sentence like ‘Oh, s___!” You’re lucky to get to the comma on that sentence before impact.

A really bad accident, where you basically tumble like a raggedly Andy doll on PCP, jettisoning every piece of equipment off your bod… well that’s called a “yard sale.” And in that slow-unfolding type of wipe out, you’ve got some time to think about the impact. This was definitely a face plant. It happened so fast I wasn’t even aware that I was about to eat snow.

So I’m wiping the snow out of my googles, looking around casually to see who noticed, and I’m going to do a do-over. I am going to leave that prior post and not delete it, but now I am going to post again. Sharing my experience of the exercise I am going through without encouraging you to do it for yourself.

I love you, Sara. You cannot believe how much I feel your support on my journey to becoming a leader. So, in the words of a Kiwi ski instructor who ‘pushed’ me off the ledge at the top of my first double diamond,

“Let’s give it a go, shall we?”

Update from the Field(s)

I’ve been pretty busy attempting to live that fancy DDP (Definition, Direction and Purpose) I shared with you. It never ceases to amaze me that the more clear I become, and the more stable my intention, the more arises. It’s been pretty amazing.

The CEO at the company I am now solely working with gave us a verbal approval on a one year, exclusive retainer. That’s huge. That’s the “field” in which I’ve chosen to do my next chapter of work in becoming a leader.

Also, since I last posted, my wife and I are now under contract to buy 11 acres of beautiful land in Oregon’s wine country. We’ve been working together on that project, and working in co-operation with nature (more on that in the future), and things have been flowing. We scared. Cash is tight to make the 20% down required these days and cover some income taxes we didn’t anticipate. The credit market is crazy. And the news today says house prices have dropped another 19% and only 2% of American envision buying a home in the next 6 months. But, we feel this in our bones, we’ve been working with this for 18 months, and there’s the gap. And we think we’ve found our chosen field in which to stand together.

Today I noticed something funny about myself. I’ve seen it before, but not while I was doing it. What I noticed is how I will get “prepared” to produce a work product by doing a bunch of activity that I think is required to prepare to produce that work product. It’s hard to describe. But I can see this in some of my family members–seeing it in them has helped me see it in myself.

This time I caught myself “preparing” to work–and I stopped the activity cold. Dusted and done. I didn’t know exactly what to do, but I knew that wasn’t it. So I stopped. And took Stone, our beloved Blue Heeler, for a walk. As I walked in the “Oregon mist” (what the Chamber of Commerce here calls rain), I could see precisely the work product I was working toward. But!

But instead of working my way towards it, I can now cut straight to it. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you. Personal insights are like that: they are hard to ex-plane. But now I have found myself in yet another field. I just had to walk around myself to find it. And there are springs there, in that field. And the air smells like spring, and renewal, and the new coming into form.