Intentional Society: Are we a choir?
Click here to register for our next orientation video call on Friday, November 25th at 1:00-1:55pm Pacific Time (4pm Eastern, 9pm UTC). (Note the UTC time shift, for time zones that don't match the US clock adjustment.)
This last week our Community Practice Session was true to its name once again, with some Collective Presencing style circles. If you're familiar you'll know that this practice can be quite slow in pace-of-speech-acts, which can be challenging stylistically but which at its best can also lead us into deeper contact with our own integrity and deeper listening and weaving of the collective thought thread in the center.
Our subject of inquiry (which is narrower and I-centered so this isn't proper CP really) was, "What do I find when I tap into my source?" (word cloud for defining source: aliveness, energy, rightness, harmony, resonance, soul, deep self, why) This prompted a bunch of reflection and experience-sharing, and then, when attention wandered into the collective space between us, also prompted the question: "Are we a choir?"
Singing actually emerged independently in both of our break-out rooms, and right now I'm loving this as a metaphor (barely, it's so direct) for embodied communication of meaning. It's personal for me re embodied leadership: A thick why (ref: last week) is an embodied energetic alignment whose expression is like playing a musical instrument. It's not just the information, it's the art, the soul, the tapping-in to something greater/bigger/deeper/fundamental that animates the musicality of the musician.
It's also relevant to the group, this choir-ness. One acapella singer rarely produces the goosebumps experience of one backed by an orchestra, or by a tabernacle choir, or by the surround-sound of many voices in the football bleachers or church pews. The united togetherness of the ensemble in sync and in harmony is a transcendent experience — one that also has room for solos, parts and counterpoints, variation and solid chorus, careful scoring and improvisation.
The question a self-managing organization can ask itself, "What does it mean to be leaderful?" is thus also the question, "What does it mean to sing our song?" To get in touch with the soul of the music inside us, and bring that out to others, is the same soul or source we tap into as leaders. May I, you, and we find the strength in our voices that flows from the diaphragm through the lungs and vocal cords to ring out clear and true to be heard and received, a message not found in any words as much as the energy that carries them.
Cheers,
James