Intentional Society: Bits and pieces
Introductory call Saturday May 8th, 11:00-11:55am Pacific Daylight Time (2pm Eastern, 6pm UTC) - take note, this is 2 hours earlier than the last several.
As our boats set sail I'm a little wistful that I personally no longer get to see all of the amazing moments, small or large, of growth and discovery. We spent 25 minutes all connecting together this last Sunday, then to small group breakout rooms for 70 minutes, and capped with a brief full-group checkout.
The energy and flavor I heard in those checkouts gave me more confidence that we're heading in the right direction for creating fertile generative spaces of connection and transformation. One of our members, Jochen, shared this reflection for you all:
I felt everyone in the boat to be fully aware of the risks involved (presenting vulnerability in a way that can lead to "triggering"), and being very open about that risk allowed us to play very honestly. Closer to the end, a thought/aspect came up that created indeed some apparent feelings of "stepping out of the comfort zone", with slight uncertainty (a liminal experience). And it was precisely the care and gentleness with which everyone involved approached this aspect that allowed the messiness to exist without being overwhelmed by the outcome. GREAT PLAYERS! :)
I notice that I'm hoping for a few more new faces this weekend, more so than my usual "que sera sera" attitude. First off, I enjoy not being left alone as the other voyages are sailing! 😅 Secondly, I hope that folks aren't feeling scared off or excluded by the multi-week voyage emphasis: there's nothing "right" or "wrong" about participating at any particular commitment level at any particular time. Lastly, it seems like the optimal onboarding for new folks would be to get a few warm-up weeks first, to get to know others and feel somewhat comfortable, before the time for the next round of crew matchmaking comes up. But... I shouldn't be too confident that I know what is "optimal" given our rapid learning.
MMM
Another piece of our expanding organizational puzzle snapped into existence this week: the Monday Meta Meeting (which could shift to a better day, but then we'd lose the sweet alliteration). This is the next iteration of the "meta time" practice we had in Q1, of governance and proposals and organizational design as a whole group most weeks. We have enough people now that A) not everyone is interested in the meta-layer, and B) enough people are to spin it out into its own workstream. Now we can pick back up some topics of ownership, chartering, and operational improvement. I think this also initiates a demarcation between "volunteering" and "participating," creating one more membrane-layer in the rings of engagement.
I'm feeling great right now about what we've built, and what we've thrown away, and what we'll continue to create in and for ourselves. I wrote six months ago about a building doghouses metaphor for approaching iterative feedback-loopy team+outcome development and, reading that old blog post again, I'm sensing that this is the balance that we're surfing. It's a strange loop being grown, which can't be engineered - only incubated and grown.
Feel free to reply to this email - I enjoy hearing musings, thoughts, and riffs on whatever inspiration you have!
Cheers,
James