Intentional Society: Thoughts at the Precipice (3 of 3)
3 of 3: Following invitation and celebration, some meta-level reflection. As a reminder, newly-interested folks can join Saturday's orientation to get involved.
Precipice, what, like, are we going to fall off a cliff? Well, to some part of me, it does feel that way — like there is some possibility of wrecking what we already have, in the attempt to jump from one hill to another that goes even higher. Last night I was writing about how what we already have achieved is valuable and precious. Of course I and/or we would feel protective of that!
There is a "jump" or binary-ness sense to what we're doing: either we "stick to practices" (however that's bounded) or we open up beyond that. We can open over time in an experimental iterative unfolding to some degree, but setting that intention is an atomic move, and social systems have certain points of stability on the social-dynamics landscape. The latter is really where I feel the "jump" sense in our hill-climbing landscape: We have certain patterns now that work quite well to serve certain needs, and if we try to establish new patterns, then missing the target and landing in the valley-in-between-peaks might potentially be hard to recover from.
Gall's law contains a phrase "You have to start over with a working simple system" that feels like it points at this tension. Gall, however, was contrasting against a "complex system designed from scratch" and we do have quite a foundation in our current working system. In fact, I think it's seeing and recognizing what's working about our current system that will help us preserve the outcomes we value during transitions that move around their inputs. Connection, trust-building, belonging, support, safety and meta-safety, feedback, invitation, information, communication, commitment, agreements — what we're aware of can be held and worked with.
Transcend and Include
I'd also like to point out (to myself, and everyone else) that broadening our scope is not a rejection of what we're currently doing. e.g. "Post-rationality" doesn't mean that one is irrational or pre-rational. Making a circle wider doesn't necessarily shift its core. I think we do benefit from watching out for a kind of baby-with-bathwater reactionary impulse, e.g. Naive post-modernity flirts with rejecting modern systems-competency, while a higher view more beneficially includes and retains the value of systematicity even while trying to broaden perspective to the meta-systematic. Transcend and include: "post" is not "anti" or "pre", and can harmonize and extend and enrich.
How to manage this polarity (of being and doing, or explore and exploit, are two simple lenses) has no easy answer, of course. We'll need to hold the tension of both practice and application being important and valuable, and that they need each other. AND there's a messiness in every person having a different vector (position and direction) along that sideways figure-8. As a collective, we want to stay big enough to hold space for all of that to be welcome, and for groups/crews within our ecosystem to resonate on their current frequency without the whole ripping apart.
As the originator of this assembly, the holder of its vision/direction, and the still-current leader of its execution, I've spent more time and energy working on my own capacity (in the last two weeks, and the last few years) than working on specific game plans. The "ceiling effect" (in organizational development research, of leaders' capacity limiting the capabilities of the entire org) is something I've seen over and over in my life/career, and it's not something that can be avoided by abdicating leadership.
We're entering our "Season of Change" in a few days, and I have never been more uncertain of what the specifics of Intentional Society will look like. (This feels mostly exciting and interesting to me, with a bit of fear attached.) In bringing forward this broadening vision and direction, so much will depend on how others step up in their own leadership and their own power to embody this unfolding.
One lens that reassures me is to look at our situation as if, what if it were a restart? Intentional Society forming again. Except this time, it's not me, by myself, with a vague idea and abstract manifesto. This time it's 30-to-50 veteran supporters, a stalwart core of a dozen culture-holders, and a (potential/presumed) influx of energized aligned new arrivals, all building upon a shared relational field and supportive culture. That is a kickass setup and I like our odds of finding our way to even greater benefit to us and to the world!
Cheers,
James