Into the Frying Pan......

How I joined one of the world’s leading participatory business networks

Only a year ago, I thought Enspiral was simply a group of freelancers and startups working out of a funky space in Wellington.  I was about a year into my journey as a freelancer focused on bringing the ideas of agile and responsive and teal to organisations, and feeling both lonely and isolated from the smart people who were always around when I had a real job.  

I was working on the Co-opathon project with Ben Roberts, and we were using Loomio. I didn’t realize that Loomio was an Enspiral Venture, and that piqued my curiosity.  I googled around and found some of the great talks from Alanna Krause and Joshua Vial and Rich Bartlett.  Then I had a chat with the wonderful Doug Kirkpatrick, and he told me that a little posse of Enspiral people had recently come to visit the Self Management Institute.  

All the threads started coming together, and I made the first move.  I met heaps of people, started hanging around, and by the end of Summerfest in January I had made my decision to invest in and work with these amazing humans.

See what I did there?  Quite different from a normal engagement – I chose participation.  

One of the memes that it took me a while to understand about Enspiral is that it’s easy to join and hard to stay.  Staying takes a mindset of total self-management, which is antithetical to the way we’ve been taught or how most of us experience work.  You find your own way.  Enspiral does not have jobs.  You create your own.  And find a way to make a livelihood.  

I totally get that I am not the traditional persona of an Enspiralite – I’ve had a career - in humongous multinationals, start ups, and global bungy jumping empires.  Since I was 17, I’ve always had to provide a CV, interview, and depending on the whim (or wisdom!) of the HR team or the hiring manager I’d get offered a contract and some money to do some stuff or sell some stuff.  Not only did that not happen at Enspiral for me – (not to say it couldn’t for you if you choose to do work for an Enspiral venture), but it also took me a really long time to get my head around it – the ‘how we do things here’ piece.  We are starting to understand how hard that is, and how important it is – not only to new adventurers poking around, but those of us hanging around  in the gooey center.  

Over the years, Enspiral ventures have built and developed some of the tools we use to make decisions – this is Loomio (now used by 10’s of thousands of people).  

What do you do when there is no CFO to do spreadsheets for what gets funded next year?  What do you so when you recognise the need to be responsive and realize that there is no way we can predict what we’d like or need to spend money on month to month – you build Cobudget.  And how does money get in there in the first place?  How does the Enspiral Foundation run?  It has no employees.  But there is the support and scaffolding of 40 members and 250 contributors to hold.  You think lean and practical and have a MVB – Minimum Viable Board to cover the legal obligations and  the risk, and you share out the work of the C-Suite (haha a c-suite that does actual work!) amongst those with the energy and interest, let them decide how to organize and beCatalysts in the true sense of the word.

It’s taken Enspiral the better part of a decade to both understand what it needed and what experiments to try.  We’ll never be done – it will always be changing.  And how do you care for a culture that is at once unique and emergent?  Notice.  Listen. Play.  Our latest ‘agreement’ invokes the opportunity of intentional Stewardship.

It’s not easy.  Sometimes it’s really hard.  We’ve heard voices and questions and ‘hands raised’ all around the world, and with a tentative gaze outward, understand we have a responsibility to share, with whoever wants to listen, this great experiment. We’ve started a new venture called Enspiral Labs to make that intentional – the sharing of ideas and tools and experiment – to provide some source of confidence that it’s possible – it feels good, and it changes lives.  

We are touring Europe in September and October, and we are so looking forward to sharing our lived experience.  Grab your tickets for Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Budapest here.  

Hope to see you soon!

The 4 Reasons your people aren't engaged

Or “why I subverted my promise to myself never to write an essay with this title.”

About a million years ago, or 1997, I worked for a startup in the very first dot.com boom. Dotcomboom! It was the best — smart, motivated crew in Tony Blair’s Britain, where anything was possible — until it wasn’t. We had lots of the perks now associated with Sili (silly) money: an on-site massage room, hired a 707 to take the company away to Malta or Spain every year.

I am such a geek that the thing that made me happiest was having a full-time organizational psychologist. That was the coolest.

His name was Howard, and he was every bit as influential to me as the high school history teachers who changed my life — ex-Black Panther Mr. Lee who unlocked my personal opinions about politics, and Mr. Giacomazza who taught International Relations and unlocked the world for me.

Howard shared insight into how I as a leader could promote engagement and participation.

I refuse to quote the xxx% of employees are not engaged figure, we all know that it’s bad-bad. But here’s my offer — consider these 4 ways to check — and I’m going to use active first person here — because it’s not up to you as a leader, it’s up to the individual:

1) Are you involved in decisions that impact your work?

2) Is there a tangible outlet for your creative/innovative ideas?

3) Do you feel like you are better/have grown in your work in the past 6 months?

4) Do you feel like your colleagues are both good at what they do, and support you to do your best work?

Is this the first time you’ve seen these offers? Perhaps not phrased in exactly that way, but I’d be surprised if you hadn’t.

Theory has it that if you ‘get these right’ then the level of engagement is at least in the potential range of ‘happy’. I’ve iterated these (beyond recognition of the unknown primary source) over the past 20 years. I quote them or consider them very frequently — and I can’t remember anyone ever disagreeing!

In my years at the pointy end, I would consider these elements to be in the realm of my influence — behaviours or actions as a manager/leader I had the potential to effect. Looking at them today, with the shift of my personal lens of understanding to self-management, all of these elements seem obviously in line with and OPO (open participatory organisation) a DDO (deliberately developmental organisation) or a self-managing organisation.

1) Are you involved in decisions that affect your work?

Are you in an environment where your work is dictated to you, or prescribed? Do you have the chance to co-create your role or at least the tasks that you do day to day and week to week? Do you have enough insight or visibility into the bigger/broader picture so that you can make decisions or recommendations about the work that you do?

2) Is there a tangible outlet for your creativity/innovative ideas?

Can you create or invite this?

It goes way beyond the old ‘suggestion box’ to an invitation to sit with or build a cross-functional cohort that creates and provides the space for experiments. Even before the experiments, the chance to share what you’ve seen, what you sense, what you think, and what might be the basis for these making something from these thoughts or ideas, either independently or with your peers.

3) Do you feel like you are better/have grown in your work in the past 6 months?

Never mind the pejorative definition of better — have you grown? Doesn’t need to necessarily be in the skill competence realm of one’s particular technical capacity, it could be across any domain. I posit that choosing a growth mindset makes this inevitable.

4) Do you feel like your colleagues are both good at what they do, and support you to do your best work?

This to me is about relationships and high trust. This is about collegiality and interdependence — and perhaps the most difficult aspect, one might think, because the locus of control is different. But I’m not sure that it is — if we hold as important and non-negotiable our interdependence then this concept of safe psychological space can manifest and from that can emerge a certainty and sanctity. It cuts both ways — and it requires honesty and rigor.

I am so eager for feedback on this hypothesis — what’s missing? Please share your thoughts and especially any experience or experiments.  This is Applied Research for Enspiral Labs.

Mango Season - Self Management in India

I’d noted a post in the Reinventing Organizations Discourse in early April, an inquiry as to the existence of Teal Organisations in India. As I had recently been invited to speak at a conference in Bangalore in June, I pinged him for a chat.

Yash Papers, located just east of Lucknow, in Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh, was founded in 1981 by KK Jhunjhunwala. By all accounts, KK was a remarkable individual with a huge, but unfortunately weak heart — he passed in 2005 at 54. His wife, Manjula, equally remarkable, in 1998 founded an alternative school (think Montessori and Steiner) that serves over 3000 students in Faizabad. There was no pressure, then, on Ved, their first son, to live up to the contributions of his parents!

Mangalam Farm is in a mango orchard just south of Faizabad. The legend goes that KK was so attached to this place, which had been in the family for years, that he fought his brothers for it.

Ved and his wife, Kim McArthur, live here with their almost one-year-old Zara, and her older sisters (didis) Sargam and Vidia. In the morning, peacocks crow, and sometimes the blue cows appear in herds and romp through the orchard. It’s mango season, and I’m enchanted and a little overwhelmed by the many varieties. Breakfast ends in a competition for the biggest pile of mango skins on the plate.

We leave for the factory after breakfast, and a prompt arrival for 9AM assembly. Assembly is a company wide stand up that happens each morning, and starts with a small prayer. Around 100 members (as the staff are called) gather to hear yesterdays results — from the production numbers of each paper machine (there are three) to the water usage (of their onsite water treatment plant) to the power output and consumption of the bagasse (sugar cane waste) fuelling the onsite 2.5 MW Power Plant — which services the entire requirement of the plant.

Everything is transparent — the white boards that ring the assembly area show the daily results against targets — and as they are read out from the dais, there is gentle applause to each measurement area that has performed. For those on the shop floor or elsewhere on-site, the morning assembly is relayed via loudspeakers.

There is an air of relaxed seriousness, which I came to understand as shared purpose and commitment. Approximately 30% of everyone’s salary is based on the collective commitment to achieve. There is no difference between a machine operator or a sales person — everyone is held equally. Because all of the metrics of profitability are transparent, each member knows how their role impacts, and what they can do in their teams, and what they can do to support other teams whose areas might be behind. And while salaries are not transparent (as yet) there is intention for this in the short term.

In 1999, Faizabad was beset by some of the worst inter-communal violenceIndia has seen in recent times. A virtual martial law and curfew was imposed. This meant that many members couldn’t make it to the factory, and those who did needed to figure it out for themselves. A classic case of needs must — they had to self-organise, and it worked. One of the legends of this time, who still serves at Yash Papers, is Mahavir Shekhavat, who heads Production also known as ‘The Mountain Mover” or Hanuman.

In India, myths and folklore are both ancient and contemporary. Yash Papers never forgot that time, and have persisted in the understanding that when individuals are given agency and autonomy, magic can happen.

It’s not always been easy — and it’s still not. The cultural norms of India, especially when it comes to hierarchy, are not easily changed, let alone bent. In Uttar Pradesh, it’s not easy to attract and retain individuals who are willing to stay and commit to live in a ‘backwater’ when the opportunities of Mumbai or Bangalore beckon. But what Yash Papers does have is a common purpose — and a set of values that differentiate it from probably 99% of other organisations in India.

When Ved read Reinventing Organizations, it spoke to him clearly –

‘Going through RO was an intense spiritual experience. I could feel constant vibration of my energy field each time I picked the book. So much so that I had to put the book down at times. It felt as if so many areas where we had tried and failed were being reinforced and we were being invited to go try again as there were people who had appeared to guide. I truly wish we can build a place where people are able to recognise their purpose and built towards it along with many others’

Yash Papers is currently more green than orange, with flashes of teal. But the intention and direction is clear. More autonomy, distributed decision-making, self-organising pods responsible to one another as peers from a commitment perspective, and completely free to make their own decisions about the way they work.

With this distributed autonomy, the advice process comes alive. Although not yet to the stage where all central services are distributed, teams like HR embed one of their own into each work group — go to team meetings, and serve. They are establishing new and heretofore non-existent policies around harassment (a self-selected group of 2 women and 2 men who are not ‘managers’ but member representatives) and conflict resolution processes. They see their work as the holders of a safe psychological space — the necessary ingredient for real trust and collective development.

Recently, pods have formed for each paper machine; the members that work on each are autonomously responsible for the way they organise and their production. Quality circles, with representatives from across the organisation meet weekly to work on self-selected projects.

Yash Papers use SAP, and I witnessed the project lead practically beg Ved to be involved— to be the decision maker. Ved stoically and kindly pushed back — saying that the project had his support, but that there was no reason for him to be involved, and furthermore that he trusted the project lead implicitly, to make decisions based on advice.

Wholeness also plays a big part at Yash Papers. Again, in a culture where norms are respected, it’s not always easy or expected to bring all of yourself to work. But it is truly a desire — and it’s modelled in remarkable ways. The large majority of Yash Papers members are Hindu, but there is a real value placed on inclusivity — my visit coincided with Ramadan, and I was invited to a celebration for the breaking of the fast, Iftar. The mess was arranged with a large blanket in the middle, and we sat in a circle and broke fast with dates and mangoes and gram and other delicacies. In that circle were Muslims, but also Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and non-believers — sharing a connection, joyfully and respectfully.

This is an embodiment of the Yash Papers Value ‘Joy at Work’: Freedom of thoughts & decision…

Deepali, a bright and earnest female member asked me about wholeness. “Madam”, she said, “how do I bring all of myself to work?” I replied “you choose to, you model it, and you practice holding a safe space for others to do the same”.

Orange organisations call a change of strategy a ‘pivot’. In teal, it’s merely evolution of purpose. At Yash Papers, this is common practice — an environment that values experimentation. This can be unsettling for some — another change, just when we were getting used to the previous one. But they are truly iterations — and fearlessness. And the more practiced they become, the more natural it feels — to learn to feel the organism as that, to allow emergence, to sense and respond. Ved deftly and patiently holds that space.

I have been at once quietly stunned, and not at all surprised by what I have witnessed in Faizabad. Not surprised because we know that we share a common longing for connectedness, a sense of purpose, and a way of being with our work that does not diminish but enhances, does not extract but sustains. What did surprise and humble me is that this can be true in India, where neither life nor business is ‘easy’ by the Western definition. The impulse persists, and the pulse itself beats so strongly in those who perhaps daren’t believe that it’s possible for them — until they try. Until they collectively build and infuse their own environment with a sense of possibility and wholeness.

Perhaps it takes a visionary like Semler or deBlok or Rufer — if so, Ved Krishna stands beside these vanguards. If not, the members of Yash Papers have themselves created a uniquely expressed opportunity for Teal emergence in India.

Value of the Connector

Making connections –for myself, and for others makes me feel alive and happy. For example, the Unity in Diversity project that I’ve been working on for the past 4 months, is a core team that is across NZ, California, Connecticut, France and Germany. None of us knew any of us this time last year, but the ease and grace with which we do the work and hold the space is something to behold. 

Last week, I had the chance to have a conversation with one of my absolute heroes in the world my brain inhabits (participatory organizations), Bonnitta Roy. I have so many examples of my just noticing, thanking, commenting, and requesting that have resulted in connecting with people whose brains and hearts inspire me every day. 

Back in the day, you’d write a letter and hope for a reply – maybe a signed photo! 

Today, it’s completely possible to initiate real relationship with pretty much anyone who is open to it. And wow does it make you feel good when you receive an enthusiastic reply. 

I also get it that it doesn’t always happen. I remember writing a heartfelt note to Tony Schwartz, and feeling nice about the fact that he stalked my Linkedin page. But he didn’t accept my invitation to connect, nor did he acknowledge my note. That’s OK, people are busy – but I use that example as, in my experience, the exception to the rule. 

I suppose the team at Linkedin isn’t dumb – I like to think that when they put together their user stories back in, or around the turn of the century ( I love saying that!) that one of their user stories would be someone like me, in little New Zealand, with big ideas about the power of connection and influence and network, and that they designed with me in mind. 

(Interesting aside, I was one of Linkedin’s first 10,000 users!) 

Maybe 10 years ago I received a personal note from Reid Hoffman thanking me. I love that. I like being a market maker – and really appreciated being noticed for my place in that. 

I think that partly what has happened for me is that my Working Out Loud practice moved from ‘something I did as a project’ to something I do as muscle memory –reflexively. 

My friend Ben and I talk a lot about conversation, connection, and technology (he is such a guru on the practice!) and recently that talk has transcended the technology into the Hx (human interface), which is this subtle and potentially undervalued but so important role of connector – curated, specific, intentional, appropriate connections. 

And isn’t it curious and wonderful that technology can now allow us to reallythink about the Hx?

Writing as a social contract

When I think about what I write, I endeavour to keep a balance between what serves me and what serves others. How can I ensure that I am writing in a way that captures the (my) stories in a way that is meaningful for others in a way that enlivens the work we are all doing? I feel like I need a lot more practice eliciting stories. I can’t wait to spend more time with Michael Margolis.

Why is story so powerful?

That’s probably one of the most rhetorical questions ever asked.

Answer: it’s just because it is — and the fact of language alone is the reason that it is — the communication mechanism we share that transmits our shared experience. Perhaps more so than the sharing of knowledge — and in a way it’s one of the only chances we have, without overtly intentional practice, to tap into the collective intelligence of the group or community.

How many times have you read something, or heard a story and thought ‘wow she is talking about me’ or ‘yea totally — I completely understand what you are saying’ or even ‘ YES! You put into words what I’ve been sensing without being able to elucidate.’ That sense of connection, and when it’s great, it can tap into the stream of our collective conscious (if you believe, as I do, that exists) or at least our shared experience. I think it’s part of our social agreement — to share our stories — and not only for ourselves, but for each other.

And not even from a posture of needing or wanting to share our thoughts and experiences with heretofore unknowns (our not yet enlightened audience!), but just for US. The whole ‘heretofore unknowns’ piece is a bonus, because our stories by default elicit additional stories of common (if not shared) experience, that can build on and give examples of and context for what is possible in a world where everyone’s experience is witnessed.

Our backstory.

And the essence of connection: to be witnessed.

The invitation: tell your story.

Be witnessed, as an individual, and as part of whatever this emerging collective of storytellers is on any particular day. Be witnessed by the emerging collective of those of us who ache to be your witness. Be witnessed by the heretofore unknowns who are straining to hear what you have to say.

The container is ready — let’s hold it tight — and fill it up.

This is a story of invitation, and invocation.

We know it’s not always easy, to share that quiet shy part that fears judgement.

Our social contract is strong enough to hold fear at arms length.

I Appreciate... a pi-spective

What enlivens? I’ve been obsessing recently on my scarcity mindset, which I perceive as pervasive in my work networks. The scarcity of time, of resource, of funds. I’ve mused on this in the context of wholeness –that if we can being more facets of who we are to our work, we access a more diverse pool of resource. That may be a part of a solution. I think that perspective enlivens.

We humans are wired to consider ourselves as problems to be fixed, rather than beings with the potential to be enlivened.

I spent the last couple of days at a conference with really neat people — professionals striving to master their work. We approached our time together with a (non-explicit) frame of ‘what problem(s) can we solve together.’

The unconference format provided an opportunity to offer an Appreciative Inquiry. The question:

“what do you most appreciate about yourself’”

evokes such strong emotion, pushback, the mind instantly going to the negative — or into a narrative that contextualizes achievements in the third person, not as ones self.

Kiwis are taught that anything that smacks of braggadocio is simply not done. It’s so much easier to be self-deprecating and express the negative. It’s super vulnerable to say what you appreciate about yourself. Scott appreciates his humour and his sincerity. Yet he revealed that he probably wouldn’t have been willing to share that with the people he works with.

We sit at conferences craving lessons to help us become more empathetic, better listeners, any number of qualities we believe will make us better coaches or leaders, and better at appreciating others.

We can’t be authentic until we are authentic.

Appreciative Inquiry evokes stories that provide an instantaneous feedback loop — a story of a tenacious of a young woman who arrives alone in New Zealand connects back to her self appreciation of tenacity. That’s authenticity, wholeness, and abundance.

My Priviledge - a pi-spective

I live a life of privilege — and to be perfectly honest, I’ve not always been aware of it or the deep and powerful bias that entails. My privilege isn’t immense financial wealth; it’s the privilege of belief — that anything is possible until it isn’t.

The origin of my privilege goes all the way back to what my dad said to me when I was 6 — something like:

‘Susan, you can do and be whatever you want to be’.

And so that became my bias.

I wonder if it’s as easy as that? For someone fundamental in a young person’s life to set that tone. I wonder if I would have remembered it if my mum had said it? Or a teacher? And if we dismantle all the components of privilege, might that be at the top of the tree? The privilege of self-belief –the gift of believing that anything is possible.

Even at 6, I didn’t think of it as a super power — it was more like a sense that I was OK — I was solid, and capable.

The only other ‘message’ from an elder that stuck with me was from 6th grade.

I was at the front of the class selecting other students for some sort of project — and the teacher, Mr. Ferraro, was at the back gesturing to some kids I maybe wouldn’t have naturally chosen — so that I would notice them and give them a chance. And I did. I’ve carried some of Mr. Ferraro’s advice with me as well.

What if we were to offer all children two gifts of privilege? They might be as simple as the two bestowed on me:

You are capable

and

Don’t always choose the obvious.

I wonder how I would have ‘turned out’ without those?

Perhaps it is a super power; I still think I could climb Mt. Everest.

Or Mt. Taranaki!

I hear your Heart (a pi-spective)

Last week I made peace with my big ears. My pi-spectives are shaping up to be my lessons of self-acceptance, how I learned to love the physical attributes that once caused pain or hurt or frustration.

On a good day, if my hair is tall but not too tall, I’m about 5’0005” — short. Some of you (I’m certain!) have been referred to as ginger guy or freckly girl or stretch, I’m the short chick. And I’m not fine-boned either, so wouldn’t consider myself ‘petite’. There are benefits — I can weave my way through crowds, but rarely do I get a good view of the band. I fit into boys age 12 shorts and sneakers. But I always thought that each generation was supposed to be taller? I’m the shortest in my family by at least 2 inches.

And let’s face it, one’s height is harder to disguise than one’s ears. Of course I tried; high heels ruined my feet! But I have, again recently, like with my ears, learned to love being short.

Or as I prefer to call it — small

And I’m a hugger.

There is nothing like the warmth of a hug to convey connection, trust and just plain yumminess (OK that sounds weird!). I used to be a kisser, but I’ve had to stop that — NZ isn’t really a kissing country. It used to make me a little cranky that my preferred greeting was often received with shock/suspicion, but I’ve gotten over that now.

I realized something truly remarkable. Because I’m ‘small’, when I’m hugging a man, my head (and big ear!) is usually the exact height of his heart! So when drawn into an embrace of welcome or farewell, I spend a few extra seconds, listening to a heart. Like the lyric of an obscure Scottish poet (writing in French)

j’entend ton coeur.

I hear your heart.

Why I love my Big Ears (a pi-spective)

Have you yet reached that day when you look in the mirror, and what looks back is not you, but your mom or dad? It’s quite unsettling.

In reality I’m not the spitting image of either my mom or my dad, but I seem to be growing my mother’s ears. And apparently it’s true —

ears never stop growing.

I was in denial — but yep, no doubt about it. Rita’s ears.

I love that I am learning to listen — really listen. It takes practice, and dedication. It really is a skill. I think I’m getting better at it. I don’t get distracted as much as I used to. I’ve practiced listening with my eyes open and my eyes shut…

There are myriad tips for how to listen better, to focus, to read body language. It depends on what you are listening for: Is it in the service of understanding? Creation? Empathy or compassion? In the service of me? Of you?

A friend of mine recently told the story of an experiment he and a few friends did setting up a ‘listening stand’ at an event. The invitation was for anyone to tell their story to an unbiased, non-judgemental person — to get it out. Hardly anyone took it up. My friend thought it was in service to the person that needed to ‘get it off their chest’.

In retrospect, he realized that in fact it wasn’t about creating the space for individuals to get their story out. It was actually about him, hungering to hear their stories.

The next iteration of the experiment will be “I want to hear you”, not “you need to tell me”.

That’s how I learned to love my big, every growing, somewhat knobbly ears.

I want to hear you.

Emerging into Teal through Working out Loud - Part 3: Evolutionary Purpose

A few weeks ago, at a TealNZ Meetup, my friend Anake shared this poweful quote that shifted my lens on purpose:

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”

― Rumi

In Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux describes the idea that just as our individual purpose evolves, so does the organization’s purpose.

Evolutionary purpose was a tricky concept to get my head around. Some people believe that our purpose stays consistent throughout our lifetime — but that hasn’t been true for me. Absolutely everything has evolved — the words, intent, context. Here is my purpose as at March 2016:

I believe that through cultivating, curating, catalyzing and convening, I will serve people who are interested by identifying opportunities to play and experiment with new ways of working and being.

Sarah Rozenthuler’s 3 Adventures of Purpose-Led Leadership challenges us to find a place or an opportunity from where to stand and deliver. For me this must be in the context of big epiphany:

“I don’t want to do this on my own.”

Epiphany arrives; you must wander off piste, and make your own tracks.

I acknowledged the fact that there aren’t many companies out there yet that intrinsically or instinctively match my purpose.

I don’t want to be lead by dogma or shrink-wrapped products — so that narrows the opportunities even further! I want to self-manage into the roles where I can be my whole self, and that which best represent my purpose. I know I need to ‘work out loud’ to test and verify and challenge and question and support. Thankfully I have my intention circles of randoms, but it’s still uncharted waters.

My thoughts turned to this co-operative band of ventures in Wellington, called Enspiral. Enspiral is a bold experiment to create a collaborative network that helps people do meaningful work. Enspiral’s purpose is ‘more people working on stuff that matters’

How does this connect to Working out Loud?

One part of the Working Out Loud framework focuses on building relationships with people or organizations that interest you — that you sense will be important to you in some way (and that could be anything). We do this by honestly understanding the value of the relationship when we start — over the weeks, through the sharing of universal gifts, increase our intimacy level with the individual or organisation increases.

I went exploring, intentionally building a relationship with Enspiral, and I found a place to stand. It feels great to say this:

I am aligned with and contributing to Enspiral. The collective provide me with support, challenge, and a framework for my purpose — the work I am here to do.

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How does Working out Loud help both ourselves and our organizations express this idea of evolutionary purpose? It took me a while to come to my own understanding of evolutionary purpose.

Several metaphors have helped me, the first starts by thinking about how a forest or garden comes into being.

When the first seedling sprouts from the soil, no one has any idea what it’s going to be or look like in a year, 5 years, 100 years, 10,000 years.

Going right back to how the seed got into that little bit of soil — perhaps a bird pooped it out from a meal taken a few days and many kilometers flight away…

What happens next is anybody’s guess, and dependent and interdependent on who and what touches it. What is the weather like that year? What has the wind blown in? What other animals or people have tracked through with paws or shoe? That garden becomes what it becomes from both its individuated beginning and everything that touches it over the course of its existence. I think a company is the same.

Another metaphor is a ship…

The ship sets sail on a sea that is in perpetual motion, within an atmosphere in which winds are in perpetual motion. You can see it in your mind’s eye — the old wooden ship with the big wheel and a rudder and sails and the crow’s nest. The crew should know every job, how the moving parts work, and the effect they have.

When ancestors of the Tangata Whenua of Aotearoa left Hawaiki (Taiwan?), I’m pretty sure they didn’t know exactly where they were going. They knew they were going somewhere, and that there purpose was to find that ‘somewhere’. And it’s easy to imagine that purpose evolving over time.

On a ship, as a crew, you have to work out loud in the moment, and evolve together as your course evolves.

Like a ship on the ocean, our lives are not straight lines — even if we want them to be.

Some of the richest examples manifest by way of individuals Working Out Loud in organizations is to help both identify and strategize how one might change role or location or trajectory, and by extension an evolving purpose.

My friend Mara is a great example — a New Zealander, she worked in London for many years. When she (with intention) joined a circle, her goal was to figure out a way to keep her same job and move back to NZ. This may sound easy, but if you consider her role and the organization, it was anything but. Working out Loud helped her do this!

Was moving back to NZ and keeping her same job Mara’s purpose when she arrived in the UK? Probably not. But, with children, her purpose changed — priorities changed, what she and her husband saw for their future changed. Her personal purpose evolved.

I am another good example of how Working out Loud helped me to articulate my personal purpose — I didn’t have the words just yet, but working with my circle over the months, I came to understand my gifts better, because I was able to express them wholly, without fear of retribution or getting fired or looking like an ass.

I can’t explain why that happens in a circle, but it does. And that freedom, coupled with the sense of possibility that comes from feeling safe, allowed me to ‘figure it out’ and maybe that’s the key to this whole thing.

My Working out Loud circle gave me support and stopped me floundering around — focused my intentions and me

The circle itself has an evolutionary purpose that serves as microcosm of what is possible. If we believe that — everything that describes the magic of the circle is truly the intersection of personal and organizational purpose into this evolving organization of 3 or 4 or 6 individuals. Some circles end precisely on 12 weeks, some splutter and die before they get going, and some may last a season or a lifetime.

The lessons from a circle practice abide. Add a dimension to the compost or soup that will at once form and inform your evolutionary purpose.

Here’s another example — when I started thinking about writing a series about the possibilities when Reinventing Organizations and Working Out Loud intersect, I thought there would be four parts. But as I got into it, as I started doing the work, things changed, and I am ending this series here.

Join a circle. Work Out Loud. Reinvent. Play. Experiment.