Lost in Transition
Conversations as Maps
Talking of Indigenous Culture, Tyson Yunkaporta observes that Aborigines have no word for or concept of “safety.” Instead, he advocates for protocols of protection that operate on two fundamental principles: looking out for yourself and looking out for the people around you. We should learn from that. (Sand Talk)
These are times full of uncertainty. Life is not linear, and the number of spaces with boundaries we cannot penetrate seems to grow daily. At the same time as the pressures we are under from climate, ecology, geopolitics and our more prosaic work environments increase, so does our denial of them at all practical levels, as COP29 became a parody of itself, as we “dig baby dig”, we continue to lose species, are moving into wars both hot and cold, as we become, inexorably, not so much part of work, but parts at work; quantifiable, tradable and replaceable.
It is not much consolation to know that this is all perfectly normal, and that it is just a function of the time we happen to be alive. Others have gone through similar. Civilisations go through emergence, growth, peak and decline, and we just got the “decline” ticket in the generational lottery. That doesn’t mean that we do nothing.
We are the midwives of what comes next and have a job to do.
“Whatever your personal beliefs and experiences, I invite you to consider that we need a new worldview to navigate this chaotic time. We cannot hope to make sense using our old maps. It won’t help to dust them off or reprint them in bold colours. The more we rely on them, the more disoriented we become. They cause us to focus on the wrong things and blind us to what’s significant. Using them, we will journey only to greater chaos.”
Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
In my post on Sunday, I ended with a question in preparation for this evening’s open Zoom call at 5:00 UK time. “when we’re lost in transition, where do we go?”
Tyson Yunkaporta suggests that Indigenous approaches to uncertainty stem from rejecting safety as a controllable variable and from a deeper understanding of systems and balance. He emphasizes that completely open systems without limits are problematic, and everything, even perceived negative elements, has its proper place. This promotes a more nuanced understanding of protection that acknowledges complexity rather than seeking absolute safety.
The implications run counter to our learned approaches and argue that mistakes can be treated as normal occurrences, that harm can be acknowledged and mended, that not knowing something is acceptable, and that accountability becomes a shared responsibility.
Whilst most of us will understand this at an intellectual and even emotional level, the effort required to turn it into practice is daunting. Despite decades of convincing ourselves we can build learning organisations, it appears we cannot. Scale in organisations demands compliance and predictability. As a result, they learn more slowly than their environment changes, and whether they like it or not, they have a lifecycle. Apple may be approaching its 50th Anniversary, but it’s a toddler compared to an Oak tree.
An interesting point was raised on the EQLab “Drinking Dialogues” call today (highly recommended). As things change, do organisations shape their work, or does work shape organisations? Who is driving the bus? All the evidence suggests it is not organisations, even those led by CEOs with egos the size of planets.
Which leads to a follow-up question: Who do you work for?
An organisation, a profession, or a craft?
Which leads to another. What are you pursuing?
A task, an idea, or a relationship, and if so, a relationship with what? A Cause, a Dream, or Money?
Let’s turn back to the question: Where do we go when we’re lost in transition?
I said in my Sunday post that I would ask AI, and here’s what it (Claude 3.5 Sonnet) said:
First, turn inward, taking time to reflect on our values, what gives us meaning, and what we truly want from this next chapter.
Secondly, turn to our foundations - the relationships, principles and proven sources of stability that have anchored us in the past.
Third, we might choose to lean into the uncertainty, to embrace being lost as a state of possibility rather than seeing it only as displacement. Some of humanity’s most profound growth and innovation have emerged from periods of disruption and questioning.
Not bad. (If you’re a coach reading this, Sainsbury is hiring Christmas Delivery Drivers)
What it doesn’t do, of course, is copy our greatest single strength separating us from AI—our ability to work together to explore the future rather than just parse writing that happens to be lying to a digital hand; to explore through conversation, create stories that propel us, and draw the maps we need.
That’s why New Artisans, Outside the Walls, and the experimental community we have created exist: to explore together, without a plan or a destination, in the sure knowledge that who and what turns up will be who and what we need to turn our maps into an understanding of the territory.
See you this evening.