What is the ‘real work’?
‘It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.’
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. An unlikely combination and a fitting start for a piece about radical collaboration. Have you ever wondered what it takes for seemingly impossible situations to be settled, resolved, pulled back from the brink, turned around? What does it mean to go from one mindset to another, from a broken relationship to a working one, from one system to another? How is it even possible to go from conflict to peace, disbelief to a way forward, denial to movement? What does it take for something that was once ‘radical’ to become ‘normal’?
Opinions and positions are becoming more entrenched and more polarised, encouraged by social media, and, because we are living in exceptional, existential times. It provokes on the one hand denial, fear, faction, blaming, and creation of the ‘other’. But it is also a source of action, propulsion, community, alternative thinking, a capacity to see an alternative better future. As we have seen in recent racist riots, radical collaboration is becoming more difficult and even more necessary. The decision for all of us, in one form or another, is which path will we take? Neither is easy, one involves holding onto long held beliefs, assumptions and narratives; the other involves letting them go. What does it take to see beyond our own immediate horizon?
Even the word collaboration carries with it a double meaning, in current usage it’s generally seen as a welcome, collective activity, capable of bringing more potential, and positivity. In past times it was used as a term of abuse when someone was a collaborator with the enemy. In current times is it both and like beauty is it in the eye of the beholder? In considering the words of Wendell Berry and indeed the thinking of Rupert Read in his work The Climate Majority Project, the real work lies in conversations and collaboration with the ‘other’.
There is a common factor in both world stage changes such as the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement, recent elections in France and the UK, the COP 21 Paris Agreement, and those on a smaller stage, such as restorative justice practice - which brings together those who have harmed with those who have been harmed, to find repair and resolution. All have, crucially, involved the forming of unlikely alliances of enemies; in modern terms, ‘frenemies’. Achieving this requires a process that involves much grafting, crafting, and compromise combined with a faith in the unknown, and unseen.
In the words of David Whyte ‘Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take’. What might the first step look like? A belief in the counterintuitive path, or one that does no further harm, or even just being prepared to hear a counterintuitive truth in the first place, or simply just being open enough to let it in the possibility of an uncomfortable truth?
When you read accounts of big world stage moments, it looks like it often was, still is, a ‘battleground’ for power. So, at which point, or points did/does the unthinkable happen? Based on my own experience it’s not one single thing that makes the difference. I vividly remember a time as a new CEO. My style of leadership was very different from the previous CEO and it presented a particular challenge to at least one of the senior management team. Even as I write I can feel the sense of being in over my head, a toxic mix of fear, of failure, of vulnerability and of shame at my inability to work together with this person and lead the team. I wanted to run away. I had become the ‘other’ to them and they had become the ‘other’ to me. This culminated in tense senior management meetings, a lack of progress with organisational priorities, at a highly sensitive time, members of the team were being compromised and impacted by the poor relationship. In short at the heart of the organisation was a lack of trust and respect.
In the spirit of anything had to be better than this, I had to ‘get over myself’. If I wanted things to be different I had to try something different. Looking back I think this was the start of ‘seeing’ messiness, uncertainty, and vulnerability as normal and as allies. Being in over my head and not knowing which way to go pushed me through my fears, I had to collaborate with the ‘other’ in me first. There was no perfect solution but we found a way to have a safe, honest, conversation with a skilled facilitator and I had to hear some hard truths about myself. We found a way to work together to do no further harm, which at least allowed others to get on with the real work. It was a time of powerful leadership moments and insights for me.
On reflection it was an accumulation of events, and real tiredness with the existing situation. So the pain of moving towards a different - if unknown – future, which I believed or hoped for, was I hoped going to be less painful than what I was leaving behind. It included leaving behind parts of me: for example, that because I was CEO, I should have an answer.
As we face into the meta crises here and ahead, how do we transform our mindsets and imagination to create a regenerative future? How do we succeed in working with people, or the more than human, that we don’t agree with, like, trust or understand?
Adam Kahane talks about ‘stretch’, involving the capacity to let go of conventional approaches to collaboration, stretching into embracing conflict and connections, stretching away from clear agreements, experimenting, stretching away from ourselves and into the game, open to the possibilities of changing ourselves. ‘If we are not part of the problem, we can’t be part of the solution.’
Bill Sharpe talks about working ‘with our own response to the challenge, to come together in exploring our visions, to make of hope not only an individual capacity not to give up, but a way to respond with creativity towards the one not yet known.’
Rupert Read in The Climate Majority Project talks about a far wider inclusive approach to climate action, he talks of a mass movement in waiting who are beginning to ask ‘what can I do?’, and that we need to respond without asking the ‘impossible.’
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer talks of the relationship between humanity and nature as one based on gratitude and reciprocity not one of supremacy. ‘Where the well-being of one is linked to the well-being of all.’ Professor Tom Oliver explores a changing paradigm in the human to nature relationship. He writes about ‘A nature-centric perspective is one where we see humans as being on a par with other species, fostering a sense of kinship where we deeply appreciate a more equal connection to nature and appreciating its intrinsic value.’ All of this means a very different approach, one of radical collaboration with ourselves, the other, and with our relationship with ‘the planet’.
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Some inquiries we might to ponder on:
How do we learn/unlearn our responses to the ‘other’, including the ‘other’ in me?
If we are to come together as a majority, how do we learn tolerant behaviour - as opposed to a conditional approach - to joining in the shared challenge of the changes ahead, that are required of all of us?
How do we choose agency over powerlessness?
How do we actively choose radical collaboration which is more than ourselves, our knowledge, our experience, our comfort zones?
What does it take for something that was once ‘radical’ to become ‘normal’?
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Returning to the words of Wendell Berry ‘It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.’
If you’d like to further explore the theme of radical collaboration and the inquiries offered here, join our Monday Monthly on October 21st, 4-5pm UK.
If you’d like to catalyse more generative relationships, deeply exploring all that matters in relation to a specific transformation you care about, join our online programme, The Patterning of Hope. Starts November, early bird runs until September 6th.
References
Adam Kahane - Collaborating with the Enemy
Bill Sharpe - Three Horizons - The Patterning of Hope
Rupert Read - The Climate Majority Project - Setting the Stage for a Mainstream Urgent Climate Movement
Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass
Professor Tom Oliver - How to Foster Kinship with Nature to Tackle The Planetary Environmental Crisis
Thanks to Katie Teague for her labyrinth image.