* Organizational Learning
If I Wanted America To Fail: Positioning Humanity’s Future
Notice! : I recently received negative feedback on this article. People are particially reading it, then watching the video, and assuming that I am advocating for right wing politics, which is not at all the point of my article. So, as you read, watch for the fears as they arise in your mind. Read with a discerning eye and ask yourself – what is the point of this article?
I watched this video today and found myself whirling in passion, anger, confusion, and drive, which compelled my to write. Please watch this video ‘first’, then read my article, and please share your thoughts with me in the comments box. I find the underlying topic of the video (i.e. not the subjects of the video themselves) to be a source of volatility and danger. Yet as well, vitality and nourishment are contained therein that can help us become empowered to direct what our future is to become.
This video is an emotionally drawing, well synthesized, manipulation of content that both inspires and conspires. Very well done. It is an excellent piece to bring into conversation for ‘The Next Edge’, ‘ConversationCafe.org’, and similar groups.
The video directs watchers toward a toll on the bridge, where humanity has staged a stand-off between ‘knowledge and intent’, and ‘values and value’. It is mixed with both wrong and right points that influence the watcher’s mind, depending on which side of the bridge you start from.
To take messages like this ‘as-is’ and attempt to stand for your view through reason is suicide. But to collaboratively play with the video’s nuances can help to realize new forms of awareness that become a foundation for humanity’s crossing into our future. A forecast that, by design, does not force individuals to take a stand, but to instead freely cross destiny’s bridge to address our fate together.
I encourage those who come to this grand dialog to not distain nor proclaim the video’s message as ‘reasonable’. Do not take a stand. Rather, become a watcher of what emerges from within a rich non-defensive dialog about the subjects this video brings front-and-center. Allow the unfolding of unexpected answers to happen – those that can only be realized from within a collaborative generative conversation. A gathering where the badges of ‘expert’ and ‘authority’ are left at the gate. Allow its content to guide us (rather than collide us) toward destiny’s call.
Let us use information, such as what is described in this video, to move ourselves from the dangers of positioning an ’emergency’ into a place of ’emergence’, where wonder and creativity (not just rationality and fact) are the foundations for shaping our future.
Moving from Thinking to Action – The Fears and Myths that Bind Us (part 1)
Transformation or Collapse?
Many of us sense that humanity is a a place of act now or die – no exaggeration. Yet, not much change seems to be happening, especially in human behavior.
There seems to be incredible unconscious fears about acting on ideas, and even more about the future that is ours … Just better not to think about that part. Thinking is wonderful, but if it just stays in the mind, nothing new gets created. And I’m not sure that thought is the way out of our misbehavior in a world that is asking for a reunification of its wholeness.
‘Failure’ too is another show stopper. It is so voodoo in most cultures that it freezes people from action, and increases the thinking – It’s safer there. Even the responsibility of success is scary because of the confusion that comes up when we think of having to do the work; for no pay typically. How would we survive?
The essence of personal sustainability emerges in this space and is not being addressed in traditional organizations – even the ones who are attempting to apply sustainability in terms of technical developments. There also seems to be a fear of abandonment and being shamed if acting on their out-of-the-box, culturally unaccepted ideas. I speak from my own experiences here, but this has not stopped me from trying. Not one bit. But I’ll admit it has put me into a horrible place in life, with no ability to make ends meet financially, loss of friends and family, inability to find meaningful work, isolation, and so on. I guess their fears are valid.
Yet: Where are the new heroes going to emerge? I have felt for sometime that the new hero is not “a” hero, but a collective “heronis”. This is my word for a collaborative form of heroism that arises through the integrity of collaborative design. Strangely, very few seem to know how to do this thing called ‘collaboration’ and fall into the trap of linear structured methods of development that depends on singular forms of leadership – truly old paradigm, but still viscerally real in our existing world.
This way of organizing worked in the past, but now it only sets up false expectations based on the idea of a ‘savior’, an idea that is so prominent in all human cultures. The savior mythology for leadership needs to pass out of our consciousness so that a new myth can emerge – a global mythology that reshapes the role of leadership from having power ‘over’ people into power ‘to’ people. Myth is where the unseen directives that influence a society’s way of being come from, and is where we will need to go – if we want to see real change.
More on this is coming – how to move from thinking to action, and how our fears and myths blind and bind us. I plan to move this discussion into the realm of ‘values’ – those tangible tidbits that are visible when a culture’s underlying story (its mythology) expresses itself. They are the bridge from the conscious to unconscious, and have a big role in limiting the emergence of a new creation myth by entangling our abilities to manifest an evolved shared humanity. Vic D. 🙂
A Practical Theory On Leadership & Collaboration – ‘The Shirtless Dancing Guy’
I got this video off of Charles Lemos’ site and was referred to it by Ben Roberts’ Facebook conversation. Derek Sivers gave this presentation at the TED Conference this week and got a standing ovation. It’s pretty brilliant in its takeaway. The video below is a healthy perspective on the collective’s role in leadership, especially the ‘first follower’. Watch how this natural form of taking the lead seeds the beginning of collaboration.
Here’s the transcript, with bold notes made by Charles. Thanks to Charles and Derik.
If you’ve learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let’s watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons:
A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he’s doing is so simple, it’s almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow!
Now comes the first follower with a crucial role: he publicly shows everyone how to follow. Notice the leader embraces him as an equal, so it’s not about the leader anymore – it’s about them, plural. Notice he’s calling to his friends to join in. It takes guts to be a first follower! You stand out and brave ridicule, yourself. Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire.
The 2nd follower is a turning point: it’s proof the first has done well. Now it’s not a lone nut, and it’s not two nuts. Three is a crowd and a crowd is news.
A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers, because new followers emulate followers – not the leader.
Now here come 2 more, then 3 more. Now we’ve got momentum. This is the tipping point! Now we’ve got a movement!
As more people jump in, it’s no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there’s no reason not to join now. They won’t be ridiculed, they won’t stand out, and they will be part of the in-crowd, if they hurry. Over the next minute you’ll see the rest who prefer to be part of the crowd, because eventually they’d be ridiculed for not joining.
And ladies and gentlemen that is how a movement is made! Let’s recap what we learned:
If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy, all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you.
Be public. Be easy to follow!
But the biggest lesson here – did you catch it?
Leadership is over-glorified.
Yes it started with the shirtless guy, and he’ll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened:
It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader.
There is no movement without the first follower.
We’re told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective.
The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.
When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.
Be a follower, join a movement. That’s how change happens.
Fukushima Radiation and the End of Life as We Know It
OMG … What have we done to ourselves and our children’s future?!
Most of us think the nightmare of Fukushima’s nuclear power towers is over, but it has only just begun. Do not feed your family Pacific Ocean fish, ever again.
The blindness of our so-called intelligent experts, and the complacency of us as citizens, has now placed humanity in an accelerated breakdown of the planet’s life system. And it is continuing to get worse. Only this time it is affecting not just the environment, but us as well – Human Beings DIRECTLY. Scientists are warning the greatest risk to humanity, right now today, is coming from Fukushima’s fuel pools.
Even with the Fukushima nightmare happening, are you aware of how many more nuclear plants are being readied for development right now? Why, after a series of major incidents over the years, do we still continue to allow nuclear energy? Feel the fear of our foolishness – Feel it to your core. Because the upwelling of that fear may be the only thing that can enable us to act out against the horror of nuclear energy. With tears in my eyes I ask you to read more on the data being gathered. Here is a list of 28 signs that prove the U.S. West Coast is getting radiated.
Watch the videos below. You have every right to feel terrified as you watch. Let that fear help us to act on what we can today, not tomorrow. Although it may already be too late for us and for many generations to come, please take the initiative to act. Find ways to STOP putting any more radiation into our world.