Every significant change, throughout history, has happened when the paradigm holding the status quo in place, shifted in some way. People began to see the world through new eyes, and the simple act of seeing it differently helped them think in new ways, and make the transition to a new place.
Without this fundamental shift, however, we rehash old ideas and recreate the past. Problems persist, not because there’s no alternative, but because there’s no alternative way of seeing and thinking about what’s going on.
Making assumptions
Language is a window into the paradigm in play, and the everyday language of the workplace contains all kinds of clues to the assumptions and beliefs that dominate every discipline, industry and profession today. Words like re-engineering, downsizing, embedding, skilling-up, cascading, rolling out, going forward and so on, all point to a belief that somehow the messiness of organisational life can be brought to heel with bureaucratic neatness and control.
If this rational, mechanistic language makes your heart sink, you’re not alone. There’s a growing community of people in all walks of life who feel there’s an enormous gap between the taken-for-granted view of the world, and the way the world really works. They know there has to be a better way, though they may not have an alternative lens and language to express their convictions.
But there is one, waiting to be embraced. It’s the lens of living systems, and its insights lie at the heart of CultureWork. The principles of life turn conventional wisdom on its head and inspire an entirely different way of engaging with the world around us.
Changing thinking changes everything
Appreciating organisations as living systems and understanding ourselves as participants in an interdependent living web in which everything affects everything else, transforms our understanding of how things work, how things change, and how to be more effective.
Seeing people and organisations as self-determining and naturally intelligent shifts attention away from planning and managing outcomes, to the more subtle task of cultivating the cultural space in which things happen.
In the wider context this shift in perception is the key to animating the cultural transition urgently needed in the institutions that shape our lives and our future. Seeing the world and our place in it in a relational, ‘systemic’ way would transform the values that drive us, the choices we make and in turn, the culture we create.
Discovering the principles of life and living systems is liberating and empowering. At last, a new lens, a new language, and a new common sense.
Yes, we can change the world. But first, we have to change the world inside our head.
CultureWork: what we do
The CultureWork suite of processes is a unique resource designed to support the work of transition in organisations and communities.
The insights of living systems inform our work and inspire a life-centred approach to cultural renewal. We present these ideas at workshops, seminars and conferences and help people explore this perspective more fully through our special development programmes Seeing Systems and Q5: New Leadership at Work.
"Your presentation took the conference by storm."
"This programme provides us with a language and a set of concepts that enable us to see ourselves as active agents in creating both the problems and the solutions, in a way that is articulate, passionate and inspiring."
"Really, really inspiring stuff - a key building block of the residential."
"What you said wasn’t new. What is very new is the way you connect up so many ideas."
"It was radical - in the sense that a radical inspires hope rather than confirms despair."
"A breath of fresh air."
"Great presence, and great emotion and courage."
"Brilliant session - perfect pace."
"This was an incredibly powerful session."
"These ideas are central to the human enterprise in the 21st century. Presented in a dynamic, engaging and empowering way, it is fascinating stuff. You’ll never see the world in the same way again."