Our range of creative expression increases as we join with others. New relationships create new capacities.
Margaret Wheatley

Nature sustains life by creating and nurturing communities. No individual organism can exist in isolation.
Fritjof Capra

When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness
Joseph Campbell

Every interaction is a relationship. A pot pourri of individual contributions: physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. And each contribution matters. With a partner of thirty years, or a local news vendor for thirty seconds, your contribution to the relationship can be good. Or bad. Or indifferent. In every situation you have a role. And you have a choice.
dya | Exploring the Communication Dynamic

The things people say!

"We are listening to each other much better, and appreciate difference rather than see it as a challenge or a barrier to be knocked down."

"There’s greater trust between us now, but also in our relationship with the wider community."

"There was a kind of maturing in the group generally. Others can see it in us. Our group process has changed dramatically..."

"The process enabled us to see where we were going, and it highlighted the vital necessity to communicate and to be open to communication..."

"At an ordinary human level, this process has allowed us to listen to each other without judgement. And to me that is absolutely fantastic..."

culturework

changing the way
you change

Changing the
social architecture

Meeting

Social systems are conversations in motion. We co-create our world and our organisations through our constant interaction. In every way, we make each other. None of us is as clever as all of us - whatever the organisational chart might suggest!

With processes inspired by the principles of self-organising living systems, we can help you to design and host different kinds of meetings to access intelligence and experience, and maximise the participation and contribution of those who matter. read more

Communicating

As a living system, an organisation is healthiest and most resilient when its internal and external relationships are strong and generative. Communication is the currency of those relationships so it is literally the lifeblood of organisation and community.

We’ll help you to frame a communication agenda that will cultivate a coherent and resilient culture with appropriate ways of planning, practising and evaluating communication so that it continually supports your key objectives, and strengthens the internal and external relationships that make work work. read more

Organising

The conventional hierarchical model of organising limits participation, distorts perceptions of responsibility and accountability, stifles communication and weakens the web of relationship.

The principles of Nature can help us to work better together. With the design principles of viable living systems as our touchstone, we can help you to increase participation, distribute responsibility and leadership, and make the organisation more effective, responsive and resilient. read more

Relationship is the primary universal principle. It’s the way life organises itself in all its varied and interesting forms. An ant, a meadow, Earth itself, a person, a group of people of any size - in a living system, everything exists ‘in relationship’.

The health of a system is intricately bound to the health of its relationships - both internal and external. When the relational web is dense and dynamic the system is strong and resilient. When the web is thin or fractured, the system is weak and vulnerable.

Seen through the lens of living systems, an organisation is an ecology of relationship - a web of interaction, conversation and communication that brings it to life moment by moment.

Valuing the intangible

The prevailing culture is defined by the nature of these relationships and all of the human qualities and work practices essential to healthy organisation - a capacity for innovation, flexibility, creativity, the willingness to collaborate, or the depth of commitment, accountability and trust - all rest on the health of that intangible relational web.

In practice however, the focus remains on ‘tangible’ strategies, plans, metrics, measurables and deliverables, while the deeper, relational ‘glue’ that holds everything together is undervalued and frequently ignored.

Attending to the hard ‘manageable’ stuff can appear to work for a time, but if there isn’t equal concern for and attention to the more subtle stuff of relationship, many hoped-for outcomes and longer term objectives will always be out of reach. Indeed, all that measuring and weighing, planning and analysing can hide a decline in the health and quality of things that really matter when it comes to survival and success.

That’s what’s been happening, not just at work, but in our communities and the wider environment too. Our way of living and working undermines and weakens the relationships that are essential to human well-being and to the web of life. In so many ways we’ve become disconnected - from each other, from our families and communities, from the natural world that sustains life, as well as from the impact of our work.

We can, and we must do better, and the radically shifting social and environmental context in which everything sits, demands something different.

Disturbing habits

These critical connections can only be made when we unlearn the habits that broke them, and begin to work with life, as a living system.

To change cultural patterns we have to do more than do things differently. We must do different things. In our places of work we have to disturb ingrained habits of engaging, participating and organising that protect the status quo. For some, this is a challenge to manage and lead in a completely different way. For others it’s a challenge to share responsibility for shaping what happens. For everyone, it’s a better way of working and being together.

Working this way, we are less likely to unconsciously damage the relationships that make ‘things’ work. And that would make all the difference ... in the world.

CultureWork: what we do

The CultureWork suite of processes is a unique resource designed to support the work of transition in organisations and in the community.

Bringing the principles of living systems into an everyday context we will help you to rethink and redesign how you meet, communicate and organise in a way that deepens understanding, maximises participation and collaboration and releases the intelligence and creativity in the system to support cultural renewal.