Human to Human • Tenneson Woolf

January 12, 2017

Radical Inner Journey

When I position my work, most often, it is something to do with leadership. “Transforming the Way We Lead.” “Participative Leadership.” “The Inner and Outer of Evolutionary Leadership.” When not spoken explicitly, leadership is still implicitly embedded in the title. “The Art of Hosting.” “The Art of Humans Being.” “The Art of Meaningful Conversations.” “The Art of Capacity Building.” I love the variety.

The definition of leadership I most use goes back to my Berkana lineage. “A leader is anyone who wants to help.” That’s broader than a “C” level title. It’s more than the person that sits at the front of the room or the head of the table. It’s more than the person who controls the budget. And there are lots of people that want to help, right. Lots of us that want to do good. Lots of us that want to create better teams, meetings, products, processes, organizations, and communities.

Within all of that, the part of leadership that most interests me is the radical inner journey. There is a lot of “out there” stuff that we give attention to. Important, yes. Of course. And often, giving full attention and resources at the expense of the inner work. The radical inner journey is the one that requires presencing. The one that requires honesty with self. The one that requires (sometimes demands) humility and vulnerability. It is that part of leadership that acknowledges how common and prevalent it is to project from the inner state (consciously or not) an outer reality. In this way, leadership is very personal, sounding like therapy. It is. But I don’t think of myself as a therapist. It also sounds like spirituality, doesn’t it. It is, though I don’t think of myself as a spiritual director either.

I’m just keenly aware that this radical inner journey is directly connected to capacity to lead. And it feels silly to deny that. And I’m aware that because it sounds so much like therapy and spiritual direction, how often radical inner journey has been dismissed as a distraction from the “real” leadership that needs to happen. It isn’t. Nor is it with the group, the group daring to take a radical inner journey also. Being able to ask questions together, and sit in the silence that some questions require is massively important. To have the ability to let go of deeply entrained obsessions for speed and efficiency — that’s some important leadership, and the kind that I’m most interested in. Probably, because I continue to learn about it myself. Because it comes from an inner exploration.

Leaders get stuff done. True. And awesome, isn’t it. Leaders help teams get stuff done. That’s true to, and awesome. Leaders create message and narrative. Great. All true. I love being part of this. Without a clarity that comes from inner radical journey, that leadership might even still be very successful. I suppose that is good. It’s just clear to me, however, that my contribution to good leadership, and my commitment feels much more fulfilling in this realm of inner radical journey.

Wow, that felt good to say.

January 11, 2017

Men In Circle

This article was posted on The Circle Way website. I’ve also uploaded a PDF version here.

It starts with a drum beat, often. Eleven of us, all men, aged between late 30s and mid 70s, standing together around a three foot diameter drum suspended before us. We each have a drum stick, which we begin to use together in simple, collective beat. The drum itself has a story of where it came from, just as we eleven each have a story of where we came from, that we are eager to explore in this semi-annual retreat. “We” includes those that work in regular 9:00 – 6:00 jobs. Some are retired from 30-40 years of career, and wondering what is next. Some now volunteer with local communities. Some are fathers, and sons. There is ceremony in this drumming together, in this beginning. It feels natural and potent. We are gathered for men’s work, which will have many aspects to it. Circle and it’s premises will help us shift from social connection to a deep listening group of men together.

Circle will help us find our stories together. Get past an initial not knowing what to say with each other. A bit like an oxygen mask restores what our autonomous nervous system knows to do — breath and restore circulation. We will pass a talking piece. Many times over three days together. Each of us will have opportunity to share, to think out loud. Each of us will have opportunity to witness and do what is long forgotten for many, yet so needed. We will debunk a pervasive mythology that we are alone in our stories, and that we should carry them in separateness. Alone in our suppressed emotions. Alone in our not knowing how to return to what American poet and author, Robert Bly calls “original radiance.”

From many experiences over the last twenty years (in most, 25% men and 75% women), I havelearned that men want to be thoughtful together. Whether in men’s work, or in the contemporary lives of leadership as doctors, lawyers, government officials, educators, mechanics, plumbers and such. It’s just a story that men don’t want to share, or can’t share. Men want to share openly. Men have much to contribute.

My friend and colleague Quanita Roberson started a project a few years ago that demonstrated this yearning that men have to contribute. Her project started as a a few bits of advice to gift to a thirteen year old boy, but then turned into a book. She asked me and 65 other men, “What do you wish someone would have told you when you were 13?” The men she asked ranged from their 20s to 70s, were born and raised in eleven different countries, and were from diverse stages of life, artistry, spirituality and sexual orientation.

Says Quanita, “What struck me most in their responses was how generous and thoughtful they were in sharing their wisdom with me, and therefore with Jason, a boy that only one of them knew. In the questioning, and their answering, I realized that we [as contemporary society] are asking men for everything but their wisdom, and that they are desperate to share it. There is something in them that knows this wisdom is needed now. There is something in them that knows our boys are lost without it. Maybe some of them have been lost without it as well.”

Wise together. It’s different than wise alone. There may not be a drum in the room. But there will always be the possibility of a circle. Men, joining with women, people joining together, to be wise. Many men, but gladly not all, have just forgotten form in a way that many woman have not. We’ve forgotten how helpful it can be to slow down to listen with ample pauses. To include silence as part of our speaking. To just feel, not fix. To elder each other into a presence and ability to stand in today’s complex world.

The circle is for men too. Never doubt it. This is a call to men. Men, please hear it. Join in circle. Make it part of you. Make it part of your leadership. Be part of an evolving and available healthy masculine. Listen. Share. Discover. Be moved. Be moving.

It was one of the other men, Chandu, whom I have met now at two weekend events, who summed it up nicely for Quanita’s book given to her 13 year-old friend. “Remember perfect doesn’t mean infallible; frail doesn’t mean weak; strong doesn’t mean right. Start with empathy; love will follow.” That’s what men have to contribute, and remember in circle.

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A footnote: I read a draft of this article to my 11 year-old son. I think I wanted to share it with him to seed an idea and alertness in him, perhaps more for his future 21 year-old self. He was working on a picture puzzle when I read it to him, moving the orange colored pieces around at that moment. I asked him if it would be ok for me to read to him what I’d been writing. His response surprised and delighted me, which he added without blinking. “I have one more thing to add. Men have been mean, you know. Like not letting woman vote. And they have been told to protect their families and told not to cry. But men have feelings too. They’ve just been taught to keep them inside and not share them. But we need to because if we can’t it can hurt you for the rest of your life. And now women are acting like men used to act. Some are being mean. That’s not right. We all need to be who we are. And let it out. It’s awful not to. We all have things to say, but we are scared of being judged.” Maybe Quanita’s next book might be asking a bunch of 11 year-olds what they want to say to grown men.

January 10, 2017

Offended By Certainty?

I’m offended by certainty. No, seriously. And irritated. It’s worse than an itchy rash that I can’t not scratch.

I’m not sure I’ve ever known enough of why I’m so offended by certainty — it is practically revered as much as chocolate in this world, and how could you ever be offended by chocolate — but I can track it back to my teens. I wouldn’t have said it that way back then. I just had the spidey senses to feel that something was fundamentally weird about grandstanding “knowing.” I remember a conversation with a cousin who was quite religiously certain, asking her if she was certain the color of chair in front of us was brown, and then making a case that it was more maroon colored. Something in me wanted to mess with the certainty.

I’ve told myself everything from “I’m bratty and stubborn” to “I have an authority complex (that is obviously completely legitimate).” My attitude has been everything between humble and revering of complexity to self-righteous and indignant.

I may be getting closer to a key understanding. My “aha” that seems to be moving in for the long haul is that “there is so much more unseen, I believe, in this existence, this glorious existence, than seen.” Always. In relationships. In emotional history. In objective observation (the instrument effects the reality of what is being measured). In complexity of wholes where at best, we get a part of the whole. When more is unseen than seen, it renders certainty absurd, like claiming that this round, spinning, floating in space, world is flat. Or denying climate change.

Certainty, so revered or bullied into being, often from the masculine — it’s different than clarity, which is what certainty often masquerades as. How can you not want that, right?

Perhaps we’d all do good to develop more of a relationship and familiarity with uncertainty and the unseen. With questions rather than answers. With wonderings rather that ultimatums. Certainty, with all of it’s bravado, more often creates battle lines over which we go to war. And that doesn’t pass the spidey sense test either, does it.

In my work with groups, one of my hopes is to dislocate us (and me) from our certainty. It doesn’t actually take that much to do it when working with participatory process. It’s different that the absoluteness that can be delivered from the front of the room, the head of the table, the podium, or the pulpit. I want people to develop an acceptance with “not knowing,” with being able to adapt to an environment that is dynamic and changing. I want people to develop ability and expectation to never know it all, to never be able to manipulate it all, and yet within that awareness, choose experiments and things to try that offer some good.

I think I’m learning to get beyond my irritation. That’s just simple growing up stuff with a big fat welcome sign to an increasingly apparent land that says, “You Are Not Revered For Your Certainty.” No offense needed.

January 9, 2017

Got Lucky

December and January are months in which I enjoy tucking in to movies and books. When the snow is here. When it’s cold. When the sun sets at 5:00.

Some of those movies and books are really compelling. They stay with me. Like I’ve welcomed them as renters in a particular neighborhood of my psyche. I enjoy seeing them in the morning and having tea together. Some of them are just so so. I’m not really drawn into the movie but I’m curious where they are going to go with it. I want to know how the director, etc. is going to get themselves out of the jam that is this unengaging story. Or if it’s a book, I tend to read faster, skimming sentences at the beginning of paragraphs and making it an exercise in speed reading. I’d rather have the compelling tea together, to be clear.

The “got lucky” part is that I’ve just watched a movie and am almost done reading a book that I’m guessing will be on my “best of” lists for 2017. The book is “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame). It’s a book given to me by a friend a bit more than a year ago with a really lovely and inviting inscription. It’s been sitting on my reading table most of the time since then. I’ve known where it was. The moment for reading it arrived three days ago. I wanted to treat myself to something on a Friday afternoon, 3:30. It was this book. Big Magic has fantastic and accessible gems of wisdom (my pages are very dog-eared) all around the theme of creativity and living a creative life. This book supposes that we humans are creative beings by nature and that our creativity is fundamental need. Further, that ideas live as a life form and are looking for human hosts so as to be born. This is good, right. If I had a nickel for every good idea that came my way that I loved but didn’t give enough attention to such that it “moved on,” yup, I’d have a wheelbarrow full of nickels. This book is compelling and inspiring and inviting. And I found, honest. I can’t wait to see the friend who gave me the copy and catch up together.

The movie is called Captain Fantastic, starring Viggo Mortensen, with outstanding roles by his on-screen children. This movie was also recommended to me by a good friend (the most enjoyable books and movies come from friends, hmm….). There are many important and compelling themes to me, embedded in the story. The relationship between nature and civilization. The perpetuated myths and habits that are numbing the crap out of much of western society. Need for village and need for forest — that’s how my friend described it. It’s sweet. It’s tender. It’s bad-assed. It’s intelligent. It’s confrontational. It’s enough to stir much in me and call forth in me courage to challenge systems and beliefs, most of them residing deeply in me, but let’s be honest, being enacted in many contemporary organizations and systems.

And so it is, 2017 arrives. After two weeks off from writing, I’m at it again. I got lucky with a great book and a great movie out the gate. Plenty to carry me into the year with some heart, some meaning, and some honesty. Glad for friends. And yes, some luck to0.