Human to Human: Blog and Podcast

I have flown many times from Salt Lake City to Seattle. Yesterday was a time when I happened to have a window seat, a clean enough window, and clear enough weather to catch a few vistas using my phone. I could see the Salt Lake Valley when taking off. I could see Seattle when landing.

Vistas often inspire, don’t they. Stretch the sight. Stretch the vision. Expand one’s imagination and range of perspective. They do for me. From top left to top right, then bottom left to bottom right, here’s the sequence from yesterday.

 

               

If I’m correct, the first is Antelope Island State Park, just north of the Salt Lake airport. It’s an island in The Great Salt Lake. The park is known for its free range antelope, bison, and bighorn sheep. The lake itself is known for its long skinny size (80 miles by 30 miles), it’s shallow depth (average is about 16 feet), it’s color that I don’t fully understand (lots of green, brown, and turquoise) but is influenced by its, well, salt. That’s the Rocky Mountains snow capped in the background, the Wasatch range.

The second picture is likely somewhere over Eastern Washington. It still amazes me to be able to pop up over the clouds, which you can see is a pretty solid blanket, and see the blue sky horizon.

The third picture is some of the breaking clouds coming into Seattle. I’ve learned that patches of blue sky like this in Seattle are often called a “sunny day.” Well, I suppose that is more true in months other than July and August.

The last picture is descent close to SEATAC airport. The ports are interesting to me, the amount of transportation and exchange that happen at the edge of a continent. The stadiums, home to the Seahawks NFL and the Mariners MLB teams. The body of water is Elliot Bay. That little tip of land just beneath the clouds is West Seattle where my son is now engaged in faith community service.

Big picture will always matter, right. Yes, the on the ground awareness too. But for yesterday, just the joy of some sights that I’ve seen often, yet don’t get to see or feel every day.

o

There were many things that I learned last night. I learned them in the company of the group of 15 of us that gathered for the first session of “The Inner and Outer of Evolutionary Leadership.”

One of the questions that my colleague Kinde Nebeker asked of ourselves and the group was basic — “What is evolutionary leadership to you?” Thanks to Kinde’s idea, this question had a bit more nuance by inviting people to think of someone they would call an evolutionary leader, and from there begin to notice the qualities that that leader has.

We harvested a pretty good list of those qualities. You can see that in the picture above. However, as I was catching what people shared, I found myself wondering how this list was different from a list that we might have made 30, 50, or 100 years ago. So, I asked for second layer of harvest about what was different.

That’s the stuff in the middle, recorded in green. One that stuck with me was spoken by participant and friend Jane Holt, who I used to work with a bunch about five or six years ago through The Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community. “These qualities come from a value of ‘power with’ rather than ‘power over’.”

Good observations like that always send me into a mix of head-nodding ahas and awareness of questions that I want to ask the group. Questions that evoke story — When have you experienced power with rather than power over? What was that like for you? Questions that evoke relevance — What does that experience have to do with how we are together as a group (or team, or community, or committee, or…). Questions that evoke practice — What are one or two things you are committed to doing in the name of power with vs power over here?” It would be a great way to help set some agreements, right.

Evolutionary Leadership is a term that I’m continuing to come to learn a lot about. And like most terms, and learning about it, I find it best to approach that learning with some fluidity. Words matter. But they are just words. Just symbols and representatives of a meaning that sometimes can’t be found in words. Rather, a definition gives us something to be in relationship with. To center some noodling around and nibbling around to create an inner awareness, and if lucky, a practice.

“The world changes when a lot of people change a little bit,” said Willis Harman, mentor to one of my mentors. I feel very changed through little ways last night.

 

o

Tonight I begin offering a 3-session series in Salt Lake City, three hours for each of the next three Mondays. I’m hosting it with my friend and colleague Kinde Nebeker. It is called the Inner and Outer of Evolutionary Leadership.

What “Evolutionary Leadership” means is one of the questions that we will engage. What’s different about that? What does that naming open up for us? What skills are needed? What dispositions? What practices? It is important to me to hold this term with some softness, just as it is with most other terms. It isn’t the precise definition that matters. Rather, it is our ability to be in relationship with those words as a symbol of something that is dynamic.

This series builds on what Kinde and I offered last October, some of which is harvested in the above photo.

Our focus for the first session is on the inner work of showing up. Presence is a central theme. Why presence now? What’s going on in the world that makes this important in and for any of us? What are the many ways that we can increase or practice our presence? What is one simple practice?

The second session will turn attention to the outer of hosting and convening people. Asking good questions. Creating ways for people to turn to one another. Harvesting.

The third session will give attention to integrating the inner and the outer. No, that is not perfect — I don’t want to unintentionally claim it to be so. In fact, one of the underlaying premises for me is that we must become more comfortable with uncertainty. No matter what we do in our jobs, in our families, and in our communities there remains fundamental uncertainty. I would suggest our efforts to ignore this or deny this create a lot of stress and misdirection together as we build programs and initiatives to remove something that can’t be removable. We don’t talk about that much, yet it feels essential.

I like the feeling of this beginning. Kinde is an excellent companion to work with. Ready, go.

.

In the last six months, I have had to say two kinds of very significant goodbyes. One was with my 18 year-old son (featured on the right in the above photo), departing for two years of service in a faith community. It is two years in which 99% of my communication with him will be by email. That’s quite a shift. Saying that final goodbye with that final hug was a time of very raw and tender emotion. That’s my boy. On his way to becoming man in many ways, both through the direct experience he would have and through his physical age. Learning to live on his own. Being committed to service.

The other significant goodbye was with my Grandmother dying this week (on the left above). She was 95, departing for good from this body that has held her, yet was breaking down. This goodbye too, was very raw and tender. That’s the Grandma that held me up physically, and in other ways, many times in my life. She cheered for me. She claimed me.

In both of these goodbyes, I noticed that they were particularly ripe times to say what needs to be said. I was thoughtful, noticing words and phrases and wishes coming to me. I was hoping I would be able to say the right words to create closure for my son, for my Grandma, for me, and for our relationship. “Grandma, thank you for your life. I will remember you. Go find Grandpa (who had died 10 months previously).” Or, “When you are ready, you can go. I’m proud of you. You have done well. Nothing more to do here.”

In both of these goodbyes, I noticed that whatever I choose to say to my son and to my Grandma were really good things to hear as if being spoken to myself and about myself. I’m not talking about thinking it that way — “hmm, what are the words I want to hear?” Rather, just noticing that in the rawness with these two people I love dearly are really keen reminders that are really applicable to myself, important to hear, provide direction, or just offer courage and kindness.

• “Thank you for your life.” — Remember gratitude. There are people who are changed because of me. In specific relationship, yes, but also, just through my being.
• “I will remember you.” — Others remember me. How do I remember people? Do I take the time to notice something about them? Do I share a gratitude? Am I deliberate about it?
• “Go find Grandpa.” — When I shared with my 18 year-old son that his Great Grandmother was passing, I suggested he watch for her, that he might find some help through her. I don’t really know if that is true. It is a comforting thought though, right. The encouragement is to remember that we are not alone. No, not alone.
• “When you are ready, you can go.” — Ahhh, isn’t it important to remember that we have choice. Maybe not everywhere. Maybe not in death, though I have often felt that death is for many, a choice. To remember that in the vigil I was holding with Grandma, it wasn’t really about me. I would have willed her to die so as to ease her suffering. Perhaps to ease my suffering in watching her suffer. But it wasn’t about my timing. It was about hers. How much would it change how we work and be together if we remembered, even honored, that we don’t control timing of all things.
• “I’m proud of you.” — Lend courage. Oh, how good it feels to have people lend us their courage from time to time, doesn’t it. To mark us. To claim us. To be noticed. Not through an ulterior motive. Just through description and witnessing.

I love both of these humans. Deeply. Our partings influence me very much. Somehow, I can feel my voice echoing back through them to me. Raw, tender emotions are rather good teachers and companions, aren’t they.