I loved invoking this word, “murmurate” last week. With two groups. Making a noun a verb.
The above image is of Starlings. Flocking. Moving with fluidity. They are a murmuration.
In both settings, I invoked the words as a connection to some basic questions that many of us OD people ask, that many of us complex systems people ask.
How do we go well together
for and with the things and people that we most care about?
And then in my brain, this morphs to a few important sub questions:
How do we learn well?
How do we lift the relational?
How do we open ourselves to what is larger?
All of that takes me back to some early foundation learning with Meg Wheatley (thx again Meg). In the mid 90s after the release of her stellar book, Leadership And The New Science, Meg was bringing forth a game changing narrative.
Organizations are living systems (not machines).
Living systems have a way of organizing themselves (Starlings as an example — don’t seem to have a boss or a planning committee).
If we learned more about how living systems organize themselves,
what would that teach us about organizing human endeavor?
These videos of murmurations are easy to find. It’s a fun moment to get lost in them. And then wonder about such questions.
OK, off into another part of my day. Murmurating.
