Yes, and .. consciously
An update as of Sept 2022
Several months on from the original blog and narration, I have further clarity around the patterns that really hold us back from meaningful, equitable change and thus share a helpful resource in the form of Tema Okun’s over 30 years of research around cultural patterns that tend to perpetuate, division, harm and inequity.
I did not always see these patterns within myself and in those around me, I especially did not see them having the systemic impact that they did and do, yet on further research and joining a few more dots, it is clear to see how staying in fear, seeking qualifications when they are not really needed, binary yes/no thinking etc can really keep certain humans away from opportunity and with access to resource.
I hope you find this blog thought provoking and I always welcome additions and constructive, healthy challenge as a result.
A narrated version of the following blog that was originally written and recorded in early 2022 can be found above for increased accessibility.
Blog from Jan 2022
Today as we set off on the journey of 2022, I feel moved to share one of my most significant embodied learnings of 2021, the felt realisation of what I am calling ‘yes, and .. consciously.’
I emphasise the felt and embodied elements here as it is all too easy to think and reflect, but not take action, that was certainly my place to frequent previously.
It is not difficult to see how and why this occurs, whether you look on social media, in conversations with family, in the workplace, on the news (I barely watch/listen to more than 8 hours per year now) and my capacity has expanded massively to understand and to explore FYI as a result, that pretty much every interaction, message, dialogue and signal is seeking to reduce our humanity and our understanding of complexity which is our innate state.
Topics like climate change being reduced to binary true/not true debates.
Topics like COVID-19 are being reduced to right/wrong debates.
I am not an ‘expert’ in any of these areas, yet I can see how I and we have been brought up and conditioned to see everything through binary either/or lenses, yet we alone as humans are infinitely more complex. We CAN and must hold paradox and seemingly opposing views together, and explore with curiosity and with open hearts and minds, more often.
Indeed, amusingly yet with clarity, trying to find a ‘yes, and’ image on google brought back pages and pages and pages of ‘yes, no’ images, but not one single ‘yes, and’ image so I made one !
Then we try and work together within an organisational setting and we have exponentially more complexity to deal with so reduce our humanity further into narrow boxes on an organisational chart.
Our humanity is further reduced as only certain peoples views are considered ‘worthy’ as the priority is myopically channelled towards another binary, Growth or Contraction of our businesses and other non-life giving metrics.
The story and the spiral continues infinitely into a void of soulless nothingness.
This, I would assert, in part is why we have mental health, burnout and disengagement at work at such chronically high levels.
I just know myself and in my own body that more of us want to feel connected to ourselves, others and systems meaningfully, the ethos behind HEXO Change, it is unnatural to be reduced to a name or box, anywhere or at any time. Time to bust out of these boxes people.
This reflective piece is a reminder and an invitation to embrace complexity, to embrace the ‘yes, and .. consciously.’
This invitation is offered as I speak from experience that one feels alive, energised, challenged and curious when we are in this complex space, yet always in continuous learning, mistake-making and exploration mode. There is an abundant potentiality within all of us, there always has been and embracing our yes, and .. consciously I assert is one way to let it come through.
My yes, and .. consciously and an invitation to you to explore yours
I have wrestled, and I mean wrestled, over the past 12 months in particular with working within one of the most extractive industries on the planet AND increasingly realised that this is exactly where I need to be as my own realisations and connections of the dots between climate, social justice, capitalism and individual accountability continues to mature.
The ‘outside world’ would rather I come down on the side of pro capitalist or raging environmentalist, yet right now I am both. Yes, and. It is complex and it is all connected.
This was well brought to life when I was invited to present and close out day two of three of the Hawkwood School of Future Thinking’s Climate action Lab IV during November 2021. As I introduced the frame of my presentation you could see a number of the faces on the Zoom meeting looking surprised a) that I would be speaking at this lab and b) that I would be speaking at this lab! yet credit to the team at Hawkwood who you can find out more about HERE for modelling exactly what I speak to during this piece.
If you would like to view my talk, feel free to drop me a line at garryturner0@hotmail.com and I will see if I can get you the access link.
Yet holding and embracing this complexity allows me and us all to see and sense into interconnections that were previously missing within our lived experience. Let me share a range of practical examples to bring this to life:
The pension fund interconnection
Interconnections such as my pension is directly funding corporate expansion and indeed is complicit in harming humans just trying to live their live in West Papua so that ‘we’ can access more gold to support consumerist growth in the West.
Realising that out of 88 investment funds only 2 are classed as ‘ethical’ and of those two, one houses fossil fuel players such as Shell and mining companies such as BHP and Rio Tinto, the latter of which has direct links to gold mining in West Papua !
This yes, and realisation allows me to ask different and better questions of my organisation, of the financial system, and of myself.
- I have repeatedly asked Aegon and BlackRock who gets the right to decide what goes into an ethical fund and are those most oppressed by the companies activities included in the design of the funds? Zero reply from my inquiries on social media nor via email.
- I have also asked my employer what we can do to ask these questions upstream to the investment managers and how can we be more activist as a business as we become more conscious, up and downstream.
The ‘sustainable’ aviation interconnection
Interconnections such as McKinsey lauding the development of ‘sustainable aviation fuel.’ On the surface a simple ‘hoorah, we are finding an alternative to fossil fuels,’ however no questions around whether we should be flying as much with what we now know about human-contributing climate change (and the fact the tech works!) and also the fact that there is nowhere near enough feedstock (waste oil, fats and virgin vegetable oils) to maintain the 69 million flights that took place globally pre-pandemic in 2019.
This yes, and realisation allows me to question, explore and wave the flag of ‘we may want to go a bit deeper and more complex on this one.’ The irony for me in this one is that I used to sell the very oils and fats in question such as palm oil, coconut oil, rapeseed oil, all without a 2nd thought in my previous binary world. (2002–2009).
- I have been involved in some deep and meaty conversations with peers within the chemicals industry about the risk of green-washing vs genuinely available raw material
The most ‘profitable’ businesses today are those that deal in scarcity
Interconnections such as scarcity-based business models, that is pretty much all of them that use fossil fuels or rare Earth metals as part of their supply chain, the impact of globalisation and the links to financial services and systemic oppression is another example.
The news cycles and workplace dialogue is often so silo’d and narrowed down (reduced) to a specific task, idea, meeting, outcome etc that we rarely join the dots and hold space for complexity, especially complexity that centers those most oppressed and silenced by our ways.
How can it be that organisations that are full of folx including me based in the Global North can add quite ridiculous ‘growth’ and financial ‘value’ to their bottom line, during a pandemic, all the while they are navigating a collapsing global supply chain, a shortage of dangerous goods drivers, and are not including / seeing the systemic oppression that is directly linked to their consumerist product offerings, often impacting communities and peoples of equal human value thousands of miles away?
Just check out the stock market performance since the collapse as COVID-19 hit at the end of 2019, they are trading mostly HIGHER than pre-COVID…??
All last 5 years stock performance taken from markets own websites.
With this awareness, what questions can you ask yourself?
- One question I have is as the majority of the materials that underpin these surges/resurgences will be being extracted from Global South countries, how could Global North companies and the financial markets send more money back to the Global South in the form of reparations or even better transfer ownership of these companies back to their domiciled peoples?
What can we do to re-imagine collective well-being metrics grounded in just relations rather than just the myopia of financial metrics at all costs, and we are now aware there are many? I had one wonderful exploration on the potential of the well-being economy with Natasha Stromberg previously on the Activating Consciousness podcast which can be found HERE. (note we are talking about systemic and equitable well-being, not gym membership and fruit well-being in this conversation).
What areas of your own ‘yes, and’ consciously human experience can you embrace to ask different and more searching questions of yourself, your organisation and your communities?
So what Garry? you may ask
I can confirm that I have asked more searching questions of myself and sought to engage in more complex dialogue at work at home and in society over the past 12 months than I ever have previously and it is actually exceptionally freeing, challenging, interesting, accountable, yet soul unleashing.
The Invitation
I am enjoying seeing The Great Resignation, The Great Awakening, The Great Realisation but I will add one more in , The Great Un-Silencing.
It is time for us, I sense, every single one of us to remove the gag of hush/money, to regain that child-like wonder, curiosity and desire to hold complexity. I wrote recently about this topic if interested HERE.
It is time for us to question our narratives, to question our business models, leaders and institutions and to also be part of imagining and co-creating whatever next will become.
We are ALL of equal value, every single one of us.
We are ALL worthy of love, connection, dreams and contribution. We are already all of it.
We are ALL here for a very short time as a living sentient being with this ability to sense and understand complexity, why waste it?
You will receive this piece however you need to receive it in this moment and I hope that you receive it with the love, care and action-orientated energy that it is shared.
Shall we connect?
My name is Garry Turner and I am an:
- International business development and authentic relationship building human working within and across a Euro 3bn + corporation
- International speaker on topics around human-centered design, vulnerability and change is an inside job
- Support senior leaders and mission driven solopreneurs as a Thinking Partner
- Facilitator of people-centered workshops and organisational design
- The co-creator with Jo Hompstead of Human Development Space in-person gatherings which are an emergent and co-creative space for both businesses and open groups
Digital Business Card — https://link.v1ce.co.uk/GarryTurner
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/garryturnerthinkingpartner
Linktree — https://linktr.ee/HexoChangeGarryTurner
