Becoming ‘Wayfinders’: Leading in Uncertain Times — Part 2
Building Networks and Communities for Impact
One doesn’t sit down and chalk out a narrative and then start living it. One lives into the narrative through daily choices, decisions, and actions; through listening to diverse voices and worldviews in generative dialogues, through sensemaking and seeking collective wisdom from a place of radical care and compassion.
We are striving to make sense of a world that is spinning out of control. To thrive, i.e., to go beyond mere survival, desperation, fear, and helplessness, we have to collectively foster and cultivate very different capacities and skills in ourselves and in our organizations. This is the period of Great Transition for organizations if they wish to be heralds of a life-affirming future. The converse — staying in the present life-denying mode — is really no longer a choice even for the sake of profit. Therefore, organizations need to rapidly figure out ways to disentangle themselves from the grips of the old hegemonic monomyth of profit and power.
We can already see the rise of extreme inequalities, fragmentation and polarization of the social web, nation-states teetering on the edge of economic collapse, obscene concentration of wealth and power, specious use of technology for surveillance, control, and dehumanization, and much more. What I would like to emphasize is that there is a window of opportunity in this liminal space. We live in a time of chaos, as rich in the potential for disaster as for new possibilities. This dramatic and turbulent world makes a mockery of our plans and predictions.
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. ~Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks
This interregnum has a time limit. ‘Morbid symptoms’ are waiting to take over. It is not the time to dillydally and ponder; the time is here to step in and act. Just as in nature there is a natural lifecycle that sentient beings intuitively know and follow, so with this in-between space of liminality. It’s emptiness is an invitation and compass. The chaos of collapse hold the possibilities for emergent futures. The old order is crumbling; and this interregnum is the opening for new narratives to emerge.
“Every spring countless warblers, geese, hummingbirds, and more — one in five bird species, all told — leave their winter hideaway on a long trek that eventually leads to mating, nesting and hatching chicks. Knowing when to leave is a delicate calculation for these animals, however. They need to reach breeding sites in plenty of time to successfully reproduce. But if they arrive too soon, winter may not have quite loosened its grip, which puts the birds at risk of starvation.” ~How Do Birds Know When to Migrate?
This window exists in nature in all forms. All animals know they have a limited window of time in which to move. In the same way, I am proposing that the liminal space between stories also has a limited timeframe, and ‘morbid symptoms’ are likely to take root unless alternate possible futures are engendered.
Wayfinders need to chart clear paths and midwife the new narratives that are already here, waiting to be ushered in. Disorder is a critical player, an ally creating chaos while provoking a system to self-organize into new forms and shapes. It is a world where collapse and creation are in constant dynamic equilibrium, ushering in new ways of being and relating. Curiosity, not certainty, becomes the saving grace.
The current polycrisis are heralds of a global civilization with deeply interconnected and interdependent systems running on outdated metaphors and narratives. The fissures and cracks have become visible ripping apart the façade of duplicity. We are looking at a civilizational phase shift where the foundational premises are shifting and transforming. The new narratives will emerge out of a dialogic relation with the ecosystem, from a direct engagement with local, ever-shifting and emergent contexts, from collective sensing and sensemaking, from connecting and collaborating. The mechanistic and reductionist foundations of the old narrative relying entirely on abstract, unchanging, and rigid rules are passé*.*
This is not the work of a single organization but of networks of organizations embarking on the Wayfinder’s journey. This is not really impossible; it appears improbable only from the paradigm of the old narrative which has so seeped into our consciousness that people have forgotten it is a mere construct created by a handful of white European males and bolstered by laws and regulations made by the beneficiaries of the status quo.
Now, the power equations are shifting. It may not appear so given the blanket disregard for climate crisis displayed by a handful of politicians from the across the globe. But I believe this is their final desperate attempt to extract that last drop of oil and the last fragments of minerals; a final attempt to hold on in the face of their impending and inglorious obsolescence. I am proposing another path of resistance beyond protest — a path of radical care and reimagination of the foundational narratives.
I have created a small table to show the paradigm shifts necessary in the underlying narrative:
This table is neither comprehensive nor attempts to be. This is just to highlight some of the important shifts we, as a global civilization, need to make to exist in harmony and balance with each other and all sentient beings — with Life. The obstacles are many, especially from the current reward system that literally incentivizes a race to the bottom in a Molochian rush towards destruction. This is a journey not to be lightly begun, but to be undertaken as an invitation to reactivate our exiled capacities of love, imagination, compassion, and connection.
Every single free choice you ever undertake arises out of one of the only two possible thoughts: a thought of love or a thought of fear. Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms. Love is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals. Fear wraps our bodies in clothing, love allows us to stand naked. Fear clings to and clutches all that we have, love gives all that we have away. Fear holds close, love holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love amends. Every human thought, word, or deed is based in one emotion or the other. You have no choice about this, because there is nothing else from which to choose. But you have free choice about which of these to select. ~Neale Donald Walsch
One world is dying and the other is painfully being born. In this space between narratives is a liminal space of no-whereness that all Wayfinders must traverse. However, it is not a destination from a ‘here’ to a ‘there’ with a fixed end point. The journey is one of being and becoming, a transformation, a shapeshifting into another form. It is also one of activating our exiled capacities, remembering our indelible interconnectedness, and celebrating our pluriversality. Expect to feel and hold place for grief. It is the natural response to the chasm between what exists now and what we need to come into being. This grief for what is lost is the first step in acknowledging and undertaking the journey of becoming Wayfinders.
The seeds of the new narratives are present, have always been, in the margins and edges, in the delegitimized and silenced voices, among the hidden cultures of the forest people called ‘heathens’ and ‘savages’ by the modern/colonial narrative of Imperialism. It is time to integrate their wisdom — not appropriate, decontextualize, and turn into packaged product for Western consumption. But truly include and integrate from a place of deep humility, honor, and honesty.
This is what I invite Wayfinders to do, to be, to become.
Can they become crucibles and containers for the threads and strands of many cosmologies and ontologies to weave and intertwine?
Can they become holding spaces for the emergence of new narratives that paint a compelling vision of a ‘world that works for all?’
Can they form networks and webs across the globe and clarify their vision to be in service of life?
The ask is huge. The journey is tough. It is not the work of a single or even a handful of organizations but one of many organizations coming together to form Networks of Impact.
To quote Margaret Wheatley on Networks:
In spite of current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible. This is good news for those of us intent on changing the world and creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don’t need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits. Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage, and commitment that lead to broad-based change. ~Margaret Wheatley, Using Emergence to take Social Innovations to Scale (The bold highlights are mine.)
As Wayfinders form global Networks, entirely possible in this age of uber-technology, with porous boundaries and edges, sharing learnings and failures, skills and capabilities, insights and wisdom, models and frameworks — a whole new set of capabilities and imaginaries emerge across these organizations and their people. The separate local efforts connect with each other, staying contextual but sharing foundational capacities and principles, and begin to form Communities of Practice. As these communities further interconnect and interact, completely new systems emerge that hadn’t existed before. This synergy of different communities lead to the Emergence of new narratives and ways of organizing and operating at a greater level of complexity and elegance. This is how Life functions, and so do organizations as living systems.
This system of influence possesses qualities and capacities that were unknown in the individuals. It isn’t that they were hidden; they simply don’t exist until the system emerges. ~Margaret Wheatley
It is not that the methods and science are not there. They already exist. Wayfinders need to take on this journey of becoming more than profit-making machines. Not every Wayfinder will or need to connect with another Wayfinder; each one’s context and journey will be different. Nonetheless, coming from certain foundational principles, when critical connections are fostered, they form Networks and then Communities of Practices. Their Synergy gives rise to Emergence of systems of higher order of elegant complexity, more suited for the Pluriversal Planet we inhabit.
The narratives, capacities, and models that emerge are aligned in foundational philosophies and have the power to gradually shift our civilizational trajectory. This is intergenerational and interspecies work where humans are not the apex species but planetary stewards, and organizations are harbingers of new narratives.
Reiterating certain qualities inherent to becoming Wayfinders:
- They have porous boundaries with a willingness to collaborate and share their learnings. They essentially come from a paradigm of abundance and do not feel threatened by other organizations and are not competing for scarce resources. They know that many are needed on this journey of planetary healing.
- They use technology as a force for good. They understand that technology has immense power to heal and connect as well as harm and fragment; and they consciously choose the former.
- Their guiding metaphor is not that of a machine but of a living system. This drives their choice, decision, words, and actions in every way. They eschew the reductionist approach of the old and embrace a dialogic interaction with the living universe, seeing possibilities and potential in the midst of chaos.
- They function as intentional communities with shared vision and purpose arising out of an interconnection of diverse cosmologies. They are intentional platforms for building the abilities and qualities that our world requires in these liminal times.
- They have facilitative leaders who are skilled in various social technologies of holding space, enabling generative dialogues, befriending uncertainty, and staying in the liminal space.
- They are comfortable staying in the unknown and creating space for the emergence of collective wisdom.
- They eschew the old narrative, dare to envision different futures, and create space for the new to emerge.
- They are crucibles for multiple narratives to converge. From a synergy of diverse cosmologies, ontologies, and epistemologies, what emerges are narratives, systems, structures, and processes of greater elegance and higher order of complexity capable of radical compassion, collaboration, and cooperation.
- They take seriously their responsibility to create the conditions where the hitherto unseen and unheard voices feel safe and confident sharing their worldviews and wisdom. This definitely does not mean appropriation of local customs and cultural wisdom; it means knowing that the old homogenous narrative is flawed and partial, and the hitherto unacknowledged and peripheral voices carry seeds of regeneration and healing.
Wayfinders are dialogic organizations, integrating and transcending the old self to become places of generative dialogues amongst diverse individuals, groups, and communities. We have, as a civilization, traversed so far in the opposite direction (diagnostic, reductionist, mechanical, linear), that we have forgotten the joy and agility that comes with being dialogic, open, and spacious. As the new physics (quantum science) cogently explains, there is no objective reality out there waiting to reveal its secrets. It is an ongoing act of co-creation and emergence. Wayfinders become stewards facilitating this co-creation of the new.
Leaders become facilitators, stewards, and wayfinders to guide organizations on this journey. They operate from participatory and dialogic paradigms, through attunement and resonance, enabling and facilitating collective sensemaking. They are master facilitators ‘preparing the soil for the sowing of the seeds’. They welcome back the exiled capacities of imagination, intuition, insight, connection, and care. Leading in uncertainty doesn’t require fear-driven, power-stuck, and aggressive leaders. This is the time for leading in harmony, to integrate learnings from the past, and transcend the limiting and flawed paradigms. Leading with fierce compassion and radical kindness are the needs of the hour.
In a wounded and fractured world, every act of kindness and healing have ripple effects. This is not just verbiage but scientific fact. In a quantum world, every thought, word, and deed have impact way beyond our ability to envision or even know. Unfortunately, organizations are still clinging to 17th century Newtonian science in a 21st century quantum world of interconnectedness and relatedness.
Facilitative leadership is one of the foundational abilities required to undertake the Wayfinder’s journey. This is not leadership based on designation, power, and hierarchy. It’s about leading from the heart towards harmony and wellbeing, while deeply honoring the diversities and differences. It doesn’t seek uniformity or conformity; it facilitates the co-creation of new narratives that encompass higher orders of complexity with elegance. They balance the autonomy of individuals with the shared visions of the community, honoring both.
People can lean into and embrace unpredictability when leaders have unyielding belief in them. When they move from taking control to facilitating sensemaking, a space opens up for the future possibilities to manifest themselves. When people feel genuine inclusion, respect, and autonomy, and have a shared awareness of the whole system, they operate from their best selves. They cease to hold back, be defensive, be fearful, be competitive, be jealous or bitter, and all the other emotions that limit and lessen us, disempower and distress. Releasing the collective potential and power of imagination can create paradigm shifts beyond our imagination.
Facilitation is often mistaken for some methods and processes that experienced trainers use during workshops to run successful sessions. It is much more than that.
I am talking about facilitation as a way of being that: offers safe space, fosters inclusion, makes way for emergence, creates a container for exploration, enables collaboration and co-creation, holds paradoxes and multiple narratives with ease, and seeks synergies amidst the divergence.
My question is how organizations can lead us not toward some predictable goal, but toward a greater and greater capacity to handle unpredictability, and with it, a greater capacity to love and care about other people. ~Margaret Wheatley
Sahana Chattopadhyay — a speaker, writer, facilitator, amplifier, and synthesizer. A scribe to an emerging era, making sense from chaos and collapse, holding space for fearless dialogues, and catalyzing transformation towards a pluriversal planet and a regenerative future. (https://linktr.ee/sahana2802)
Website: www.pluriversalplanet.com
