Reflections: Emergence & Belonging
It is such a gift to learn from masters. But it is still more delightful when they hold such obvious passion for their work, such curiosity for the inquiries, such humility about what is known and what remains to be explored. I had that experience this morning watching Nora Bateson, Peggy Holman, and Sanjay Purohit in discussion around Emergence & Belonging, the latest in our ongoing series of Conversations on Transformation.
Brandon Dube hosted the conversation, bringing his unique lens as a technologist, network weaver, entrepreneur, and community-builder (he is currently experimenting with a new cooperative venture called Crowdwork.coop). We were also fortunate to have a very engaged chat audience via the livestream, which enriched the conversation and the insights I took from it. I wanted to take a moment here to capture some of my take-aways, and to invite others to share their reactions.
- I loved the juxtaposition of Peggy, Nora, and Sanjay’s lenses on emergence, and in particular the interaction between Sanjay’s thinking about population scale (which in India is 1.3 billion people) and Nora’s experiments with intimate cohorts in the Warm Data Lab. The group resonated around the notion that we are not seeking to “scale solutions” but rather to “scale the ability to solve.”
- I’ve been returning repeatedly to the counter-intuitive (at least to me?) idea that the space for change is actually the interactions between people: 1:1, or larger, but ultimately just how humans relate to each other. That is the microcosm where we enact change… that ultimately catalyzes emergence.
- I enjoyed the conversation around paying attention not only to what is emerging, but also to what is submerging (what are we letting go of?)
- One thing everyone agreed we’re letting go of is certainty: this moment requires embracing not-knowing, and finding ways to act not only despite but precisely because of that reality (Sanjay had a nice line about the gift of our inability to plan for everything requires that we “solve” in a context-interdependent way).
- This mouthful of a truth from Nora: “The pandemic is a profound demonstration of intersystemic institutional failure.” Yep, that sounds about right. From the livechat someone asked about what we do when the things we turned to (institutions, structures, norms) are collapsing all around us. Good question.
- Everyone returned to the power of a good question. Peggy spoke of “generative questions,” that point us toward a future goal that we don’t know the answer to… such questions invite engagement and co-creation.
- The group reflected on a subject I’ve been puzzling over now for a couple years: what is our role in emergence? If emergence is a natural process that cannot be predicted or controlled… what is the appropriate space for agency and intervention? What is the best verb? (I find myself drawn to “cultivate” or “catalyze”; Gibran Rivera talks of “creating the conditions for”… but all agreed that there is a role, and that role has to do with fostering connections between people (the overlaps between this conversation and our discussion on Network Weaving were delightful).
- I loved the discussion at the end about the relationship between belonging and emergence. Sanjay posed a question about what is at the root of belonging: what is its essence? And Peggy flipped the question to suggest: “Belonging may be a root of emergence.” That resonated with me.
- A couple other quotes that stood out to me. This from Peggy: “if you want to change a culture, change the stories that it tells” and “all change begins with disruption” (apropos of the current moment…)
I’m curious what stood out for others who joined live or watched the recording, and for our discussants. A rich discussion with a number of enticing threads to weave from… I’d love to hear what tapestries you all are seeing.
In community,
Brian
