What are Embodied Dynamics?
In the middle of the corona pandemic, a German shirt manufacturer produces masks and they become the favourite mask par excellence. Beer brewers and distillers are producing rosemary-scented disinfectants for doctors and wedding cake manufacturers are switching to small cupcakes delivered to the home to sweeten everyday life in the lockdown. Overnight, new creative business models are emerging all over Germany, even saving many medium-sized companies from ruin.
Necessity is the mother of invention, true. But why is that? And what can we take away from this for ourselves and our everyday lives? How do we actually learn to improvise creatively even in normal situations? And why is that important for the working world of the future? Let’s take a brief look at the situation. What happened here? It wasn’t done according to a formula, it wasn’t a huge bureaucratic business plan that was drawn up and coordinated umpteen times, but rather needs were quickly sensed and implemented out-of-the-box — and with all senses! What do people need now? How do they feel? How do they feel? What do they need now in this situation? And how can I fulfil the need? What solution can I offer with my resources? Ok, let’s just start and act. Let’s try something. That’s how it should work, yes. No algorithm could have done it!
Good improvisation is all about listening, reacting in the moment, creating, and supporting the ideas of others (Tom Yorton)
Automation and artificial intelligence will turn our lives and our working world upside down. Nevertheless, there is one thing we humans are unbeatable in: in our basic human abilities to solve complex problems, to get involved in new things, humanity, empathy, cooperation, creative competence and rapid experimentation. And these are precisely our answers to the digital future. We believe in the holistic approach of New Work, in self-organised, organic systems and in the fact that it is also worth taking a more holistic look at oneself in order to consciously develop one’s full potential, to be able to contribute in a variety of ways, to be present and to develop solutions together with others for the challenges of the future. Does this only require an agile mindset? Nope! It needs much more. Namely our whole body!
Neurobiologists have long since proven with the embodied cognition model that we perceive with our whole body and that our body has an influence on our inner attitude and thus on our environment. And vice versa, our thoughts are reflected in our body and in our interactions. Our conscious, physical perception is a hitherto neglected key to our ability to improvise and innovate. It is also the basis for new work in organic network organisations.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”. (Margaret Mead)
How can you become an active part of change, even initiate it yourself? How can you learn to improvise creatively? The good news is: perception can be trained, just like empathy and creativity — all can be learned! What’s more, it’s even fun and close to life. Because every organic dynamic of change begins on a small scale. From the small to the big, in the direction we want for our and our children’s future. We are convinced: it depends on every single one of us, on every movement. All this is implied in our Embodied Dynamics model. And the nice thing is, you can start right away. We have written about how to do this in our new book “Unsere Zeit ist jetzt” (Our Time is Now), which will be published by Murmann Verlag in Hamburg on 1 March. You can pre-order it now at Amazon.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Our Embodied Dynamics model can of course be used in even more ways, as you can see on the diagram. The important thing is: no matter what you start with — no matter how small a step you take — it is always a step in the direction of the change you want. You can find more information on our website www.embodied-dynamics.org or follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/EmbodiedDyn
