• So Where In the World is Doug?

    So Where In the World is Doug?
    Our home is 125 square feet in the shape of a rounded aluminum tube containing everything we need…

    Some of you have gotten my email autoresponder to the effect of “I am on extended travel through most of April. I will be checking email occasionally, but am also practicing being less responsive than you might reasonably expect.”

    I get that leaves a lot open to interpretation!

    I am changing the context for my life, and experimenting with how to organize myself differently.

    The truth is that I am traveling in the Southwest (mostly Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah) for 3 months with my wife, Walker, and our two dogs. We are living in an Airstream travel trailer. This sounds exotic and cool until you realize that our home is 125 square feet in the shape of a rounded aluminum tube containing everything we need including dog food, dogs, camping stuff, and 100 pounds of clay for Walker’s sculpture.

    It’s not really a vacation. I don’t really like that word anyway, as it implies emptiness, vacating… I’m not a sit-on-the-beach kind of guy. Nor is it retirement… I have much left to do.

    Rather, it’s a safe-to-fail experiment in prioritizing my wife, my relationship with the natural world, and my writing and the coaching/teaching aspects of my business. I am changing the context for my life, and experimenting with how to organize myself differently. I am deliberately being less available, with the concomitant risk of irritating some folks and missing opportunities. And, I am feeling less torn by the “death of a thousand cuts” that so often characterizes our modern, always-connected professional lifestyle.

    I am being nourished by a deeply restorative connection with the jaw-dropping dynamism and beauty of the natural world.

    Bebe, Jenny, and Rhonda are capably advancing the business, with strong support from others. I’m not out of the loop, but I am actively working at releasing my sometimes overzealous sense of responsibility, which is much harder to hold onto from Chiricahua National Monument than it is from my home office in North Carolina. (BTW, it’s notable that the Spring PBC I course is sold out and wait-listed. The most full retreat EVER is the first one I’ve ever NOT taught. I know it’s in good hands and our students will receive everything they could ask for. And, it’s both humbling and a relief to be confronted with my own expendability!

    I am, most of the time, really loving the writing of this third book. It’s been a bear, and the most difficult project of my entire life (save marriage and parenting teenagers.) Yet, declaring that the writing is important brings joy, and the perspective of being out of the normal press of events is enormously helpful.

    I am having precious time with my beloved. I am being nourished by a deeply restorative connection with the jaw-dropping dynamism and beauty of the natural world. I am supporting people doing important things in the world, and investing in creativity and meditation and spiritual practice.  Walker has done two sculptures so far, we’ve had some fun with our photography, and are enjoying rich time with each other and with dear friends. For once, there’s (almost) enough time!

    Living mostly outdoors provides stability and ground in the midst of the vertiginous events of the weeks since Inauguration Day.

    It is helpful to be taking in news in small bites. Living mostly outdoors provides stability and ground in the midst of the vertiginous events of the weeks since Inauguration Day. (We left on our trip the day after, having gone to the Women’s March in Asheville on our way out of town.) We are paying attention and staying involved, calling Senators and Congressman and letting them know our strong feelings about the decisions that they are making, donating and organizing others to donate to causes that are important to us.

    Thank you for listening, and stay tuned… much is on the way….

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #6: Leadership Presence in Complexity

    Presence in Complexity Series #6: Leadership Presence in Complexity
    Leadership presence is the means by which our internal feeling states are shared into our relationships.

    Leadership presence is the means by which our internal feeling states are shared into our relationships.

    Consider this thought experiment. You are walking down the sidewalk alone, at night. Someone is coming the other way on the same sidewalk, a hundred yards away. There’s nobody else around. How does this feel?

    Well, how it feels depends on a lot of things. If you are a woman, and the other person is a man, it’s likely to be different than if it’s the other way around. We sense the race, gender, age, manner of walking of the other person. Our nervous systems, unbidden, manufacture stories about the other person and the situation that may be wildly inaccurate but which we believe to be factual. As our two bodies sense each other from a distance, we each assess the relative power and risk in the situation. By the time we are within 50 feet of each other, both of us know who is going to step off the curb and defer to the other. No language is needed. This is an example of a relational field.

    Another example. We sit through a keynote with a compelling speaker. The speaker looks around the room, sensing the audience. She takes her time, changing her voice and cadence, injecting humor to shift the feeling in the room, using both animated movement and stillness in her body to produce affect and dynamism in the audience. We are spellbound, riveted. We feel our own energy and aliveness, knowing that the moment is special, and that the whole room feels it.

    We could analyze what she is doing in terms of presentation skills and non-verbal communication techniques, which is part of the truth. However, it is more precise to say that she is attuned to the audience, that the audience senses this connectedness with her, and that collectively, we are experiencing a relational field within which something remarkable is happening.

    Consider that our relationships are, in large part, interactions between biological systems. To pretend that communication is simply a matter of speaking the right words ignores millions of years

    Our relationships are, in large part, interactions between biological systems.

    of biology and a lifetime of accumulated experience. Relational fields are the invisible, yet palpable fields of energy that connect us when we are present with someone.

    Skillful leadership has this kind of attunement. Presence can unite. Presence can build relatedness and connection.

    Rather than the traditional heroic model of leaders acting on the world, and shaping it according to our intentions, we begin to experience leadership as a deeper process of acting with the world.

    Why should leaders in complexity be concerned with this? In short, our internal condition is a significant factor in the dynamics of complexity. Our nervous system is a component of the feedback loops that build or undermine a system’s resilience. Anxious, driven, and over-focused leaders reinforce teams and organizations that are themselves anxious, driven, and over-focused. Settled, open, creative, and optimistic leaders foster the same traits in the human systems around them.

    In complexity, much is unpredictable. However, when we learn to de-link our internal state from this unpredictable context, we begin to embody states that are congruent with what we care about.

    We can reduce the pervasive anxiety and stress within ourselves, and through our presence, in the system around us.

    Because of the relational field, our internal state is transmittable and palpable to others. (The examples in this post illustrate this principle.) Through presence, our state of creativity, optimism, settledness, and resourcefulness becomes available to others. Our nervous system becomes a resource for others. We often can’t know solutions to the complex, intractable problems we are facing. Yet, we can reduce the pervasive anxiety and stress within ourselves, and through our presence, in the system around us.

    A striking example was shared with me by Charles Casto, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s senior executive in Japan during the Fukushima disaster. According to Casto, the remarkable leadership of Naohiro Masuda was a significant factor in avoiding catastrophe.

    Masuda was the superintendent at Fukushima Daichi’s sister nuclear plant 10 miles up the coast. The sister plant, Fukushima Daini, faced similar conditions after being overwhelmed by the 2011 tsunami.

    Barking orders and jumping into crisis problem-solving would likely not have worked in the immediate aftermath. Faced with rapidly changing and terrifying realities (magnitude 7 aftershocks, power out, sharks in the parking lot, uncertain fates of loved ones, potential nuclear meltdown, etc.) Masuda was calm and measured. He provided updates on aftershocks, and simply waited until the immediate chaos had settled down, allowing staff members’ own sense-making processes to catch up to the realities, and then to move fast when needed. What might have seemed to some a slow reaction to a crisis situation actually became crucial to moving fast and efficiently when it was time to do so.

    Our inner state becomes an attractor in the complex system of our context.

    The more resourceful and congruent we become, the more our energy and presence begins to shape the relational field in which we are interacting. Our organizing principle as an individual becomes an organizing principle in the system. Our inner state becomes an attractor in the complex system of our context.

    We are living in unprecedented times. The cross-currents of unpredictability are disruptive and, for some, terrifying. The humans with whom you live, work, and share benefit from the stability of your presence.

    In fact, your presence is an important part of your response to what is happening around you.

    • Who around you is stressed and anxious and ungrounded?
    • How are you stabilizing yourself, in the face of what’s going on in your world?
    • How might you extend your presence through the relational field around you in order
      to be a resource to others?

     

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Vignettes from the Road

    Vignettes from the Road

    Friday. Trump inauguration. I decide, at the last minute, that it’s very important to watch this moment in history. I sympathize with some of the concerns that brought Trump to power, but I deeply believe that Trump himself is completely incapable of addressing them. His angry, nationalistic inaugural address, speaking of a dystopian America that only he can fix, affirms my worst fears of a demagogue stepping into the most powerful position on Earth and staking out positions that will be very difficult to back away from. I cry.

    Saturday. I join my wife and 8000 others in the Women’s March in Asheville. My two daughters march in NYC and San Francisco; our friend Katie marches in Washington. We text photos and impressions back and forth, and the mood is upbeat and positive. Afterwards, we hook up our Airstream trailer and leave for a 3 month cross-country working adventure trip. We spend the night in pouring rain somewhere in rural Alabama.

    Sunday. We drive through terrible weather, only finding out that tornadoes touched down only miles from where we were to have spent the previous night until we delayed our departure for 24 hours to join the Women’s March. We monitor Doppler radio and social media as we head southwest, looking under bridges to discern if they are safe places for us and our dogs if a tornado were suddenly to appear. Mid-afternoon, we break free of the deadly storm system into sunshine, and spend the night in Natchez, MS.

    Monday. I find a place with good WiFi, overlooking the Mississippi River, for our 4 hour certification course conference call. It is great to hear the work that our students are doing, and the rich coaching they are offering each other as they increase their range in long held ways of being. We hit the road at noon, and later drive around Houston in darkness and traffic at 75 mph with concrete bumpers a few inches from either side of our shiny Airstream, trying to figure out a toll system that we don’t understand but that seems to be snapping photos of our license plates every couple of miles and threatening violation fines. We make it to Austin. We are wiped.

    Tuesday. We explore Austin for a while, and finally hold a conference call with my father’s surgeon. He informs us that my Bob’s case is “extreme” and the proposed surgery quite risky. He mostly seems to recommend that we hold off to see if the medications can reduce his risk without surgery. We like him and trust him. We have a family conference call later, and Bob is leaning against the surgery; his three sons and daughters-in-law support this leaning. We will talk again after the surgeon consults with a colleague.

    Wednesday. We head back into Austin, and have a delicious lunch at a restaurant recommended by my daughter, Megan. She is a foodie, and any restaurant that meets her standards is likely to be more expensive than our tastes require, but it’s worth it to feel that we’ve shared something, however tenuously. Later, we have another conference with the surgeon, who shares new information that makes the no-surgery decision very clear. We are all relieved that, for the first time in weeks, Bob’s course of action is obvious. He will continue with the current unknown level of risk, thereby avoiding the risky surgery that would probably make him safer, but might also give him a stroke on the operating table. Strange that this comes as a relief, but it feels like the sun has come out after weeks of dark clouds.

    *********

    We have anticipated, and planned, this adventure for a long time. An experiment in living on the road, perhaps a vain attempt to recover the freedom of our lost youth, but at least an experiment in integrating a number of things that are precious to us. Exploring precious wild places. Meeting new people with very different lives and points of view. Finishing the book that I have been working on for four years. Teaching, coaching, and being with my wife in a new set of circumstances than ever before as we move towards the next phase of our lives.

    But, nothing has really gone according to plan. We have not settled into a pattern. We are dealing with tense and unpredictable events, and learning to take them in stride. So far, this has been anything but relaxing. More, it feels like exotic spiritual practice.

    We have been practicing not being attached to thinking that last weeks’ inauguration meant the end of civilization as we know it, nor to believing that the Women’s March represents the “end of patriarchy” as some of the placards claimed. We were not really about to die from a tornado that never materialized, nor did the sun coming out mean the end of threats. Bob is free from the risks of the surgery that might have happened tomorrow, and Bob will not live forever. We think we know what will happen tomorrow, but we really have no idea.

    I am grateful. And sad. All at once.

     

    Doug Silsbee

  • Presence in Complexity Series #5: Embodying Congruent States

    Presence in Complexity Series #5: Embodying Congruent States
    To the extent that the system around us being chaotic or fragmented means that we are chaotic and fragmented internally, we have lost the boundaries that distinguish us from the system.
    To the extent that the system around us being chaotic or fragmented means that we are chaotic and fragmented internally, we have lost the boundaries that distinguish us from the system.

    Wow, what a world we live in!

    It’s a New Year. And, we face a level of risk and uncertainty that I’ve not experienced since the Cuban Missile Crisis. My father is in the hospital, facing difficult decisions about surgery. My plans for the next weeks are completely subject to events. It can feel that there’s not much ground to stand on.

    We are all constantly sensing and reacting to what is going on around us. When things are difficult or chaotic, this can be triggering in many ways. Our inner condition is sometimes completely invisible to us. More often, we just believe that our impatience, urgency, fragmented attention and tight shoulders are the inevitable results of our circumstances. We tell ourselves that we’ll take some time off when the project is complete. Or when our new team member gets up to speed. And, we endure.

    We miss the fact that our taking on the condition of the system makes us part of the problem. To the extent that the system around us being chaotic or fragmented means that we are chaotic and fragmented internally, we have lost the boundaries that distinguish us from the system. Our nervous system has become inseparable from the organizational culture and the system dynamics around us. We have lost our perspective, and with it, our capacity to be useful.

    This, from a client engagement a few years ago:

    I worked with a leader a few years ago who had established an audacious business goal with her team. Ruth was a brilliant and charismatic leader, but in spite of her stellar track record in a very specialized role, also harbored inner doubts about her qualifications, and feared that she’d be “found out.” The stakes were high for her whole team.

    In an unconscious effort to prove herself and accelerate the initiative, Ruth often dominated her tense and fast-paced team meetings. She interrupted, taking over others’ ideas, creating re-work, and disenfranchising team members in the meantime. This hyper-driven results orientation was adding to the stress in the system, and incurring significant costs in performance, workload, and team members’ ownership of the business goal.

    De-linking our inner state from our context gives us the freedom to represent and embody something entirely new within the systems we intend to influence.
    De-linking our inner state from our context gives us the freedom to represent and embody something entirely new within the systems we intend to influence.

    One of the great discoveries of the human condition is that we all have the capacity to direct and organize our attention in ways of our own choosing. We can de-link our inner condition from our outer circumstances.

    De-linking our inner state from our context gives us the freedom to represent and embody something entirely new within the systems we intend to influence. We can become an antidote to reactivity. We can be both a symbol and an instigator of a different way of being.

    De-linking provides the freedom to choose an organizing principle, an inner state, that is in fact helpful and supportive of the future we intend to invite. We become internally congruent with a value, a cause, a destination that matters to us. This freedom gives us the possibility of becoming ever more intentional about what we take a stand for.

    It is crucial that we embody what matters to us. Embodied leadership is how we turn minute firings of neurons into dams, books, trips to the moon, lasting relationships, financial success, and social justice. A future we care about. A culture of curiosity and experimentation. Relationships that are compassionate and supportive.

    As I write this, I am awaiting a call from the hospital in New York where my father is facing a difficult treatment decision. There is no question about where my embodied commitment lies. I have a very busy couple of weeks ahead of me. And, if he chooses to have surgery, I’m going to be with him.

    I am fully congruent in this. Sure, there are complexities that will need to be managed, events rescheduled or cancelled, and consequences. But, for me, that’s just details. My priorities are clear. I am going to be with my father.

    Embodied leadership is how we turn minute firings of neurons into dams, books, trips to the moon, lasting relationships, financial success, and social justice.
    Embodied leadership is how we turn minute firings of neurons into dams, books, trips to the moon, lasting relationships, financial success, and social justice.

    Holding the focus of what we care about is not simply a matter of a mental picture, or a set of words that describe what is important to us. It’s a matter of taking these things in so that we experience them as a felt state, as an inner condition, as an organizing principle.

    Ruth was prime for coaching. She intuitively knew that she had become part of the problem and recognized that she needed to shift something. Over time, she began to see how she was adding stress to the system. She experimented with replacing the old narrative that it was “all up to her” with a new narrative that her “team had the chops to deliver” on this goal. She began to organize her attention, and actions, around the assumption that her team could solve most of the big strategic and resource deployment issues that they faced. She didn’t have to provide constant motivation.

    Embodying this new narrative took time and practice. Ruth increasingly saw her urge to interrupt, and let it pass. As she held back more and more, she also explicitly communicated her confidence in her team’s resourcefulness. She settled her own internal state, which in turn helped team meetings become more relaxed, productive, and creative. She asked questions, sat back in her chair rather than leaning forward, and allowed pauses and silence where previously every moment had been pressured and packed.

    She extended calm confidence into the team environment. They in turn stepped into this new space in astonishing new ways.

    Here’s the key. The behaviors that become problematic for us as leaders were acquired previously in our lives in conditions that no longer exist. But, because these behaviors worked at the time, they became embodied as tendencies that tend to emerge under pressure and stress now, decades later.

    When we practice in this way, we cultivate useful and resilient states that are available to us both now and in the future.
    When we practice in this way, we cultivate useful and resilient states that are available to us both now and in the future.

    We can harness the same mechanisms of neuroplasticity and embodied learning to develop and integrate new congruent states, organized around commitments, futures and values of our own choosing. When we practice in this way, we cultivate useful and resilient states that are available to us both now and in the future.

    • What habits do you engage in that actually reinforce unhelpful dynamics in your relationships?
    • What resourceful internal state do you wish was available when this happens?
    • What conditions produce this state? And, how might you practice it when those conditions are not present?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Winter Solstice

    Winter Solstice

    Winter Solstice, 2001

    solstice2It is the longest night. It is the shortest,
    darkest day. Time has to pause while the sun stills,
    while the earth waits to draw her next breath, frozen
    moment when we imagine nothing can help,
    that we’ll be caught in this darkness forever:

    and so we light candles, our fragile signals
    of need — we carol together, we listen,
    we hear fleeting through clouds a whir of white wing,
    hear deep down under the hard black shell of soil,
    in some burrow’s cozy corridor, the brown-
    furred creature of our future turn in her sleep.

    –  Ann Silsbee

    Today is the winter solstice. It’s been fifteen years since my mother wrote this poem. We live in a different world.

    May this extraordinarily turbulent astronomical year come to a restful end.

    May the next, with lengthening days beginning today, bring new light and possibilities. Stay present. Keep breathing. Be the future you intend.

    And, for a different perspective on the Sun’s apparent movements in the sky, see this stunning video from APOD!

    Doug Silsbee

  • Hope in Bad Times

    Hope in Bad Times

    To be hopeful in bad times is not foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

    What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

    And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

    – Howard Zinn

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #4: Resourcing with Presence in Challenging Times

    Presence in Complexity Series #4: Resourcing with Presence in Challenging Times
    We live in very unpredictable times. And, this has profound effects on our moment-by-moment experience.
    We live in very unpredictable times. And, this has profound effects on our moment-by-moment experience.

    Complexity, for leaders who are accustomed to making things happen, is an uncomfortable space. Lack of predictability can trigger us in ways that reduce our resourcefulness when we need it most.

    As a ready example, note your own reaction to the recent US election. What has been your mood? How are you reacting to breaking news? How do you feel this in your body?

    Whatever your belief system, we live in very unpredictable times. And, this has profound effects on our moment-by-moment experience.

    Complexity triggers our attachments and aversions. Where we sense opportunities to reinforce our identity, our energy ramps up and we act to build ourselves up.

    Conversely, when we feel under threat, aversions arise. We naturally act from fear when our sense of who we are is put at risk by circumstances we can’t control. Both attachments and aversions are likely to cause us to respond in ways that are less than helpful.

    Awareness of our internal experience, and specifically of the physical sensations that are always present within us, turns out to be a powerful doorway for resilience and creativity.

    Please try this brief experiment.

    Take a brief break from reading. (I know, I know… it’s a cliffhanger and you’re super busy and you just want to get the takeaway and move on. But, consider …. right now, you’re actually either avoiding doing something you don’t want to do. Or, you’re seeking to learn something new. Either of these will be well served by your taking an actual break. Pausing is a win either way. Trust me on this!)

    Now, read this paragraph. Then close your eyes. With awareness, take a full inhale, hold it briefly, and then allow a very long, slow and complete exhale through your nose. Be fully present. Sense the breath exiting your nose. Feel your chest and torso settling. At the end of the exhale, notice how you feel different. Specifically, what changed? Identify three words that describe how you feel different. Now, close your eyes and do this…..

    — Pause for experiment! —

    Directing attention itself changes, and regulates, the condition of our entire nervous system.
    Directing attention itself changes, and regulates, the condition of our entire nervous system.

    These three phenomena did not happen because you took a breath. You take many thousands of breaths every day. Whatever changed did so because you directed your attention to your breath, and more generally, into the sensations that are constantly present in your body.

    The experiment asked you to shift your attention from cognition (like the reading and meaning-making you’re doing in this moment) to the present-moment sensations that arise in your body (like during the breath pause.) You could repeat the breath pause, and if you do it sincerely and with attention, you will get very similar results.

    By experimenting in this way, we can discover many amazing things. Here are just a few; there are many more. All come factory-loaded in the world-class performance package included with your precious human body!

    • in any moment, we can choose where to direct our attention
    • we have an attention selector. Neuroscientists call this “executive control.” It is like the channel selector on a TV, that can be used to direct our attention where we choose
    • inside us is a wealth of constantly changing and dynamic experience
    • sensations provide rich information about ourselves, including how we are reacting to our context
    • directing attention itself changes, and regulates, the condition of our entire nervous system
    • attention brings us into the present moment, making us immediately more aware, creative, and resourceful.

    There is a lifetime of fascinating things about the workings of human consciousness to explore here. Please don’t take these claims on faith. Investigate for yourself. Verify, from your own experience, how these claims hold up.

    ****************

    Complexity is a feature of our context. We are constantly being buffeted by events, many of which are unpredictable and therefore triggering. This requires different ways of leading than we are prepared us for.

    We can learn to lead in complex and dangerous times with creativity, resourcefulness, spaciousness, and choice.
    We can learn to lead in complex and dangerous times with creativity, resourcefulness, spaciousness, and choice.

    Leaders are trained to observe the world, collect data, and base decisions on that data. It is crucial for leaders to recognize the dynamics of complexity in our context.

    However, if we focus our attention exclusively on what’s happening in the world, we will gain important information. And, we will miss essential information about our internal condition, as we are reacting to this context.

    Attention practices are essential. We must learn to sense, within our own aliveness, how our context is affecting us. This is revealed, with immediacy and clarity, in the rich tapestry of sensation-based information within us. It is revealed only in the present moment.

    From this foundation of awareness, we can build the capacity to cultivate inner conditions of our choosing. We can learn to lead in complex and dangerous times with creativity, resourcefulness, spaciousness, and choice.

    This is not futuristic. This is now. The exponentially increasing risks and complexity as we face a very uncertain future require this of all of us.

    I invite your reflections and comments:

    • How, specifically, do you experience triggering inside yourself in the current context?
    • What do you sense is being asked of you now?
    • What are you doing to resource yourself in order to respond creatively to this context?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #3: What Does the Body Have to Do With It?

    Presence in Complexity Series #3: What Does the Body Have to Do With It?

    Everything, really! Our body structures our interpretations of the world around us, generates our reactions to things around us, and determines the actions we take. Attention in the body is the key to staying resourceful when the world isn’t cooperating. It is how we can bring bringing awareness and choice into our reactions to the world.

    These urges drive our relationships, our connections with what’s important, our curiosity, and our avoidance of danger.
    These urges drive our relationships, our connections with what’s important, our curiosity, and our avoidance of danger.

    In the previous post, we saw how our identity gets challenged in complexity. We are constantly confronted by our limits. We know we can get things done, but our project is plagued by delays. People we usually can count on disappoint us, and we find ourselves angry. Something unpredictable happens, and we tell ourselves we should have seen it coming. Or, we are surprised by our over-reaction to a provocation that ordinarily wouldn’t seem a big deal.

    The person we imagine ourselves to be would sail smoothly through all this. But, the person we actually are isn’t sailing smoothly at all!

    We find ourselves set back on our heels over and over again by realities that confront us with gaps in our capabilities. Or, call into question the very competencies that give us pride and meaning and a sense of self.

    Relax… this is simply complexity challenging our identity! It’s normal!

    *************

    Identity is an embodied phenomenon. Our identity, our reliable sense of self, is held in place by attachments and aversions. Attachments are urges towards experiences that are safe and pleasurable and that reinforce who we believe ourselves to be. And aversions are urges to avoid what is unsafe, unpleasant, or challenges who we believe ourselves to be.

    Attachments and aversions can be felt in the body. For example, the tightening in our belly as someone gives us difficult feedback is an aversion. The small surge of energy when we see an email in our inbox from someone we made a request of is an attachment. The impulse to eat just one more cookie is an attachment; the resistance we feel to drafting a touchy email is an aversion.

    When we begin to look, attachments and aversions are everywhere. They are the direct experience of the urges within our body as it constructs and defends our identity. These urges drive our relationships, our connections with what’s important, our curiosity, and our avoidance of danger.

    Attachments and aversions are… the direct experience of the urges within our body as it constructs and defends our identity.
    Attachments and aversions are… the direct experience of the urges within our body as it constructs and defends our identity.

    These urges are constant and vigilant. They steer us automatically towards what strengthens identity and away from what threatens identity.

    How is this pragmatic?

    In our coach training and our work with leaders in complexity, we practice awareness of our interior experience. We slow ourselves down. We pay attention. When we focus on our experience, there is lots of information. We miss it when we are running fast, but the information is there for the reaping. We just have to learn how to look.

    We can use this information to guide us as leaders and humans. Sensing attachments and aversions reveals our body acting to strengthen or defend identity. We can learn to stay present to our body’s precursors to action, intervening and choosing before it is too late to choose.

    Five minutes ago, as I sat here writing this blog post, a text message arrived. A close colleague was inviting me to collaborate on a choice piece of work overseas, three weeks from now. I could feel my attachments. My heartbeat quickened. My energy rose. I sat up straighter. I watched my thoughts began to race as my nervous system automatically began to figure out how to fit this into an already packed calendar. I watched myself generate stories to justify doing so: this work would pay well, it’s overseas in a cool place, it’s with a high profile client, it would be fun and gratifying to work with this colleague, etc, etc…

    All true. And, I recognized the feel of this pull. I saw clearly how the opportunity tugged at my identity by triggering multiple attachments. I saw that these strong identity-driven urges to say Yes were leading towards a commitment that would require abandoning several other promises that I had already made to my family and to another project that is very important to me.

    In the past, I would have found a way to make it work, and cleaned up the messes later. Now, I am able to see that my attachment was hijacking me. I replied to my colleague that I appreciated the invitation but couldn’t make it work. And, I came back to writing this blog post, sitting on a rainy morning next to my wife and my dogs, writing what is mine to write.

    Our nervous system is designed to avoid dangers like hungry lions, and operates fundamentally the same with the creation and preservation of identity.
    Our nervous system is designed to avoid dangers like hungry lions, and operates fundamentally the same with the creation and preservation of identity.

    It is the body’s job to keep the organism safe. The mechanisms to do so are elegantly designed to handle this, reliably and below the level of awareness. Our nervous system is designed to avoid dangers like hungry lions, and operates fundamentally the same with the creation and preservation of identity. Like angry spouses. Or, people with power who want to give us feedback. Our body is constantly organizing itself, through attachments and aversions, to navigate the world in ways that construct and protect our identity.

    Unless and until we bring awareness to illuminating the inner workings of these drivers, they run us. We can learn to recognize the experience of our identity being challenged by unpredictable circumstances. We can bring awareness to, the precise physical sensations that indicate our personality is involved in our reactions. We can do this long before our slower and more deliberate thinking processes can figure it out.

    We can use this awareness in many ways in order to become more fluid, creative, and resourceful when the world doesn’t show up in the ways we wish it would.

    Consider, in relation to some significant aspect of your current conditions that you experience as challenging:

    • What is important to you in this situation? How does this situation contain opportunities or threats for your identity?
    • What are you attached to? What aversions are at play?
    • How do you experience these attachments and aversions in your body? In your emotions? In the stories that you tell yourself about what might happen?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #2: Identity on the Line

    Presence in Complexity Series #2: Identity on the Line
    Our responses in complexity are often determined, in ways that are both debilitating and invisible to us, by our perspective
    Our responses in complexity are often determined, in ways that are both debilitating and invisible to us, by our perspective

    We experience situations as difficult when they call into question our sense of who we are.

    Among most of the people I know, domestically and overseas, there is a sense of outrage about last week’s election. Among others, there is presumably a sense of vindication, of optimism, of finally being heard. Both of those responses are understandable. Both sets of people are equally convinced that they are in possession of the truth. Our response to the election is determined by its resonance with our identity, with our very sense of self.

    “Challenging” isn’t a descriptor of the situation so much as a descriptor of our perspective on the situation. Our responses in complexity are often determined, in ways that are both debilitating and invisible to us, by our perspective.

    We might believe that things should be otherwise. We tell ourselves: “I should have predicted this.” “I should be able to control this situation or solve that problem.” “I should be up to this challenge.”

    When we believe these things, we will likely experience our situation as frustrating. Our identity feels on the line. We may tighten down and work harder. Paradoxically, these very understandable responses may make it harder to actually change the situation.

    When we see that the situation is inherently unpredictable and uncontrollable, we relax. And, paradoxically, this relaxation can make it easier to see and make new moves. Being present to how our identity is being triggered is a key to this most useful relaxation and acceptance.

    Our deepest drives feed a relentless, unconscious, and automatic life-long process of constructing and defending our identity
    Our deepest drives feed a relentless, unconscious, and automatic life-long process of constructing and defending our identity

    Let’s explore the notion of identity, and see where this leads us.

    Our identity was formed early in life as we sought to discover how to survive and thrive in families of origin that were universally less than perfect. As young children, we navigated this less-than-ideal circumstance. We shaped ourselves to get what we needed from life, and to differentiate ourselves as a person. Successful strategies become embodied in our personality, and eventually come to define us.

    (It’s fun to watch my four year old grandson, Max, doing this…. the amount of will this little guy possesses, and is willing to assert in pursuit of what he wants or doesn’t want at a particular time, is absolutely astounding! He is a force to be reckoned with!)

    Identity is how a developing human becomes solidified as a personality. Our deepest drives feed a relentless, unconscious, and automatic life-long process of constructing and defending our identity.

    The Buddhist notions of attachments and aversions speak to this. They are the self-correction mechanisms that keep identity in place. They are the underlying drivers of behavior.

    Attachments are the pulls towards something (a glass of wine, the admiration of others, solving a problem) that gives us positive experiences. Attachments are what advertisements trigger when they pitch make-up, drugs, vacations, or a candidate that tells us what we want to believe, even if it doesn’t make rational sense. As leaders, getting things done is supported by our attachments to action and results, to being successful.

    Aversions, on the other hand, are the instinctual mechanisms of avoidance. Originally designed to help us avoid predators, they work just as well as drivers to help us avoid embarrassment, looking stupid, or whatever our particular definition of failure might be.

    Attachments are the pulls towards something that gives us positive experiences
    Attachments are the pulls towards something that gives us positive experiences

    Bottom line? We seek what we are attached to. We avoid what we have aversions to. Underneath, and preceding, every behavior and action is an attachment or an aversion. Look and you will see them. They are the internal self-correction mechanisms through which we organize ourselves in life to keep our identity intact.

    So, back to complexity and suffering. Situations that are VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) challenge our identity as someone who can control events or make things happen.

    Complexity activates our attachments and aversions. We are attached to solving the problem or making progress or achieving results (because our identity is linked to those things happening.) And, we have an aversion to looking inadequate or failing or staying stuck (because our identity is linked to those things not happening.)

    Our experience of a complex environment is, in fact, directly correlated with the identity we have built over a lifetime, and now finds itself challenged by the very complexity in which we are leading.

    Similarly, our view of the election results depends on our whether our identity is being affirmed by the victor’s rhetoric. If it is, our attachments are triggered: we feel seen and our energy and optimism increase. Our identity responds to these messages, and we move towards the victor.

    If, on the other hand, our identity is threatened by the victor’s rhetoric, our response is very different. Our aversions will be triggered if we belong to any of the many groups he has insulted, or if our values and the people and things we care about are threatened.

    We can learn to see how our identity is being triggered by the situations we are in
    We can learn to see how our identity is being triggered by the situations we are in

    Unfortunately our biological tendency when our identity is under threat is to tighten down, do more, and work harder. Paradoxically, as we shall see in subsequent blog posts, these may be exactly the wrong things to do when we are operating in complexity. Tightening down and working harder are the instinctual responses to identity threats, but they can make it more difficult to navigate fluidly and creatively and compassionately in complexity. Acting in complexity with conventional, identity-preserving behaviors often makes the situation more difficult, and real progress more elusive.

    When our identity needs, and the attachments and aversions that keep them intact, are invisible to us, they sabotage our effectiveness as leaders in countless ways, small and large. This is true whether the situation is big (like the US election) or small (a difficult conversation with a loved one) or in between (like the teams and organizations we lead.)

    We can learn to see how our identity is being triggered by the situations we are in. And, we can learn to stay present with the attachments and aversions that arise in response to our situation, no matter how strong they are. This is the key to resilience and choice.

    • How does your current context challenge your identity? What risks do you experience, personally, in this situation?
    • How does your current context enliven and invite you to be your best?
    • What attachments do you recognize? What aversions? How do you experience these as reactions to complexity and unpredictability?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Post-Election: 11/9 and the Throughlines of Resilience

    Post-Election: 11/9 and the Throughlines of Resilience

    Yesterday was a very difficult day.

    I went to bed on Tuesday night with the election trend clear, but not knowing the outcome. I awoke at 6 a.m. yesterday to find out that the candidate that I felt scared by had won decisively. I understand that for many, this was great news, and I appreciate that there can be reason and caring behind this view.

    I was in shock. I woke my wife, wanting to share the moment with her, but quickly headed out for day three of our Presence-Based Coaching retreat.

    At breakfast, the group looked shell-shocked; some students were crying, others trying for humor, there was a sense of disbelief. Not everyone wanted the same candidate. Not everyone even voted. But together, we all felt the tsunami that crashed ashore Tuesday night.

    I was working with my own emotions. Outside, it was cold and drizzly; inside me, it felt like all was lost.

    9/11 had the sense of nov-9a seismic shift and the undeniable emergence of a world that I didn’t recognize. I had the same feeling the day Reagan was elected, when Kennedy was shot, during the Cuban missile crisis. In those seminal and traumatic moments, it seemed everything I knew was under threat. Yesterday felt the same: that deep existential dread. And, we were to be leading a coach training retreat?

    By the end of the day, our group of 21 students and Sarah Halley and I had moved into a very different place. I think the container of our group and the structure of our retreat were strong enough to take the tremendous shock of the unexpected election results and use that energy to deepen our experience and forge something powerful and useful.

    I want to share some of what helped; it’s generalizable. All of these had previously been designed into the program. And, we moved a lot around to serve what was needed in the moment.

    Our practice, in PBC, is to be present and work with what is happening. These practices are personal and coaching-related. Yesterday they had new immediacy and relevance:

    • Community: We began the day by sitting together. We stayed present with each other, and with ourselves. All had time to voice whatever they cared to say. There were tears, anger, shame, fear, gratitude, caring. One person had to leave the room and return. The process took a couple of hours. By the end, something had shifted. Community and connectedness are key ingredients for healing. It begins with feeling heard and respected.
    • Meaning-making: In PBC, polarities are a lens for exploring tensions and competing commitments. We sense these dynamics within ourselves, in our relationships and teams, and in society. Yesterday, our students coached each other through a powerful somatic coaching exercise to illuminate and integrate polarities in service to what we care about. And, we understood, with greater compassion, the nature of the polarization that has rent the US in this election cycle. It is reassuring to have language and distinctions for interpreting and making meaning of disruptive events.
    • Grounding and settling: We (including me) began the day feeling shaken to the core, fragile, raw. We took reflection time in the afternoon to be alone on the land. Trees were still growing, the sun poked through clouds, kingfishers swooped up the river that has been flowing here for a half billion years. It was deeply settling to simply be outdoors. No requests, no drama. Nothing in nature supports the illusion of permanence. When we are outdoors, it feels easier to relax, to accept whatever is true, to settle and ground in the faith that everything runs its course.
    • Perspective-taking: Last evening, we did a coaching practice called the Grand Tour. This practice invites us into the perspective of big time, and we are able to sense ourselves as the inevitable product of everything that came before. We see ourselves as a unique person with an invitation to contribute to what happens next. This big context gives our commitments a new and deeper meaning. We are inheritors of our current situation. And, we each, in our little corner of the world, are an authors of what comes next. What we do matters.

    These four themes provided the container for 23 humans to move through strong shock and grief, to come together, to practice some crucial coaching skills along the way, and to metabolize our shock and grief into intimacy, presence, and readiness for whatever is next. It was a privilege to share an extraordinary day with these extraordinary people. In the midst of shock and disruption, our process of being present together will stay with me and inspire me well into the future.

    I know that this work isn’t done. I still feel waves of grief and fear. I suspect that some extraordinarily difficult times are ahead. And, I feel optimistic, awake, and ready.

    All of us are in this together, whoever you voted for, or if you didn’t vote. Please share:

    • How are you resourcing yourself internally in this new reality?
    • How are you resourcing with others?
    • And, what might you share that would inspire and support others?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Presence in Complexity Series #1: Reading Our Context

    Presence in Complexity Series #1: Reading Our Context
    Because we don’t know how to navigate this terrain, we tend to double down on what we’ve always done in an effort to re-establish our inner sense of a competent self.

    Because we don’t know how to navigate this terrain, we tend to double down on what we’ve always done in an effort to re-establish our inner sense of a competent self.

    It’s most people’s experience that the world we live in is changing rapidly. We experience it as “VUCA,” a term coined by the acronym-favoring military at the end of the 80’s to describe the emerging post-Cold War world. The acronym stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous, the intensity of which has increased dramatically since the term was invented.

    Great. So we have a name for a world we experience as overwhelming! So what?

    This is not the world that our education was generally designed to prepare us for, nor the world that traditional narratives about success teach us that we should be able to largely control and direct according to our wishes. It’s the world we actually live in. And we need new ways to make sense of it.

    In my schools there was a right answer. I thought if I was smart enough I would figure it out. When I got the right answer I felt good, and was rewarded with external validation in the form of praise and grades. When I didn’t… well, not so much.

    The conventional narrative is work hard, be honest, build our skills, treat people well, and things will more or less go according to our wishes. Now though, we notice increasingly that doing the right things doesn’t necessarily produce the results we expected.

    In fact, there’s a greater and greater dissonance between the world we have prepared to inhabit and the world that actually exists. A growing gap between our reasonable expectations that we can control much of our worlds, and the disturbing evidence that we can’t control much at all. This dissonance is part of what is fueling angry anti-establishment political movements.

    Further, we can feel that it’s our fault. We sometimes think we only need to tighten down. Work harder. Build our leadership or technical competencies. Get more power so we are finally in charge. Then, somehow, the ship would right itself and we’d be able to sail more or less on course to what James Flaherty calls “the island where everything works out.”

    This is actually wrong. Our internalized and instinctive responses to changing conditions are often wrong. Doubling down to do more what we’ve always done is usually anti-helpful.

    The most useful starting point towards a radically new way of leading is actually a new way of seeing the world. It means being present to what is real, instead of being surprised and reactive when it differs from what we expect.

    In a classic Harvard Business Review article, Dave Snowden proposes four domains. These broad distinctions begin to build a vocabulary for observing and navigating a new reality that is radically different from what we have prepared for. And, they support new ways to organize ourselves as leaders.

    These domains are:

    • Obvious (Snowden uses the term Simple.) This is the domain of predictable, straightforward action. Cause and effect is known, and we can safely assume that if we take a certain action, our desired results will follow. Changing the tire on the car, delegating a project to a competent direct report, sitting down to a family dinner.
    • Complicated. Here, cause and effect is predictable, but we don’t necessarily know how to do it. With the right expertise (which we can presumably find) we can create an optimal solution, but there are lots of interrelated elements in a solution that have to be considered for the best results. Diagnosing a subtle engine problem, prioritizing tasks in a complicated workflow, planning an elaborate menu for a dinner party with multiple dietary restrictions.
    • Complex. In this domain, cause and effect are not predictable. There are many interrelated factors that are unknown, and some things in the system affect other things in ways that are not possible to predict. The harder we push, the more unanticipated side effects tend to appear. Others behave in ways that don’t make sense to us. Driving through rush hour when the optimal route is constantly changing, building commitment in a team to a new and challenging project, a family reunion where some of the people dislike each other.
    • Chaotic. Here, events are disconnected, and seem to appear at random. There is no apparent cause and effect at all, and phenomena are coming at us faster than we can react or make sense. There’s no time to process, and patterns are not visible to us. A truck runs a red light in front of us and we careen to avoid it, an all hands emergency meeting is called in the middle of our team planning session, a fistfight breaks out at the family reunion.

    If we misread the context, and act from wrong assumptions, we will find ourselves expending lots of energy and getting poor results.

    For example, if we log onto Waze to obtain crowd-sourced traffic flow to drive to the store on a Sunday morning with no traffic (responding to an Obvious context with a Complex solution,) our kids will think we are trying to be cool but are actually being ridiculous. This is low cost but illustrative.

    However, if we need to build team commitment to a challenging project (Complex) but treat it as if it were simply a matter of re-prioritizing tasks (Complicated) we will be rightly seen as tone-deaf, controlling and simplistic. Much bigger cost.

    In complexity, we find our sense of our own competence challenged. Because we don’t know how to navigate this terrain, we tend to double down on what we’ve always done in an effort to re-establish our inner sense of a competent self. (The effects of this on our own identity are the topic of the next post!)

    Building our literacy at staying present, sensing the context, and then acting consistently with what the context is asking of us, is the art of leadership.

    • What challenge are you facing that is confronting you with the limitations of what you can control?
    • What components of this challenge are Obvious, Complicated, and Complex, or Chaotic?
    • How do these distinctions help you make sense of the situation?

    This is the first of a series of blog posts on the topic of presence and complexity. Please comment below, and share with others.

    And, for more great resources on this subject, see the blog of my dear friends and colleagues, Carolyn Coughlin and Jennifer Garvey Berger and Jennifer’s book, Simple Habits, co-authored with Keith Johnston.

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Voting as a Simple Act in Complexity

    Voting as a Simple Act in Complexity

    I voted early the other day. I didn’t feel any significant sense of relief, though it did feel good to vote for Hillary. But the election is still two weeks away.

    I actually don’t expect to feel a huge sense of relief even if the election turns out the way I think it will, which is that Hillary will win, and win big.

    Assuming she wins, I would really love to believe that the story then ends rosily. We will have dodged a bullet by not electing the least qualified, most dangerous Presidential candidate in US history. And we will have elected the most qualified candidate in history, who also happens to be a woman, which is more than a good thing. Both of those facts would be true.

    But, the story will not have ended.

    In fact, the polarizing currents of separation, racism, economic disparity, misogyny, and xenophobia that this interminable election cycle has exacerbated will continue well past Nov. 8. Whoever is elected may have a very difficult time actually governing.

    Our Republic is a flawed but noble adventure that has gotten many things right while sometimes doing grievous harm. We have seen our government paralyzed for years by polarized and entrenched interests that have a difficult time finding common ground, even though it is absolutely imperative that we find it. Now, a demagogue has played up legitimate feelings of disenfranchisement and fanned the flames of anger and blame, fracturing our nation even further. To withhold a commitment to honor the results of the election process at the very core of our democracy is to put the whole enterprise at risk.

    This is complexity in action. The election has seemed an astoundingly long process, but from a different perspective, it’s a short chapter in a very long story that will continue into the distant future. The process of emergence, of disruptions to long held assumptions, of high stakes gamesmanship, of acting from narrow sets of interests without regard to the larger whole… these conditions ensure the show will get more dramatic before it settles down.

    I am launching a series of blog posts around the rich topic of what it means to live, and lead, in complexity. How we can sense the environment we are leading in, recognize what is at stake for us, and sense how we are responding and what other possibilities might be available to us.

    This series of posts is not inspired by the election, nor will it present a narrative about how our country can recover from the scorched earth wreckage of this election cycle. I don’t have answers to this, but it’s clear that Hillary, our next President, has her work cut out for her.

    It’s also clear that the US political process is providing a dramatic and current example of complexity that is unfolding in unpredictable ways that exceed our capacity to make sense of them. Note that earlier this year the UK voted for Brexit (based largely on exaggerated promises by dubious promoters,) and Columbia turned down a peace agreement with the FARC rebels that took four years to negotiate. In Columbia, 19% of the population voted for the agreement, 19.2% voted against, and 62% didn’t vote because everyone thought it would pass easily. Both of these examples are catastrophically bad decisions made by democracies that weren’t paying attention.

    This is something we can all learn from. Finding new ways to sense and understand complex systems, and to act in them skillfully, is a central task of our times.

    Do you know what the first thing is? Vote! You know my heart; follow yours, but vote. The outcome of Nov. 8 will not end the story, but that doesn’t diminish the crucial importance of this particular event along the path. It’s the first thing to do, and as complex as the world is, voting is really simple.

    Then, trust that the process of emergence will continue after Nov. 8. There will be plenty of surprises. As Hameed Ali says, “Reality does not take breaks.” So, pay attention. There will be much to learn and much to bear witness to as the future unfolds.

    There will be much for each of us to do.

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Complexity in the Mountains

    Complexity in the Mountains

    August offered me an 8 day wilderness trip in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana, accompanied by my two brothers.

    I came here for the first time in 1973, for a geology field school. I’ve been returning for the past 43 years, exploring new territory each time. This time, we poked around a new part of the high plateau, in particular seeking to visit some of the remnants of the once grand glaciers that shaped this landscape, and now are dying in the face of climate warming.

    The Beartooths are a spiritual home for me. This is the raw wilderness in which I tested myself as a youth and discovered, within, a capable adult. It is rugged, wild, gorgeous, and filled with natural wonders, real awe, and countless unanswered questions. It is empty; next door Yellowstone pulls in all the tourists; we literally saw no other people for most of our time out.

    Sometimes causality is mysterious, yet every phenomenon has roots in causes and conditions
    Sometimes causality is mysterious, yet every phenomenon has roots in causes and conditions

    Exploring the Beartooths is best done off-trail. Traversing this wild plateau of lakes, boulder fields, snow, waterfalls, and alpine gardens is both liberating and challenging. Route-finding is a central part of the deal. We get to decide what destinations call us out of nearly limitless possibilities. And, we get to discern the best way to get there, which is often unclear and involves complex trade-offs of terrain difficulty, elevation gain, weather risk, and energy reserves.

    Sound like leadership? Yes, the Beartooths are a fabulous place to practice the game of leadership. Playing in natural systems provides valuable metaphors and practices to help us navigate the complexities of our leadership contexts. Here are some examples:

    Everything perfectly reflects the conditions in which it arose. Asking “how did this come to be?” reveals underlying conditions and processes that favored certain plant species, prevented fish from entering that lake, or arranged large rocks in particular and specific patterns. We saw these phenomena everywhere: iron staining on the rocks on one side of the creek but not the other, moss growing around the rocks, little Zen waterfalls produced by nature.

    Sometimes causality is mysterious, yet every phenomenon has roots in causes and conditions. As leaders, we are wise to inquire into the conditions that give rise to particular behaviors. Rather than trying to alter a symptom that is not to our liking, there’s often more leverage in shifting the underlying conditions that birthed the symptom in the first place.

    beartooth6
    There’s always a way…

    There’s always a way… It’s fun, in these mountains, to choose a quest. – “Hey, let’s climb that peak. Discover what this remote lake is like. Descend this preposterously steep snow slope, etc.” – This is the game. The most interesting destinations, actually, are the ones where we don’t know if it’s possible. Usually, it turns out that it is, but it’s the adventure, the excitement of the chase and the discoveries along the way that make it worthwhile. The biggest obstacles, and the joys of getting past them, are usually not revealed until we are fully committed. Evoking a desired future, through declaring commitments, is the essential act of leadership. Often we don’t know how to get there. Kennedy declared that the US would put a man on the moon by the end of the 60’s; Google declared their purpose as making all the world’s information available to everyone. These are audacious commitments. And, if a commitment is strong enough, the way generally becomes clear.

    beartooth5
    … unless there isn’t

    … unless there isn’t. Sometimes, a destination or a route proves impossible or unwise. There actually isn’t a way forward. A descent route turns out, halfway down, to have a cliff band insurmountable without ropes. Or, retreating glaciers leave steep and loose moraines across which travel is very difficult. After climbing a peak for great views of four different glaciers, we ran out of time to return via the floating slabs broken off one of the last glaciers in the range. In our 60’s now, there wasn’t enough margin of energy and time to return by this longer route. While this circumstance wasn’t foreseeable, there’s nothing to do but let this aspiration go. As leaders, we often make personal and collective aspirational commitments without knowing how it will play out. Safe, small commitments reduce this uncertainty; bold commitments always invite the unknown. When things turn out to be impossible or unwise, we can learn to say “Oh well. Now what?” and not have a big story we tell ourselves about failure. That’s not to say that we don’t learn when we make mistakes. Only that we move on quickly and gracefully to whatever is next, grateful to have had the chance to play in the first place.

    Stay in action. There are lots of places in the Beartooths where there are extensive boulder fields to cross, climb or descend. One way to move in this challenging terrain is static. We balance, using poles, stabilize ourselves on a boulder, assess the next move, and then take a step. After each step, we stop and decide what’s next. This is pretty slow going, but feels conservative and safe and predictable.

    The second method is dynamic, and best done without poles. We move fluidly across the rocks, crossing creeks, staying in motion. Our gaze is always scanning two or three steps ahead, and we adjust and correct fluidly and constantly as we move across the boulders. Moving this way is much faster, more fun, and actually easier. This

    Dynamism requires trust in our capacity to make adjustments on the fly when our foot placements and balance aren’t quite right.
    Dynamism requires trust in our capacity to make adjustments on the fly when our foot placements and balance aren’t quite right.

    Dynamism requires trust in our capacity to make adjustments on the fly when our foot placements and balance aren’t quite right. As leaders, we often make moves that aren’t guaranteed. In a fast-moving world, we have to trust in our own improvisation, keeping things in motion and adjusting as we go. A move in the right direction produces new information and changes our circumstances; we can fine-tune as we go.

    There are countless other parallels. My meaning-making machinery was going full tilt during our wild and wonderful 8 days in wilderness.

    Leading is a similar process of reading the conditions, establishing aspirational commitments that aren’t guaranteed, accepting reality as it appears, and staying in action towards what we care about.

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    Your turn to consider the context in which you are leading:

    • What curious results are you noticing, and what might they reveal about underlying conditions?
    • What could you trust more about the way forward?
    • What if your initiative turns out to be not viable? How could you be OK?
    • And, where might you be bolder at staying in dynamic action, without knowing all the next steps?

    Please add your comments and reflections!

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Mindfulness Tips for Behavior Change

    Mindfulness Tips for Behavior Change

    Mindfulness has been receiving wide attention lately in countless books, published research papers, and mainstream business literature. The physical and psychological benefits of mindfulness are indisputable, and the implications for coaching, behavioral change, and leadership development are profound. Coaches and clients alike can leverage their change work through these simple tips.

    Mindfulness: What Is It?

    mindfulness is a practice of paying moment by moment attention to our experience, as it arises, without judgment
    mindfulness is a practice of paying moment by moment attention to our experience, as it arises, without judgment

    Simply put, mindfulness is a practice of paying moment by moment attention to our experience, as it arises, without judgment. We cultivate mindfulness through any of a wide range of sitting practices, which can be as simple as closing the eyes and counting our breaths. Over time, mindfulness practice:

    • Develops our capacity to observe our experience objectively,
    • Replaces the inner critic with a neutral acceptance, and
    • Allows us to stay present with strong experience, and to choose an effective response.

    Stay with me a moment. This will appear to diverge, but it’s temporary… we will come back to connect mindfulness into the change proposition that is central to all coaching and leader development.

    The Top Down View Of Habits

    Please understand that our culture tends to view behavior, and the patterns of default behaviors we call habits, through the lens of results.

    In this view, organizational goals and objectives provide the context for all behaviors. Feedback, competency models, and change methodologies are designed to motivate leaders, and to support the development of new behaviors that are aligned with organizational goals. All of this takes place on the macro level of visible behaviors and organizational context.

    A Bottom Up View Of Habits

    However, habits are simply conditioned patterns of behavior that have become hard-wired and default responses to life’s complexities. We learned them at an early age because they worked then. Yet, given who we are now and our current challenges, we all have long-standing habits that limit our creativity, render us less effective, and/or cause suffering.

    A bottom up view is that our habits arise from unconscious patterns of neuronal connections. Behaviors that worked in the past (say, when we were four years old!) become automatized by the nervous systems’ built-in learning mechanisms. Biologically, this is a great way to save processing bandwidth, time and energy: we don’t have to re-learn what danger looks like, or how to respond to it!

    Once learned, however, our habits of thought and action become embodied and automatic. Never mind that our boss giving us difficult feedback about our sales presentation has little to do with our mother scolding us when we left a mess at age four; our nervous system reacts in the same way, and reacts far faster than if we thought it through and made a rational decision!

    Five Mindfulness-Based Tips For Working With Habits

    The bottom up view lends itself to exploration via mindfulness.

    When, through practice, we pay attention to the nuances of our experience, we discover that all behavior arises from subtle unconscious impulses below the level of awareness. We begin to see that these “automatisms” can be directly experienced as urges to action before they lead to actual behaviors. We begin to intervene with ourselves, in the present moment, to choose more wisely how we engage with others and with life.

    Tip One: Start Practicing

    Begin some kind of mindfulness practice. (Guidance for this is important, and easily available; two starting points are Chade-Meng Tan’s Search Inside Yourself, another Sharon Salzberg’s Real Happiness.) Research shows that as little as 8 minutes a day of regular practice can have measurable long term benefits. The main thing is to start, and to stay with it. Don’t be an overachiever… this isn’t about “getting it right.” It’s about starting, and simply doing it. Every day, even if just for a few minutes.

    Tip Two: Track Sensation

    Mindfulness practice emphasizes accepting our experience without judgment
    Mindfulness practice emphasizes accepting our experience without judgment

    Include, in your mindfulness practice, specific attention to the sensations in your body. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s influential work on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction includes body scans, a formal practice of directing attention into the body.

    Tracking sensation (for example, our breath) can immediately slow our mental chatter and settle our nervous system, bringing us into the present moment. Sensations help us recognize, for example, that we feel impatient, or that we are sensing a disproportionate urgency that may lead to actions we will regret.

    Tip Three: Accept Your Experience

    Mindfulness practice emphasizes accepting our experience without judgment. We are not seeking to change anything, merely to be present with our experience. Our stance is neutral; we notice our judgment arising, and we simply accept that it’s there, and let it go.

    This acceptance short circuits the sometimes automatic commentary and interpretation that naturally accompanies all experience. Through acceptance, we come to see the external situation as it is: objectively and dispassionately. And, we see, and accept, the internal reactions, judgments, and impulses that arise automatically in response to our situation, but which might not lead to the wisest course of action!

    This neutral stance allows for a much more creative and expansive range of choices than the narrowed, reactive automatisms that often drive our behavior.

    Tip Four: Observe Yourself In Action

    Change requires being able to observe ourselves doing what isn’t working, and knowing what an alternative might be. Then, we must interrupt our well-rehearsed automatic tendencies and, in the heat of the moment, replace a habitual behavior with an unfamiliar one.

    Self-observation is a rigorous daily practice of reflecting, and writing down notes, about the internal experience of our habits in action. For example, we come to recognize the subtle urges in our body that arise immediately prior to interrupting someone, or the way our own mental commentary comes in and prevents our listening to the person we are speaking with. These internal experiences are made more visible by mindfulness.

    Tip Five: Learn to Stay Present with Action Urges

    Impulse control is a demonstrated benefit of mindfulness. When we recognize, and stay present with our urges to take action (whether to grab a second cookie or to vent unskillfully in a meeting!) we discover the freedom to either act on the urge or not.

    Familiarity with, and acceptance of, our habitual urges (which are revealed in sensation) liberates us from their automaticity. What we formerly were driven by, we now see objectively, simply as a phenomenon that is present, but one that has less and less hold over us. This is tremendously liberating.

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    Mindfulness means witnessing ourselves in action. Doing so translates directly into greater choice, creativity, resourcefulness, and resilience. While this calls for discipline and consistency over time, over time the neural circuitry of presence, choice, relaxed alertness, and non-judgmental acceptance becomes increasingly embodied as a set of physiological defaults.

    The benefits are indisputable, and the investment minuscule compared to the rewards.

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Living at the Frothy Edge

    Living at the Frothy Edge

    We are all in transition. Something is always ending; something else sprouting.

    For sure, some transitions are more painful, liberating, intentional, or dramatic than others. But, we can all point to things in our lives that are diminishing and to others that are taking root. Projects, relationships, health, life circumstances, the focus of our intentions and energies…. these all evolve. Nothing is fixed.

    In transitions, if we are paying attention, we see signs of what is lingering and what is emergent
    In transitions, if we are paying attention, we see signs of what is lingering and what is emergent

    Walker and I hiked to Twin Falls on Sunday. A few days of unseasonably warm weather had gotten spring underway; a couple of very cold nights were a reminder not to be complacent. We ambled to the waterfalls with the dogs, enjoying the late March woods. A picnic lunch near the water invited a nap. ­­On a whim, I climbed up to the base of one of the falls, and found fantastic ice formations from the spray and the previous night’s chill, still melting… the last vestiges of winter. Twenty feet away down the hill in the sun, the first trout lilies were already blooming. At the frothy edge of transition, ice and delicate lilies co-exist.

    In transitions, if we are paying attention, we see signs of what is lingering and what is emergent. Transitions sometimes happen to us because of forces larger than us… like winter turning to spring, we are participants in these transitions, and it’s revealing to observe the signs all around us.

    As we develop, we increasingly see the possibilities of becoming the agent of our own transitions. We choose to accelerate processes that might happen on their own anyway, but to which we can bring intentionality and purpose. Here, rather than signs simply appearing to mark and reveal transitions, we seek leverage points for accelerating them.

    Paying attention to what is ending and what is beginning energizes the natural unfolding of transitions. For example:

    • Declare an end to long-standing commitments that have run their course. Recently, I bowed out of an annual leadership program I had taught for 20 years. While it was fun and high quality and paid well, it was no longer the work that I was called to do, and consumed attention that I needed for other things.
    • Yesses and Noes: From the myriad requests that come your way every day, bring awareness to your choices of what you say Yes to and what you say No to. Recognize that Yesses and Noes are the very currency with which you create your future.
    • Honor what has been… it has made you into the only person you could be. Grieve what there is to grieve, appreciate what there is to appreciate. Recognizing and honoring what has been is essential to moving on.

    • We bring a future into being by prototyping new forms and possibilities
      We bring a future into being by prototyping new forms and possibilities

      Experiment. I’ve been involved in Otto Scharmer’s global community for profound social change for the past several months. We bring a future into being by prototyping new forms and possibilities. Whether fully formed or not, we engage others through these prototypes, and we learn more about the territory and how we can navigate it. We are in action towards a future.

    • Be fallow. Take time to soak, change perspective, step outside the churn produced by your web of commitments. Pause. Moving at warp speed often leads to tightening and constriction, reducing the creativity and spaciousness required for new learning. The more pressure we are under, the more likely we are to revert to what we have done before. Take time and space, even when (especially when!) you’re too busy to do so.
    • Create activators: bold commitments that establish new facts on the ground that require us to take new actions. Proposing marriage, signing a publishing contract, going public with a new offer, agreeing to a collaborative project… all of these catalyze and require new actions and thinking.
    • Clarify the shape of the transition itself. We step back to a clearer view by articulating what is ending, and creating language around the future. We take the transition we are living inside of, and place it outside ourselves as an object that can be witnessed and observed. We begin to create movement and energy when we acknowledge what we are completing, and when we engage in conversations, visioning and learning that helps us perceive the territory that we are moving into.

    Consider your frothy edge, where endings and beginnings are interspersed for you.

    • What transition are you in?
    • What is ending? What is being born?
    • Which of these ways of attending to transitions speaks to you?
    • What new actions might you take?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Whole-heartedness

    Whole-heartedness

    I have been feeling the turning for some time now.

    It began a couple years ago, when a combination of circumstances made it clear that we could no longer sustain what we had so enthusiastically built, and it was time to create some change. Moving to town, selling our beloved retreat center, Walker retiring, building the team that delivers and manages the Presence-Based Coaching offer, and a couple of other moves opened a distinct new chapter.

    Presence-Based Coaching has reached a maturity and impact I couldn’t have imagined fifteen years ago. I work with fascinating clients, our work is rich and influential, it’s all working. Yet, there’s more.

    I’m inquiring into what’s next
    I’m inquiring into what’s next

    I’m inquiring into what’s next. Not as in “I’m retiring and what do I do with the rest of my life,” but more like “what is worth energizing now.” My path has always been an integrative one… seeking the next edge to my own development, and folding my learning into the living work that we collectively bring forward, and that is also my expression in the world.

    So, when I feel this calling, I listen.

    This time, it has something to do with a more direct connection of our Presence-Based work to the crucial issues of our times. There are lots of people who are doing important work for the benefit of us all that are not likely to know about, or attend PBC training. I want to be of service to this movement… the social entrepreneurs, those contributing to the creation of life-affirming alternatives to myopic consumption, people who are experimenting with how business can benefit us all. I’m seeking new and creative means to support leaders and the systems they are working with. And engaging small systems of highly committed people that want to take their mission and purpose all the way through. I’m called to link with others who wish to experiment with Presence-Based coaching and leadership as a foundation for collaboration in service to what matters.

    And, I’ve been hesitant about this. I was asked in a coaching conversation recently if I “was just window shopping, or buying something?” Great question! Here are just a few of the narratives through which my underlying fears express themselves:

    • “I’m comfortable doing what I’m doing, I’ve worked really hard to build this, it’s working…. there’s no need to change.” (Well, true. And I’m sensing a calling, and I’m paying attention to it. There’s more.)
    • “I don’t trust myself to set boundaries. I am afraid of getting out of whack like when I was younger. I’m not willing to live on airplanes and in hotels.” (Actually, I do trust myself to set boundaries. I’ve gotten really good at declining opportunities that don’t fit. Nice try!)
    • “I don’t really know what this looks like, and am hesitant to put it out until I know.” (So, who’s to say that heartfelt prayers need to be accompanied by detailed specifications? I can enter whole-heartedly, and trust what comes back.)

    Underneath them all is some level of fear, and most of these little stories don’t stand up to scrutiny!

    I love the experience of whole-heartedness
    I love the experience of whole-heartedness

    True, I don’t know what’s emergent (although I have a lot of ideas!) I know there’s more, something about the shape of it. I love the experience of whole-heartedness. Here’s some of what I’m doing to invite this future:

    • Another book is expressing itself through me. This third book will be a significant re-positioning of our work into a leadership context, and will speak to new audiences in new ways. The book will serve as an attractor for conversations and collaborations.
    • My own development has always been the animating force for my professional expressions. (OK, this is not conventional business strategy, but following the frothy edge has provided reliable guidance for the past 40 years. I see no reason not to trust it now.) Doing my practices, being in the woods, inquiring into the nature of my experience, engaging my life partners, coaches, and guides is tremendously clarifying.
    • Investing in two significant professional development experiences this year will put me in new contexts with people doing work that I deeply respect and can learn from. I will be shaped by these in ways that I can’t fully anticipate.
    • I am actively engaged in a number of conversations with younger, mission driven people about how we might partner for mutual benefit. This will increasingly become a kind of fast-cycle prototyping of new kinds of engagements, which will in turn actively create What’s Next. The right conversations continue to appear in response to my transparency.

    The core Presence-Based Coaching training continues to be the place where foundations and principles emerge. Retreats are at the core and the depth and commitment of those who come catalyzes my learning as well as theirs. I am fully committed here; the retreats are where the work is evolving.

    Being whole-hearted doesn’t mean needing to know the shape of things to come. It simply means being congruent and aligned with the discovery process. It means being joyful, all in, and not knowing, all at the same time.

    • What emergent future are you holding at bay?
    • With what stories are you hedging your bets?
    • What would whole-heartedness look like for you?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • The Turning of the Wheel

    The Turning of the Wheel

    There is ample evidence for the turning of the wheel
    There is ample evidence for the turning of the wheel

    There is ample evidence for the turning of the wheel.

    I have two grandchildren. My father is 85, and counting. I’m in my 60’s. Walker and I have faced significant health challenges. We sold our retreat center last year. All these are indicators of bold new territory!

    In this emerging chapter of our lives, there is plenty of evidence of decline, of wearing out. And, there’s increased lightness, freedom, less and less of a sense of having anything to prove, and little concern about building business. There is much more of a sense that everything counts.

    What we do matters, there’s choice, and time is short.

    In this turning, I sense two strong pulls in myself. One, the desire to engage the Presence-Based Coaching work more directly with the world’s pressing issues.

    We have created a very strong body of work about developing humans, about holding authentic conversations, about catalyzing leadership through substantial challenges. Yet, for me, there’s a persistent question about how to best get this work out in the world to those who most need it. This invites questions of scaling, of what the bigger game is, of how to democratize the leading edge of human development. There is lots to do.

    What we do matters, there’s choice, and time is short.
    What we do matters, there’s choice, and time is short.

    The second strong pull is towards simplicity. While my web of commitments is getting simpler, and I say “No, Thanks!” with increasing ease to opportunities that don’t feel like a fit, there’s an aching in me for greater freedom, less to carry through the world, less time spent on things that others can do better or things that don’t count for much and don’t provide joy.

    These two tendencies seem to pull in opposite directions. Yet, there is truth in both.

    I don’t know what this next chapter will look like, though I know that, in five years, my work life will be significantly different. I invite that, and trust that I will both choose, and be shaped by, the future as it emerges.

    I also know that collaboration with creative others is nourishing and essential. I am participating in Otto Scharmer’s MOOC. The processes for profound social change that he is describing dovetail exquisitely with, and leverage, our Presence-Based leadership work. There is much more to explore here, and you can expect to hear more about the nexus of these two bodies of work.

    Otto offered a lovely YouTube clip from the film Bagger Vance, in which Will Smith invites Matt Damon to sense the field, sense the one perfect shot that is calling him to it. While the specific shape of my one perfect future has yet to be revealed, it will be characterized by being both bigger, and simpler. It will be done with others. And, it will include, and transcend, the Presence-Based Coaching foundation that we have been building together for 15 years now.

    This is what I’m up to at this turning of the wheel. I am sensing the future, and investing in conversations and learning that focus and accelerate this sensing. I will be experimenting and prototyping with this in the coming months and years. You are invited to the conversation.

    collaboration with creative others is nourishing and essential
    collaboration with creative others is nourishing and essential

    For now, please weigh in with your thoughts:

    • How, in transitions, have you sensed future possibilities emerging?
    • How did you engage others in exploring or prototyping the territory?
    • What transition are you in now, and how are you resourcing yourself?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Work and Awakening

    Work and Awakening

    I spent last weekend at an alumni retreat with the Institute for Zen Leadership. It was held at the Spring Green Dojo, a lovely Rinzai Zen dojo (“place of the way,” or training center) being carved out of the Wisconsin woods under the leadership of Gordon Greene Roshi.

    The space is inspiring
    The space is inspiring

    The space is inspiring. Structures are built in part from thick walnut and oak timbers cut from the forest, milled at the on-site band saw mill, and joined with classic mortise-and-tenon joinery. Massive limestone slabs are quarried on the land. The dojo walls are thick to retain the wood-fired heat through Wisconsin winters.

    Building a place to last for 300 years is not the easiest or fastest way to build. Speed and comfort are not the priorities here. Awakening is.

    Here, the space is the Teacher
    Here, the space is the Teacher

    Here, the space is the Teacher. The stone, the wood, the ground, the forest are simply there, along with the coyotes and owls and sand hill cranes we heard in the night, and the Milky Way stretched across the sky. We are part of it all, simply another expression of this world.

    Yet, even as we seek to shape it to our intentions, the rest of the world has no commitment to cooperate. No amount of good intentions make three-ton limestone boulders move themselves into position! The world shows up, and reveals us as we interact with it. The exquisite precision of this infuses the space in this special and not-so-special corner of Wisconsin.

    I am no stranger to building, to hard work, to creating something beautiful out of imagination and the products of the earth. I have created beauty, and have loved the craftsmanship and artistry of working with wood, stone, glass. In an earlier stage of my life when this was central, the awareness and rigor I experienced this weekend were not yet available for me. Our handmade home in Boone was an expression of me, a way to form identity, to build the self.

    Now, this space has reminded me of what I always have known. We, our work, the world are inextricable. All work illuminates us. The process of writing this new book exquisitely reveals when I’m expanded or anxious, how I’m distracted or energized, when I’m trying to be someone I’m not, and when life is simply arising through my fingers into words.

    I’m writing a book. And, a book is writing me. There is no difference.

    You are creating your work in the world. And, your work is creating you.

    Our actions beget our unfolding. Always. We face and enter, and through the harnessing of our self towards our doing, we discover that we already are, that there is no self, that life simply lives through us.

    Let life live through you.

    Doug Silsbee

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