complexity
The Known, Unknown, and Unknowable
Many years ago, when I first entered the Presence-Based Coaching work as a student, Doug offered three specific distinctions that I found very useful at the time of my professional stretch to learn to be a coach. These same distinctions have been bubbling up recently in my memory for re-examination. I am finding them to be once again useful and timely. The three perspectives...
Presence in Complexity Series #8: Scaling Awareness
Complexity is unpredictable. Our world responds to good intentions and common sense actions with perverse and unintended consequences. Our noblest efforts fail to accomplish what we believe we should be able to accomplish. This is of course a huge challenge to our sense of self! And, it’s not personal! Complexity is actually normal Complexity is actually normal. Even when...
Presence in Complexity Series #7: Resilience: De-Coupling State from Context
Directing attention instantly and directly modifies our inner condition. We live in extraordinary times. It is a new form of agency to begin to discover that we can affect our mood, our sense of ourselves, our outlook on life, and our thoughts simply by directing our attention where we choose. What do you mean? No drugs, no therapy, no decades of self-improvement reading?...
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...
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. 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...
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...
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. 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...
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,...
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 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...
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. 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...
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...
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...
