Whole Person Leadership

Whole Person Leadership is a new leadership approach that is needed for sustainable development in the new business paradigm that emerges right now. This business paradigm is focusing on people, collaboration and process instead of machines, technology and control. Sustainable development has three main areas, social, ecological and economical sustainability. Whole Person Leadership focuses on the people and social aspects of sustainable development in order to reach whole sustainability including ecological and economical aspects. Everything starts with people and with self.

Whole Person Leadership builds from the foundation of relationships and genuine contact with oneself and others. It works with an invitation to the whole person to join the movement, including mind, spirit, emotions and body. This kind of leadership knows that if not the whole person is invited, people have to divide into one person they show when they are at work and other persons they show when they are not working. People will be like actresses in different movies and none of these movies will show the true self. It will be like building a brick house without proper foundation. You never know when the bricks come tumbling down.

Whole Person Leadership requires being open to what happens and not attached to outcome. Leading the whole person way includes to focus on and trust the process, to use tools and methods that support a life nurturing climate and to use ones power wise for the benefit of all.

The GenuineContact program provides us with a roadmap and a set of tools and methods that help us build the proper foundation that will support Whole Person Leadership to emerge throughout the organization. It is the foundation needed for sustainable development and growth. We, who work with the Genuine Contact program, are on an ongoing learning journey with the Whole Person Leadership. We give ourselves and each other permission to be true to who we are. We open space and invite our full wisdom, spirit and emotions to come out and work with us. We are pioneers and we are fully accepting the new business paradigm that is based on life nurturing relationships and not control. It will work wonder in the world!

 

 

 

Language - how important are words?

Had a most interesting discussion with some of my colleagues this morning. We all work with the Genuine Contact program, which is a holistic approach for development of organizations. It contains different tools, some of them meeting methods. You know, if you facilitate for example a board meeting around large tables, it tells the participants one thing and if you facilitate it in a circle of chairs with no table, it says something else. What process you choose has a big impact on the results. What we offer are processes that creates a life nurturing climate in the organization or meeting and by that creates far better results than you ever expected. Short explanation of something that is better experienced than talked about.
This morning we discussed the name of the program and the name of one of the meeting methods, Whole Person Process and what it means to use English words in Sweden. We talked about how you can translate names, if it is even possible. Do we need to have the names in our own language and why? Some people said it was almost impossible to market or discuss the program because of the difficult English name. Is that really so or is there something else that stops us from talking about these great tools we use? Do we think that we can not speak from our hearts in a business environment but have to conform to what we believe this environment wants? Or is it something else that prevents us from naming the tools we work with?
Is it the same with other tools you have in your toolbox? Or is it maybe because the GC program works also on the spiritual and energetic level, and I assume many tools facilitators use are working on these levels.
Thinking about working at a spiritual and energetic level - I think it is essential to discuss the foundation and values of a program or tool, because every tool or process you use, also when you are leading a regular board meeting, has its underpinning values. Those meetings I call regular board meetings, around a big table, with a chairmen and a list of speakers, are based on how men speak. In this kind of meeting, the decisions are actually made somewhere else, in a small group of people or by one person and then presented for the board to make the formal decision. Very rarely are the participants protesting against what is presented to them. Very interesting that we seldom think about that this kind of meeting was designed in the industrial era when men were in charge of the business and political environment.
So why do we need to adjust our conversation and words to that kind of environment? I believe we need more heart and spirit in business.

If you have not yet learnt about the program you can read more on www.genuinecontact.net or in Swedish on my website www.gatewayc.com

"En droppe droppad i livets älv
har ingen kraft till att flyta själv
Det ställs ett krav på varenda droppe:
Hjälp till att hålla de andra oppe!”

("A drop in the river of life, does not have strength on its own to float

So there is a demand on each of the others: Support everyone to stay on top". My try to translate the content of  a qoute from Tage Danielsson, who was a wonderful deep thinking Swedish poet. )

Creating community – a highway to vision

A community is a web of relationships, blending together in unplanned and unknown ways. Since many communities are connected through the internet, the threads of relationship are invisible so sometimes one might think, there are no connections. But if the right question comes up, there is quickly a lot of movement among the members, an allocation of resources, a mobilization of energy to work with that question. In between there could be silence for long times.

So how can this invisible web be a highway to achieve a vision? First, information spreads quickly in ways that are almost impossible to follow or and definitely impossible to control. Second, the mobilization for a topic that is of interest to the community, is almost immediate. Does this happen in every community. No, of course not. Some things have to be in place for this to happen.

The community needs a culture where listening, trusting and allowing each other space to take leadership and do things are invited. Other things that support community creation are common purpose and a shared vision. The agreement for openness where leadership can just emerge and take care of what needs to be done, does not have to be in written but more as a work approach. It might be helpful having some rules about the responsibility and accountability that follows this leadership. You can certainly use the principles and law in Open Space Technology together with some givens decided by the senior leaders or the CEO. Givens are the outer frames of what is allowed and asked for in the organization. They can certainly be discussed from time to time but they are a safety net so people will know when they are outside of the organizational boarders and where their energy would be wasted.

Trust is not complementary, you have to earn it. The best way to earn trust is to start trusting others. If you are interested in this theme, you are highly recommended to read The 8th Habit by Stephen R Covey, a very interesting book about leadership. Trust is really instead of many control systems, especially those that are put in to allow managers to control the behaviours and actions of people. It is interesting that some managers still think they can control people, even now when people living now exist in a very different era than the industrial and thus have different values and norms.

Do you feel that creating community in an organization is difficult? It does not need to be. There are easy tools to use, such as Open Space Technology, Whole Person Process Facilitation, Appreciative Inquiry and World Café. You can also use the Medicine Wheel Tool© to assure the readiness of the organization and to measure your success. You just do as when you are cooking, use the recipe to find out what is the flavor of this special cake and then go forward and make it with the things you have at home. And remember to make the cake together. The others will help you get where you want to be, so much faster. Cooking together is a great way of creating community. Help me with the cooking in the Genuine Contact Way!

Merry Christmas!

Eiwor

Courage to change

Today is my youngest son´s and my grandson´s birthday. At one time there was a risk that none of them would be present in this world today. Luckily we live in a time when science has come forth with cures for many forms of cancer, including those that my son and grandson had. One time someone said to my grandson that it was so sad that he was ill. My grandson answered: I am not ill, it is only my blood that has something bad in it.


I think there are some similarities with many organizations. Most organizations were born with a great purpose and lots of energy but at one point they got something bad in their veins, some kind of blockages or illnesses, that impacted the health of the whole organization. This does not mean that the organization is ill but that there is something in it that needs to be cleansed.

When you do the diagnosis as in Organizational Health and Balance, one of the foundational workshops in the Genuine Contact program, you learn to use the words cleanse, balance and nourish. Cleanse what is no longer useful. Balance what is out of balance, what you have to live with and can do nothing about. Nourish the good things that are already done in the organization. Don´t throw the baby out with the water.

This is good start on the road to get back to health and balance. As with all paths to health and balance, there is always a possibility, or you might want to call it risk, that you as the leader of an organization will be put on your own change journey. We who work within the Genuine Contact program, work from invitation. We invite people to come together and use their wisdom for the benefit of their organization or community. There is also another invitation, which sometimes is not explicit. This is the invitation for you to start on your own learning and change journey. I think that sometimes this unspoken invitation might be what prevents people from saying yes to the journey.

It is not always easy to be in a phase of transformation. You release or cleanse those patterns, habits and thoughts that is stopping you from living your full potential. Sometimes this creates a change in your environment with old friends walking away and new coming in. It could also mean that you have to look at yourself in a new light. Quite often we also forget to take care of the valuable sides we have and nourish them. We only look on the dark sides and think they are all the way through us. It is interesting how often other people don´t acknowledge those sides but see the light within us, that we tend to forget. So again with the words of my grandson: We are not ill, it is only something that is blocking us from showing our light right now.

Time to unclutter ourselves. With the words of Birgitt Williams: Courageous living is what we are asked to embrace. So let us be courageous, just like those young people who fight their cancer and other illnesses.

While you are thinking, support the Swedish Cancer Society and Rosa Bandet for finding cures for breast cancer. Cancerfondens rosa band 2011, design Per Holknekt och Lena Philipsson. Foto Melker Dahlstrand.

The space in the middle of the forest

“There is a space in the middle of the forest that can only be found by those who get lost".

"Two truths approach each other, one comes from the inside, one from the outside and where they meet you get a chance to see yourself."
With gratitude to the Nobel Prize Laurate Tomas Tranströmer, the author of these wise quotes.

Changing the body language of an organization requires just that – finding that special space, the meeting place for inside and outside, where there is enough freedom to find spirit and creativity. To reach this space there has to be a possibility to get lost so different perspectives can meet - looking from the inside out and from the outside in and allowing the blending of those different views. In nature where the forest meets the meadow is the place where you find the biggest variety of plants. Two perspectives meet and results in wonderful creativity.

Do you want to find this space in your organization to have access to all the wonderful solutions and ideas that could mark a new era for the organization? So how can you create the possibility to get lost and allow perspectives to meet? How can you find that special space where there is room for the mind to soar to new hights and many sparks can ignite new ideas?

There is one blockage to creating this kind of space and that is when the environment is too restricted, when there is so much to do and not enough resources, when there are so many control functions to adjust to and where there is no one asking you to share your wisdom.

With that said, I would like to share a really simple recipe with you, that can be used as a gateway to the forest. It is called Open Space Technology and it creates the possibility to get lost so you can find the wonderful space in the middle of the forest. It also allows for many different perspectives to approach each other and meet and the result can be a diversity of beautiful plants that could assure the successful future of the organization.

To do an Open Space Technology meeting you only need an urgent issue, a warm heart and some guidelines to follow. The only things that could mess up the meeting are those mentioned above, control and restrictions. If you don´t want to do it yourself the first time, call a facilitator. A facilitator is a person who comes with another perspective that meets yours so you have the possibility to get lost and find your space of creativity and inspiration.

Creativity comes with spirit as in in-spired. When the roads is so narrow and surrounded by walls, there is no room for spirit so it might well hide in a drawer in your desk. Artwork from the Genuine Contact program, created by Birgitt and Ward Williams, Dalar International Consultancy.

Recipe for Change - a simple one

Some say changing an organization and its culture is a huge effort and is very difficult. Big organizations need the implementation of complex systems at a huge cost. Some say that you need to implement many different protocols so people know what to do and an overall control system so you know they follow the protocols. Some say it is necessary that consultants do the change work so that senior leaders can do their job as usual. Some even talk about change management.

I say that what you need is a recipe, a simple and easy to do-recipe that everyone could learn to use, a recipe that creates a different body language which tells people about a different approach and way of working. What you also need is the big commitment from the senior leaders to do the work and to hang in there when things get uncertain, which they always are when change comes. Which they in fact always are, because change can not be managed.

So you take this recipe and do just as you do with any recipe or manual you use when you want to learn something new. You follow it to the point when you make the cake for the very first time. Then you learn how it originally tastes and what are the features of that special cake. Then you start experimenting to make it your own cake, adapting the recipe to what you have at home or what kind of occasion you make it for. It becomes so easy for you to make the cake that you share the “easy cake” recipe with many others and it becomes a natural piece at your coffee tables.

My thesis about the recipe comes from many years of experience of facilitating meetings with a different body language, showing people that there are other ways of working that promotes a different approach. Those meetings are participatory, inclusive and invites people´s creativity and responsibility. They work from the values that people are valuable, wise and want to make a difference. Adults are fully capable of making well-grounded decisions and taking responsibility for them. Just reflect a second - what are underpinning values of the meetings you attend?

Changing the culture and approach in an organization requires a commitment from the senior leaders and a change of meeting methods so the organizational body language changes. It takes about 20 days to start the process and share the recipe with internal facilitators. After that it is a part of the daily ongoing work, naturally implementing itself while at the same time adapting the recipe so it fits the organization. At the same time the people nourish what is already working fine and cleanse what is no longer useful.

The recipe has a name – it is called the Genuine Contact© program. My dear friends Birgitt and Ward Williams are the originators of this recipe and I was lucky they shared it with me. 

Learn Tarot as a tool for your personal growth

I have the pleasure to invite you to a workshop with my dear friend Elisabeth Tepper Kofod, an experienced teacher of Tarot and the Kabbalah. She will visit Sweden in October and we then offer a workshop where you can experiment and experience Tarot as a tool for yourself. If you are interested please take a look at my website http://www.gatewayc.com/ (or if you are not familiar with Swedish), contact me through e-mail eiwor@gatewayc.com. Also please take a look at the wonderful place where we will stay, Ranebo kursgård at http://www.ranebo.com/.
You are most welcome.

 

Resonant energy fields

Today I read the posting of Birgitt Williams, Dalar International Consultancy, on her blog Genuine Contact Way. She writes about whether the energy fields of facilitators are affecting the meetings they are facilitating. Her discussion is specifically about facilitators of Open Space Technology meetings. I think the discussion could be about any facilitator and/or leader and how their energy field affects their environment and the results in a meeting and workplace.

I imagine that many of you have experienced a time when you entered a room and immediately got a sense of the climate in that room. I remember very well when I was elected to the church board and thought it would be a very nice experience. When I entered the room to participate in my first meeting, it was like walking into a solid wall of antagonism. I later found out that some people in that room disliked each other so much that they could hardly bear to be together in the meeting. Of course this energy field affected the whole meeting and the results of it. There were constant misunderstandings and problems to come to agreements.

We are all energy field generators. When we are in a position as a leader/facilitator we might have more space where the energy field could extend. If the leader/facilitator wants to achieve positive results, the energy field needs to be resonant. A resonant energy field is vibrating at a frequency that is harmonious, which means that it is a natural vibration that takes little effort to sustain. Our energy field is made up of emotions and thoughts among other things. To be able to generate resonant energy fields, we could do our homework with self towards a state of positive loving thoughts and allowing the emotions to guide us without dominating us.

The energy fields of the leaders are often influencing the workplace more than that of the co-workers. So when the leaders want to change the culture of their organization, they also have to attend to their own energy field and then generate the energy they want to have in their organization. Easy said, not so easy done. In every workshop with Birgitt Williams, where I have participated, and they are quite a few, she usually tell the participants that this is homework for tomorrow but the rest is homework for a lifetime.

Do you like the resonant energy field generator below? Beautiful, isn´t it?

Change

I am sure you have heard Mahatma Ghandi´s well known words: “You have to be the change you want to see in the world”. I relate those to the sentence “Walk your talk”. Sustainable changes in an organization requires that the leaders are part of the changes. As Birgitt Williams says in the Genuine Contact Way e-book, http://www.genuinecontactway.com/ : “A shift in consciousness of an organization is dependent on a shift in consciousness of the individuals who make up the organization.”

So if you as a leader are serious about shifting the organizational culture, you have to start with yourself. Angeles Arrien in her The Four-Fold Way, tells us about the principles of leadership. The first principle is to show up and be present. It means to be who you are without being disguised or playing a role. It means being a role model, leading the way. It is about being courageous. Again using the words from Birgitt Williams: “Courageous living is what we are asked to embrace.”

Actually we are all part of a change process – all the time. Change is the only thing we can be sure of. It is very interesting when people say it would have been better if Sweden never became part of the European Union, because we knew what we had but were not sure what we would get. I believe we can never be sure of what we will get, union or not. The clue is to be able to handle change, to know how to stay in balance in the middle of it and also to learn how to make the most of the opportunities it brings. Because it does!

The opportunities that come with change, can go by quickly so one challenge is to have an organizational culture that allows for self-organizing, for people to make their own decisions and grasp the opportunities without having to go back to the leaders every time. And this requires trust – a valuable asset that comes from the leaders trusting their people. Which might or might not require a shift in consciousness.