What's wrong with this skier? 

He is trying to ski by thinking. He is thinking so hard that he cannot "hear" the hill or his body. He is thinking so much that he might miss a fallen skier or a tree - for he is thinking so hard that he cannot see. His fear also causes him to miss the key risk and control factor. Fearing falling or going too fast, he leans back instead of down the hill.

He is thinking so much that he cannot have a conversation with his own body or with the world that surrounds him. 

He is thinking so much that he gets exhausted very quickly because he is fighting himself, the hill and the universe. And just thinking so hard uses up so much energy. 

He is not having a "Deep Conversation". He is relying on his rational mind to guide him in a novel and complex situation. This is what most of us do at work and in our personal lives. 

The most important conversation that we need to have is within ourselves. This is the core lesson of having Deeper Conversation. That to have a deeper conversation with others and with the univers, we must be able to have such a conversation inside us. This is the topic of this our last of 4 parts of my 4 part series that synthesizes a longer series of talks I have had with the brilliant Johnnie Moore. (Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3)

It's the classic psych drama. We have got so used to giving our rational mind primacy that we allow it to fill our consciousness with its chatter and worries. Mothers worry about what the book says about their kids. Managers seek control. You wake up in the middle of the night consumed by a fear and if you can surpress it, find another one right behind it. At school this part of our mind is the only part that counts.

Yes the new skier has to "know" the theory of skiing - well maybe not... Adults have a huge problem learning to ski - I did at 40 - but kids know no theory. Their rational mind has not yet taken over. No one told them the theory of walking or language, they just got on with it and did what FELT right.

Kids use their full range of channels. They listen to their body and they feel their way into novelty. They learn to walk and to talk and to stand upright. They learn so much before they go to school!

But we adults, who know better because we have been to school, wait to be told by a higher authority. We have ben taught that the rational mind is everything. That we can always find the "Right" answer by logic alone. In this universe, all the other parts of our mind are closed down and the Ego is given precedence.

So how do we get the rest of our mind back? How do we tune into all the channels in our body so that we can feel the hill or our way though a novel and a complex situation? For as all adult ski learners know, we have had this ability whacked out of us at school and at work?

Johnnie reminded me that it's all about habits. We have lost the habits that help us access this power to use our whole mind, so it helps to set up new habits to bring the whole mind back and to put the Ego into his place - a minor character!

In a group, sit as often as you can in a circle. This brings the field into its best quality. Access the Field.

Before you get down to business check in as to how you all are. This might be how you feel - what you are feeling about the task at hand in your body. This type of sharing brings up the common humanity of you all. The leader may be feeling anxious in her stomach about the result. Hearing this, we can all relax more. Any good consultant has such a go around at the beginning of a meeting so that the Field can be awakened.

I know to many this may sound very new age - but my question to you is do you want to ski like me or like my son?

Surely no one wants to ski like me? That is what is at stake here. Real results - getting all the wisdom from all the minds into play and in getting more cohesion in the team are what is at stake here.

Most important, beware of "Action" as a demanded result.

You know what has happened here don't you? Trying too hard leads to a failure and then to bad feelings and then a habit of trying too hard and so on. The point of good sex is not the erection but the communication and the shared love. Bringing your rational mind into the bedroom is a disaster. So it is in meetings.

The key result is to have the team both together and also open. Then the "Whole Mind" of the Team is brought into play. THEN you can start to see your way through the paradoxes that make up any complex situation.

For the issues that confront organizations and us as individuals today are not simple, or even complicated. They are Complex. So by definition are not able to be solved by the rational mind. Your response will be to reinvent your business or you. You cannot know them in advance. You cannot force your logical mind to find the answer. 

You have to set up the bigger question and then wrestles with it experientially. 

Let me give you 2 examples - one a corporate one that Johhnie and I worked on with NPR and 300 stations and the other a new problem that confronts me and all of us in middle age.

This was the bigger question we used to wrestle with the complex problem that confronted NPR in 2005. We used this question to have a Deeper Conversation inside NPR where all the senior management, the board and over 240 staff participated along with the leadership of 300 stations. At the outset NO ONE could know the answer. That is the definition of a Complex problem - the answer cannot be predicted rationally it can only emerge as a result of lots of trial and error. What we did was to set up many many meetings where the groups "Played" with this problem - we in effect set up a process of iteration that could enable answers over time to emerge.

The challenge was this - We assumed, now rightly, that in 2009, the web would be ubiquitous. NPR and the Stations were then in 2005 at a high point with their listeners on terrestrial radio but at ground zero with the web. How were they going to grow the web side and not lose the listeners? How was NPR to do this and not lose the stations? What were the stations going to do? For one thing was clear, and that was by 2009, the world would be very different. 

To set up the larger field where all could participate - we used "Play". I have found that if you think of complex problems that might involve you losing your current power in role, the job of protecting your status quo is paramount. This is why when we ask the Usual Suspects to think of the future of their field, say health, they act to preserve the status quo. They cannot go beyond this. A rational role based discusion about novelty has to fail. For our ego will force us to lean back and try and protect what we know and our current power.

So we made this exploration into a game. I won't go into the details but to say that to wrestle with complex problems demands that you give up your role. Back to kids again - they learn all the vital lessons of life via play.

The results come through emergence which comes from trial and error. In complex situations you CANNOT know the answer up front. It is impossible. Remembering this is very helpful. No senior NPR person presumed to know. All were equals in ignorance. This opened up the field. At the end of each session, each group had to put on a play - they had to express what they thought the future would be - and you know they were right - they found it.

Does this work? Each of the many independent sessions came to this conclusion - that the power of choice of what to listen too had to shift to the listener. Now we all know this right? No we only know this as lip service.

You have to have wrestled with this and FELT the alternatives and FELT that this is true to accept it. We all "Know" that we have to lean DOWN the hill to get control - BUT this is not what we do as learners for though we know it to be true - we CAN"T do it - it is too scary and too counter our old reality. We have to FEEL it to accept that it is right.

Did our intervention at NPR work? Well what media organization is best equipped for dealing with he online world right now? I would say NPR. So what was the result of our work with NPR? It was not the plan that came out of the process. It was that 300 people in NPR had wrestled with the problem and had felt their way into the future, so that when a new leader arrived with the mandate and the attitude to go for it, there was a mass aha! Not the normal resistance that you get when a big change is dropped in the organization from on high.

Meetings that start with a demand for action and results - are often code for a desire to lean up the hill. Let's stay in the rut where I can control what is going on because I feel safe there. When you demand results or action - what do you mean? Most of the time it means a focus on the minutiae - like the skier focusing on thinking his way into the turn - forcing himself to turn rather that letting the hill and his body do it all for him.  When we work on the surface we force the whole team into this posture. It is our fear that keeps us from skiing. It is the fear that stops many still in radio and the media from allowing the gravity of the Hill of the New Web to help them get a new control.

The ongoing result that all teams need in complex times is to be so comfortable with each other that they play intuitively like a basketball team on fire. Look at this player - he is not thinking - he KNOWS where the pass will go. We have to really know each other. We have to bring our Whole Mind into play to cope with Complexity and DEEP change. 

If you work on the key result being a well functioning team, THEY will do the heavy work. The real ACTION is to get the team using all their whole mind as individuals and as a team. Like a good skier, there is no time to "Think" on the court. You have to be able to sense what is going on.

So let's extend this a bit and look at an issue that affects us all - our health. My task - to find a question that engages anyone. From a personal point of view.

Here is one for me and for you that I hope illustrates this principle. I am looking at the health costs for PEI. An important question but very abstract and with many people with hard held views. So how to use a question to break the logjam? This is my starting question that only invites each of us as people into the realm of the question. I start as Johnnie suggest with a question that gets us to react by feeling it out. 

See the red line. That is how men on PEI age and deteriorate. The average age of death is 75. But by 65 the average man is in such bad health as to be helpless and dependent. From this stage more than half his lifetime cost to the health system will be spent. These are real data points.

Now see the black line. This is my goal for my own life. Aging as we know it is not natural. The black line is the natural aging process. In nature aging hits a threshold and then the deterioration stops - if you make 85 and are fit and not demented you will likely stay the same until you die - and that might be 95 - 100 - or 105. You will die - but you wont deteriorate more. There is a ton of evidence and work behind this - just trust me on this right now there are books and books to be written and I can only point this out to you in this post. 

The research suggests that I and you can push this point of stability back to 55 or 60 - my current age. I can be at choice. I can choose to change nothing and I will get ill and degrade. Or I can choose to change my life and have a good chance that I will die healthy and a contributor. Now I can choose either one  - newspapers chose degradation - but it is a choice.

But choosing life is not enough. Knowing where to go is not enough. Like NPR I have to find out how to live differently. I will have to learn how to change the habits of a lifetime. This is hard.

How hard? This involves my giving up modern food. All processed food as a start. All grains and all dairy too. It means that I have instead to eat what people did in our hunter gatherer period. I also have to do many other things to get a better fit with my deep biology. Sleep more. Be outside more. Walk more. Have a mission in life that is bigger than me and so on - I will be posting tons on this later.

So here is the point. I know this. You can know it too. You know that when you ski you must lean down the hill. But knowing and doing are 2 different things. Changing the habits of a lifetime is very very very hard. Doing something that NONE of your peers are doing is as hard. This is the landscape of real change - being out of step with the mainstream - not knowing what to do - being pulled back all the time by your old habits.

Like Beowulf and Grendel - you have to have the energy to kill the old inner you.

But if you have asked the right question, we can wrestle with it. You can FEEL enough to kill off the old you who will fight to keep you stuck.

Thought is not enough. You must have emotional power that comes from how you FEEL about a situation. Here is my feeling test about my health that is raised by the Question I posed. 

• Do I want to become feeble at 65? What will this mean to my family? No I don't want that - I would feel as if I betrayed them because I know what I know now - that had the choice and that I chose pizza over them
• Can I afford to be feeble? I worry about my savings and if I will have enough - can I afford to be feeble? I don't have the money and I doubt the state will have it either - I feel will be fucked if I stay as I am and it will be because I did not have the will to act.
• How do I feel now? How do I look? How capable am I now? Would I like to feel, look and be better soon? Of course I want to look and feel beter - I have FELT how weak and inflexible I am and wish I was fitter.
• I know I am weak of will and that changing all these things will be hard - so what feedback and what support can I tap into to help me? I know I cannot do this on my own? In the few times I have made other major changes, it was the support I FELT that made all the difference - I know that I am weak!
• Are there good tips that I can use to help me? I need reinforcement to get over the early hump - I know that other people's experience will help me - Need to feel their support.

I have a rational argument but my feeling argument has more power over my behaviour - The Rational is the Volts - the Feeling is the Amps. It's the Feedback Feeling that encourages us and shows us the path:

• I have lost 15 pounds and most importantly my 6 months pregnant belly is nearly flat - this is very reinforcing
• I am never hungry - and the signal that I get when I am full kicks in immediately - that helps me not overeat.
• When I fall off the wagon and have bread and cheese I feel like shit - not guilty I l feel bloated and sick
• I look forward to my walks with the dogs - I want to do it more than they do now - it helps me think and do better work too
• My wife is completely onside and my friends who have not seen me in some time comment on how well I am - important people are encouraging me

So I could not have a plan from the question but the question gets at the heart of the matter FOR ME.

We all have to feel our way into change. The mind is not enough. The body has to power us into the new. We have to be able to hear/feel what our body says. We have to be like kids again and play our way into the future.

So what is the biggest lesson of all?

I come back to Johnnie's key lesson. We have to calm the mind so that we can hear the rest of the conversation in our body. Our mind can show the way but the getting there is all about the rest of us. This goes for teams too. If we can create enough personal trust we can access the Whole Mind of the group. THEN we can win any game set for us. 

Your work and mine is to put him in his place - shut him up - so that we can hear the full you and me.

The Sleeper must awake

 

 

 

 

If you are to see deeper beneath the Logjam of difference. If you are to ask the question that unlocks the Unspoken. Then you have to sense the hidden meaning. You have to have all your listening faculties available. Your ears are only a tiny part of these faculties. You have to be able to listen to all the channels in the Field.

A reason why we seem to fail both as individuals and as organizations to make any headway right now is that we have cut ourselves off from the innate tools we need to guide us through the social complexity that is all about being human. We rely almost completely on our rational mind that uses only the surface to see and to process and so miss the meaning that is always there. We are like the 3 Apes who miss it all. Would you like to see more? If so read on..

For words and the surface literal observations are only a small part of how we communicate. Look at the couple below. Do they need to talk? Words fail this couple. Most of what is being communicated is within the "Field". Each of them is filled with feelings so powerful that they hurt. The air between them crackles. Words are in fact useless. I hope that you have felt this.

How about this? How can you console with words? Words are useless in these situations. 

Love and grief demand Deeper Conversations - they rely on us reactivating the tuner deep within us that connects us to the "Field".

In this the third part of our 4 part series on Deeper Conversations, where I synthesize our conversation about Deeper Conversation. (Part 1 here - Part 2 here), we talk about the larger context for a conversation - the Energy Field that embodies us and that is where we find the truth for ourselves in the surface and rational world.

The Field is real.

Have you ever fallen in love at first sight? Have you met a person and felt revulsion? Have you been in a situation where on the surface it looked OK but you just "Knew" that you must leave immediately? Have you been in a meeting and felt something in your body that told you that this was bullshit or that the other person was lying? Have you entered a room where your parents were arguing and felt the tension. Have you been in a theatre and felt swept up by the performance? Have you been in a mob and done things that you would never have done alone?

If you had shown the iPhone to someone 100 years ago they would have thought it was magic. You know it is not. It is based on our growing understanding of the electro magnetic field. We live in one too. This field is real and is no more a New Age Fantasy that say the field that runs this device. 

 

Like the iPhone, The Field, connects us to many things and also even over long distance. Like the iPhone it has things that you need to know how to tune into. If you don't have a tuner, all you get is noise or nothing. But you have a tuner and deep down you know how to use it. You just may have had the kind of habits that have switched it off. So let us remind you of the amazing tools that you have to tap into this field. "This is an innate ability that we all have in us".

Here is Johnnie facilitating an Open Space meeting in DC back in 2006 for NPR and the leaders of Pub Radio. The structure of the room is designed to tune the people into the group energy. For all of human existence, we have communicated best in a circle. It surely came from our early use of fire. We all face each other. The power moves to the centre. The maximum bandwidth is available.

Eye contact is very important. We are able to look many people in the eye. In open space eye contact is a hugely powerful tool for opening. You recall the picture of Johnnie staring at a participant. He also scans the room to find out who is staring at him - they have energy to use. A sign that even the most shut down of us can read well is when the person we are talking with averts their eyes.

One of the powerful tools that Johnnie also uses to bring the energy into being is SILENCE! Yes silence speaks volumes. As we move into an topic, Johnnie will sometimes just stop. Seconds, minutes go by. Each later minute can feel like an hour. It hurts after a while until someone speaks and what they say tends to be real - it has come from the energy in the room. Some one has been compelled to speak. They speak from the feeling they have and not as a skilled retort in an argument. Because they speak from the heart, others can then follow up the same way- the room tunes into the channel.

For in most meetings - even between just 2 people - we are more focused on the point that we want to make. We are so focused on our next sally that we are not listening. Not listening to the words or to the energy of the other. We are stuck in us alone. Masturbating in public! It's all about me and not about us. There is very little conversation. Talking too much is as much of a sign as averting the eye. Too much talk is hiding something important.

Talking about silence, Johnnie mentioned how nice it was to sit in a room on Sunday with a few pals and just read the papers. Done that? Stuff is going on all the time. Feels very cosy. Small grunts can say a lot. Look across a restaurant and a couple that have been with each other a long time. They are tuned in so much that most of what gets said is in the silence. 

What makes up this field? Well some of it is pure electrical energy. 

If you had no electrical field, you would be dead. Try this. Hold your hand up in front of another person. Gradually push them closer. You will feel the field kick in. Try this with your body. When you feel odd - you have found the boundaries of your personal space - your field at rest. What happens when you make love? Part of it is physical, but it is also a blending of two fields - two fields become one especially at orgasm when the conscious mind shuts off completely.

When we travel in a confined space like a plane or a bus with a lot of people - it is tiring. Part of the experience is Field Overload. In defence, we often shut down our tuner. The more we do that the less good our tuner gets at picking up faint signals. We miss important meaning because we have broken the aerial. This is a reason why I live in a small community. 

I suspect that much of the field is electrical. But there are other parts to the field and several ways of tuning in.

A lot of it is smell! Most of our partner selection comes down to finding the right smell in your partner. This is not just about smelling nice but smelling RIGHT.

Huge amounts of information are transmitted by smells we can't consciously smell.  Makes me question deodorants. We might be picking the wrong partner! Smell also tells us about fear and nerves. A lot of what is below the surface is discovered in smell. This is not a channel that is connected to our conscious brain at all. But it helps to know it is there. For you will react to the unknown smell. You will sense Attraction; Repulsion; Fear; Lying; Truth. If you tune into how you are feeling - you will be processing this channel.

Eye dilation sends equally powerful signals. What is on her mind?

Police use eyes a lot in their work. Is he going to pull a gun? Is she lying? Good cops get good at this. Blink. Will she sleep with me? Again, like smell, this channel does not access your conscious mind. But it will activate a feeling in your body. You will sense real danger. Lying. Attraction. Love even. Not understanding. The information is there is you can be sensitive to feeling it. 

Ever wondered why babies sleep so much? One of the reasons is that they are learning so much. Our wiring for life is set in the first 3 years. This uses a huge amount of energy and also the brain needs to proces what is going on. Ever gone to bed with a problem and woke up the next day with the solution? Our unconscious mind is able to process vast amounts of meaning and is much better at coping with complexity that our conscious brain. But of course this is heresy to the Corporate Mind that is overwhelmingly rational.

But to use this tool you need to sleep a lot. How much sleep do you get? The average is very small. Remember when you were a teen and you slept a lot? Remember that place between sleep and awake? Find it again - it is where so much shit gets worked out. 

If you have tough problems, sleep on them. If you have an idea that you can't see though, sleep on it.

Touch is a modern no no. But touch is one of the most powerful channels that we have in the field. I don't exaggerate. You surely know the story about the Romanian Orphanages? Babies that had been fed and cleaned but not touched enough died from lack of touch. We don't use touch enough as adults.

Touch is the best way to tune into another person. They can tell so much. When a friend is dying what can you say? But if you hold their hand, all will be said. But in the corporate world we don't touch. And we NEVER touch at school! We have sexualized touch too much and so cut ourselves off from its power to communicate. Its power to help us tune into an other person. 

Want to know where a person is in themselves when they are with you? Touch them. Have a tough thing to say to another - touch them and see if that is enough.

"I never said that!" is something we all hear spoken back when we get angry at another. What we are reacting to is usually their tone of voice.

Tone says so much more than the words. Here is Marie Therese Keller singing the Pie Jesu from Duruffle's Requiem - It's all about tone - she is more that performing she lets us into her soul and the deep grief of loss - you don't have to know Latin to get the meaning.

Tone says everything really in interpersonal terms. Ever been with people who don't speak your language? I have found if alcohol is present, that after an hour or so, it is possible to make a connection - by tone!

Most of us in the corporate world have a Corporate Tone Voice. can you hear it? If you can't it is because you are so in it that you can't. I assure you that it is real and distinct.

It's a voice that has most emotion stripped out of it. It's that "I'm clever, on the ball, in charge, confident" Voice that has no doubt and so invites no attraction. It pushes away. It prevents listening. It's usually lying too because deep inside we are all filled with doubt and fear. The lie is embedded in the Corporate Voice and so it cannot be trusted. This is why when I first started blogging I wrote crap - because I only knew that voice. This is the lie of so many so called social media experts. The only way to be heard is to get rid of that tone. Many now use this voice all the time - even with their mates and kids.

What might that mean?

Try your office voice on your dog! He won't be able to hear you. For him it's all tone and touch and smell. He is real, you may not be.

This dog is doing it all - using his sense of smell, taste, touch and eyes. 

Industrial Man is Emotionless - Literal - Fact Based - Surface Confined. When we are this way we are Zombies.

Slow - stupid - focused only on brains - unaware - easy to kill.

I say all of this having been a Zombie myself for most of my adult life. The great news is that you can come back to life - if you want to.

In the last post Johnnie and I will share some exercises that we have used on ourselves to help us come back to life.

We will also talk about a few personal and organizational situations that will help you see some practical steps you can take to change your habits so that the tuner that you have can be switched back on again and you as a human can tap into the field again. 

In the meantime "Brains... Brains...."