One of the phone calls that I particularly enjoyed today was with two colleagues and friends. Both are people that I trust. One, Sarah MacDougall with The Circle Way, through being in friendship and shared work for several years now. The other, Holger Scholz, a more new friend and colleague, who feels like I have known for several years. There is a brothering energy that I appreciate with him.
This phone call was to explore an unknown together. It had a surface level — considering inviting Holger to The Circle Way board, or to a leadership team, or to a project. Those references are relevant, but they are not the real point. We needed to explore an unknown together. We needed to begin a conversation, not end it.
There is a pace to work in North America that I know many of us work at, or encounter. Sometimes confront. It tends to be quite fast-paced. It often is unquestioningly committed to speed and efficiency. It’s not surprising, right. It’s a cultural story that goes back many decades now into the heart of industrial revolution and the information revolution that has followed that. Get it done fast — that’s the motto.
Holger had a different pace to him today. I appreciated it. It was more spacious. I would say, kind. I would say, thoughtful. It was what I needed.
In our conversation, and in the content of it, we named a kind of operating principle. Meet. Notice energy. Offer. It applies to most of the settings I can name in my work with clients, conference organizers, internal teams, communities.
Meet
to say hello. To be in attention with another animate being. To be aware. To support a connection. To support the mystery of what might emerge from a connection. Just be willing to be in relationship. Even for the moment.
Notice energy,
particularly if there is a spark (though I realize that this could be the absence of a spark too — that’s good information). This is speaking to an emergence, what can arise in company together that doesn’t when alone. You know, emergence isn’t a cute card, though it is often used that way. It isn’t the brain child of a greeting card writer. Emergence, energy that arises from meeting — that is the invisible of a way of being long left in the shadows of heroic individualism. Just notice together, with freedom, what arises.
Offer
is to notice what is relevant in the moment. It might be the offering that is, “it would be smart for us to think on this a bit more.” It might be the offering that is, “I’d like to do this work together.” It might be the offering that is the clarity of, “I’m not drawn into this at this point in time.” It might be the offering that is, “I have just the thing!”
Meet, notice energy, offer.
Ah, that was the breath of simplicity, that I so needed. That was good to notice. And that was a delicious bit of energy in this day.
