Alignment toward a shared vision
Aligning “the what” and “the how” of mission-driven work and catalyzing regenerative change
This contribution offers the explorative sensing journey as a tool leaders and organizations can use to catalyze regenerative change towards a shared mission, individually and collectively. This includes surfacing underlying beliefs, pains, contributions, and resources and how they enable or prohibit common ground and clarity in a team or collaboration.
Case background:
This case study is with an international workers' cooperative dedicated to regenerative futures and building wealth in underserved areas. The cooperative had reached an impasse as a team in their search for value-aligned models to structure their work that reconciled the diverse interests of individual members with their collective purpose. Our intervention aimed to facilitate movement toward rejuvenating collaboration by first gaining awareness of what was needed for greater alignment. The systems-sensing journey aims to surface conscious and unconscious patterns that create partnership challenges or conflicts so they can be addressed and released.
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Luea Ritter, Justus Wach, and I initially facilitated three sessions including a systems sensing exercise for a worker-owned cooperative of consultants, coaches, and change-makers. In our first contact with the cooperative, we met with a few team members to understand the organization's challenges and aspirations. From this shared understanding, we collaboratively 1) crafted a guiding question and 2) selected elements for the sensing journey. See right.
The exploratory journey in session 2 began with a grounding exercise and a moment to bring the guiding question into awareness. I guided the participants through a systems-sensing journey. You can listen to the audio sample of this guided journey (at right). For more about the process and steps, please see here.
Upon closing the experience, we guided participants in shedding the roles consciously. We ended the session with a brief but profound sharing of insights that surfaced. For example, the participants noted a strong sense of interdependence and connection and a shared feeling that they could find within the collective what they needed to resource their collaboration.
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A third session was held a few days following the journey to integrate and reflect on the experience. The session began with a check-in around questions, “How are you coming to this session, and what is a sensation that stayed with you from the practice?” The group explored questions such as:
What are your main insights, and what surprised you?
What is essential for you to remember from this session moving forward?
What are important takeaways for us and our shared work?
What calls for more exploration or is not yet clear?
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The worker cooperative reported that the exercise allowed for a powerful level of emotional honesty. Cooperative members expressed an understanding of the interdependence of their relationships and a stock-taking with which individuals had contributed to collective challenges. Participants expressed new realizations of how they show up and the gifts they contribute to the coop that they had not realized or appreciated before. This shared awareness created an openness and readiness for deeper conversation as a group, including “hard conversations” where individuals could share “more courageously and with honesty.” These conversations were often avoided keeping the team feeling stuck. The exercise allowed patterns “to break open in a transformative way and also provided the grounds for repair.” The cooperative reported feeling a sense of solidarity and love.
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Our experience, exemplified by the case discussed here, has shown us that systems sensing can be an effective approach to release patterns that are not working and unleash dormant capacities for greater alignment. Working towards regenerative futures is a path that requires a commitment to continuously face and be with unresolved and entrenched habits of thinking, collaborating, and working. Systems sensing as an approach, supported the cooperative to bring underlying patterns into conscious awareness. Surfacing these patterns opened the door for more authentic conversations and a shared understanding of what was needed to address these patterns.
Guiding question
What is important to know and to nurture now towards a shared vision as a co-op and a regenerative future with mutual benefit for all?
Elements:
self
shared vision
personal motivation
unique gift(s)
contribution / how to show up
pain
an individual resource
Tip:
Our case called for understanding the pain or hurt. You may want to substitute this element for something else. ie. “challenge” or “block.”
Listen to the audio of systems sensing*
47 min
*This is part of step 2 of a 3-step intervention, including design and integration sessions.