Imagine a living, breathing human body.
The moment this body dies, it still has the same cells and organs as the living body.
But one is dead. The other is alive.
The materialist paradigm can hardly tell the difference. If we count cells and organs, we overlook life.
In the same way, we miss the point when we look at organizations and only see people. We may stare at them, observe their roles and ideas, but we don’t truly see the organization. To me, it’s like seeing the organs, cells, and intentions of a person, but missing their relationship, their backstory, their breath, their fears, their little kinks, and their grandmother’s bedtime song.
In my head, organizations are a slice of life, all roots and mycelium still attached.
Sure, you’d say organizations aren’t only people; they also have a shared intention, goals, (evolutionary) purpose. But I worry that we still don’t see the organization herself. Purpose can see potential, but it can also get tangled in wishful thinking. We focus on the gap of where we are not. We’re training ourselves to look away from the present and turn our attention to something abstract, something far away. Ironically, the more “bold” or inspirational the idea, the further away we look from what is.
My father parented me like a human who isn’t yet complete. Every bedtime story was a lesson to fill my gaps. Moments when I just needed someone turned into growth opportunities, preparing me for a far future as a productive adult. It’s subtle, but sometimes we do the same to organizations.
I know my father meant well. My success gave him a chance to be a successful parent. He told me once that he had children because it’s what people do for their sense of purpose and meaning. Do I get meaning out of being a parent? For sure. But I can never forget that ultimately, life wants to express itself without being my pet project. It’s not mine.
Maybe that’s why I cringe when I hear that organizations are vehicles for human purpose. It sounds too much like parents who have children as a vehicle for their own personal sense of meaning – a child born to perform in the parents’ dreams. Ouch. A voice in me whispers, “No, please, no.”
For organizations, we have been trained to see performance and purpose, not life force. And that’s why we see cells and organs, shoulds and coulds, but we don’t see the organization herself.
We listen to ourselves. We have opinions and wants. So-and-so did this, this-and-that group wants that. But passionately holding intentions for another living entity can still be control.
Our language gives it away. We say we build organizations. I now always run the check of “If you swap ‘organization’ for ‘teenager,’ does it sound like toxic parenting?” That way, we can check whether we’re in right relationship with the organization.
Let’s try it. Do you look at your teenager and tell yourself, “Wow, I built him”?
That would be so weird. So Frankenstein. Like we expect to be blessed by a lightning strike, creating life just because we’ve sewn together the right body parts.
My teenager was obviously formed by a zillion different people, by nutrients, water, and air, being shaped and shaping himself every moment and with every breath. Life brings itself, and all we can do is support the conditions.
The more we control and will-power things, no matter to what higher, glorious purpose, the more we miss the opportunity to be swept away by something bigger than ourselves.
I miss awe.
I miss surrender into the big stream of life.
But there’s also a part of me that senses: if organizations are a slice of life, not a purpose manifestation machine, then every moment of interacting with the organization is not a way to tell it to be different, but a moment of awe. It’s a way to get into contact with something that’s bigger than us. With another way of life enacting life. And celebrating that.
Naturally, once I participate in the big stream, I will put my own caring and seeing into it. That’s fine. Longing is a part of what life is made of. We can keep our passion and purpose, but they belong in a bigger arena, not just right in front of us. While we’re staring at each other and negotiating who has more power, while we’re obsessing over our big, far away purpose, we’re missing what’s right here, now.
When people want their voice heard in their organizations, I wonder if they’re getting confused. Maybe what they are longing for isn’t to have a say in decision xyz. Maybe what they’re really after is participation in life enacting life. Life participates in life. It stewards life. It celebrates life.
It makes sense to want agency so we can participate. Shutting out vital parts of the system will lead to imbalance. The more we lock ourselves out of the possibility of participating in the big arena. We become small.
And of course, I’m not writing this article for you, dear reader. I’m writing it for myself. Because the truth is that I’ve spent lots of time in my life pushing rocks up the hill because that’s what I thought I had to do to serve purpose. Which somehow almost felt the same as earning your keep. Deserving a spot on the “good” side of things.
I am spending a lot of my attention on stepping back. Letting go of what I want to do, of what I think would be helpful and “the good thing to do”, and instead listening to what wants to unfold, which maybe can be described as “the right thing to happen.”
I find that I need to be very quiet to sense her.
