Meandering Mind - Eva Dillner [26]
When we teach or heal or do whatever it is we do, it needs to come from real life experience, where you know it in every cell of your body and not just your head. If your base belief is that there isn't enough in the world to go around, that if another wins you lose, then the new organization model won't work for you. To make organizations of the future work they have to be based on a belief that there is more than enough for everyone, that there is no limit to love or money or what is possible. If you are coming from fear and think that you have to take from others to win, if you believe in competition instead of cooperation then the new organization models aren't going to work for you.
All humans, including healers and teachers are unfinished or works in process or wounded. It's how we work through our issues when they surface that determines the outcome. We need to balance working on others and working on ourselves. It's easy to fall into the trap that you know more than others and that you have the answers to their problems. The other side of that trap is when we put others on a pedestal. I've encountered several leaders in the alternative health movement who are more unhealed than the people they are trying to heal, and who seem unable to let go of control.
One of the exercises we did in the life mission group clarified for me that I have a special skill in helping people get from here to there. Symbolically, a colleague saw me standing at the shore of a body of water, with fog obscuring the visibility so you couldn't see across to the other shore. Most people would see only the fog, but not the other side. He said, “you see through the fog to the other side. You see how to build the bridge across, where the rest of us see fog.” Hmm, I thought, this is very interesting. What can I do with this?
I was still in the mode of wanting to apply my skills in a larger context, finding work somehow. So I wrote an abstract:
Transition Management - building a bridge to tomorrow
Inherent in every organization is the potential of what could be. As yet unrealized possibilities. Glimmers of a dream. A memory of what you came here to accomplish. A whisper of an idea, which if allowed to grow, could dramatically alter the achievements of your organization.
Imagine you are a group of people with an idea, some dream you want to manifest, some discovery you want to make, and some product you want to develop. How do you manifest that dream, how do you take it from the idea stage to reality, how do you build that bridge to tomorrow?
The answer is Transition Management. There is a unique skill in being able to stand at the shore and see how to create that bridge to the other side. A Transition Manager works with a group of people wanting to create “tomorrow.” The Transition Manager guides and facilitates the process by becoming part of the group for the duration of the project.
Perhaps the most important piece to Transition Management is to get clear on what the group is hoping to accomplish. Where are we going and why? What is our purpose, vision and mission? What is the essence of what we are trying to accomplish? What is at the core, what is it that drives our passion, what is our raison d'être?
As part of this process it is essential to get the clutter out of the way, so we can really tap into the core. In other words, we need to clear the fog. How can we build a bridge to tomorrow, if we can't see the shore on the other side?
It is at this point we start to put our thoughts on paper, perhaps via questionnaires, perhaps by making sketches, collages or models, or perhaps by writing essays answering the question: if there were no limits, what would our project look like?
From this tangible representation of the group