What the world needs now is… ancient!
A few weeks ago I attended the Academy of Management’s international conference in Vancouver and I have to say that there were some pretty amazing scholars, old friends and new, and even some great discussions on my favorite topics.
I attended some great sessions dedicated to the complexity of organizations and have even heard the term “systemicity”[1] uttered and even discussed properly in the halls of the academy.
Storytelling and complexity scholars, rejoice!
I heard overt calls for more self-organizing in enterprises of all sorts, for open systems thinking, for emergent and adaptive models of organizational development and change that make me want to shout, “Hooray!”
If you have followed any of my work or heard me speak about fractals, you may know that my ideas about organization development and change are laced with concepts of self-organizing systems, co-creation, and emergence.
So many others have expressed these kinds of ideas at the conference that the Academy is starting to feel like home. Some scholars offer promising complexity-aware ideas about what to do for changing organizations, whether as leaders or consultants. Others simply issue calls for a new way of thinking.
A new way of thinking...
It may be counterintuitive, but I have found that the best way to deal with complexity in modern organizations is often through a return to some very ancient practices.
Of course, when it comes to my own practices and life-work integration, I am talking about yoga, but there are other options too.
For example, my colleague and friend, Wanda Tisby-Cousar has developed a modern leadership paradigm grounded in lessons from the long-standing Sande traditions of Africa. Joe Gladstone’s understanding of business practices is based on the American Indian perspective. Other colleagues work with complex adaptive systems through Anete Strand’s material storytelling and Grace-Ann Rosile’s horse sense. Each of these approaches has some grounding in practices that are both social and material in nature. [2]
My own yoga practice is limited, Western, modern, and a work in progress, as the term "practice" suggests.
I remain a novice on the mat, some six years since I began to learn, and I have not even begun to scratch the surface of what it might mean to someday become a yogini, in the true sense of the word. I have no aspirations of becoming a guru or spiritual leader to be sure. I am simply a Western woman who finds yoga, as I understand it, to offer an avenue for better understanding and functioning in the complex world of business and life.
My exposure to yogic philosophy and practices has afforded me a lot of insights that might not have come in any other way.
It would seem that modern complexity was well understood by ancient scholars like Patanjali, even though the Internet, computers, globalism, and today’s literacy rates were unheard of at the time. There is so much wisdom in the sutras and in the day-to-day practices, where we integrate body and mind, mending the Cartesian split in our own way with each chaturanga.
It is hard to explain how it works, but oftentimes when I get on my mat, I am in a state where my mind is reluctant, hesitant, …lazy? Yet I am in a room with happy, positive people and as we start to move and stretch, to build our strength, and focus on positive things, my body takes center stage, telling the mind to “Back off for a bit,” until finally the practice is complete and my mind and body have made their peace for a time. I go back out into the world as an integrated, whole person. The effect is especially profound if I have been away from my mat for a few days, as my mind’s reluctance is compounded by a stiff body— and yet the outcome is the same.
After all, “Yoga is the cessation of the chattering of the mind,” as the sutras tell us.
...And a mind that has stopped chattering, cycling over old misunderstandings and future-focused worries and schemes, is a mind that is ready to see what’s really going on in the here and now.
It’s not so different from leash training a dog. My beloved Spot heads off the trail to chase a rabbit and the leash is there, gently reminding her that our purpose is to go forward and complete our walk, to enjoy the sunset and the summer air together, headed in the same direction. “Oh yeah! That way!” …and we are happily back on course.
Maybe that’s part of why I love that dog so much. We are kindred spirits, full of energy and good intentions— even if we shed and slobber and occasionally make a mess of things.
We also cover a lot of ground!
So what about you?
What traditions and ancient practices do you honor?
Can you bring the social and material elements of your work and life into a coherent whole, if only for an hour?
Copyright Gly Solutions, LLC 2015
References:
Boje, David, and Tonya Henderson, eds. 2014. Being quantum: Ontological storytelling in the age of antenarrative. Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Henderson, Tonya L., and David M. Boje. Projected 2015. Organizational Development and Change Theory: Managing Fractal Organizing Processes: Routledge.
[1] Systemicity is a term coined by David Boje. It means that organizations are no longer closed systems, nor are they open systems in the traditional sense. Instead, they are living, breathing things that grow and change, shifting their boundaries more quickly than we can begin to understand them, and exhibiting varying levels of complexity at once.
[2] For me and David Boje (Projected 2015), all of this makes sense and is effective because of the way that organizations unfold as sociomaterial processes. In our book, Being Quantum, we explore some of these ideas as well (Boje and Henderson 2014).
