EE Magazine Editorial September 2015 – Personal to Planetary Ecosystem of Movements

By George Pór for Enlivening Edge Magazine

Personal and Planetary

We all want work in or with organizations that inspire us, appreciate our talents and autonomy, and give them space to grow. Most of today’s organizations don’t do this. Instead they operate using commandeering structures that stifle our engagement and initiative. However, a growing number of reinvention initiatives prove that it doesn’t have to be that way.

We call those organizations that are able to move beyond this age-old paradigm “next-stage organizations”. They need and attract people passionate about the development of their own talents put in service of something larger than themselves. Chances are that you are one of them and if so, it’s to you that we dedicate our work and the September 2015 issue of Enlivening Edge, in particular.

The core theme of this issue is person and planet. We are probing the experience of living and working in a world of never-ending transformation, both inside individual organizations, and in connection with any of the numerous movements striving to reinvent them. (One of them is the movement inspired by the book Reinventing Organizations that is using the term “Teal” as a label for next-stage organizations.)

The personal

You will find a series of informative and inspiring articles about the personal dimension of that transformation, in the various sections of EE. For example:

• Reinventing Yourself
• The ‘Self’ in Self-management: Is Holacracy Soulful? 
• Overcoming the Fear of Teal
• Living the Re-Invented Organization
• Courage To Live Undivided
• Your Tealbox: practical sustainability strategies for operating from Teal

The planetary

The planetary dimension of the momentous transformation that is occurring in the world of organizations is less conducive to direct sensing and observing than the personal one. Because of that and the very diversity of the “reinvention” movements, gaining an overview and insights about them is more challenging. It’s one of the main challenges that the EE team is here to support meeting.

An ecosystem of movements for next-stage organization

Try to feel into all the human aspirations, energy, and creativity that went and are going into what the names around the circle stand for. Isn’t it breathtaking? It portrays only the most influential strands in the ecosystem and, of course the territory is much richer than any map allows showing. What is even more inspiring than the number of nodes, is the possible connections among them, pathways of co-learning and co-creation…

We, at Enlivening Edge, don’t aim at being the center of this ecosystem for many reasons. The most important is that an ecosystem doesn’t have a center, unlike the particular movements making this one up. That’s why the middle of our map is blank.

What we do intend is to serve the whole and each part of it by providing a platform for sensing what is happening in the whole and making meaning of it together.

The “whole” of game-changing trends in the world of organizations is strongly affected by the combined impact of networks and technological changes, too. Change-makers in organization design can ignore how emerging technologies disrupt long-established models of governance only at their own peril. The article reflecting on that seminal trend is The Future of Organization.

What is happening in and around Enlivening Edge

We are overjoyed by the fact the 4-person team that produced the first issue has grown into an expanding international network of 20 volunteers, who made the September issue possible, along which we placed 50+ articles online.

And we’re still in the early stages of learning how we can best serve our evolutionary purpose, with all who are inspired by it, which is presently expressed as follows:

Boosting the impact of the movements for next-stage organizations

on the well-being of people and society

 

If you like what you read here, consider getting involved and energizing any of the roles listed here.

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A final word: Since you are a subscriber to this newsletter, you almost surely want to scale your interest, your passion, your involvement in next-stage organizations, from personal to planetary. One way you might do that is to consider who in your network could benefit from our news and articles, and forward this copy to them. Using any of the “share” buttons below will help us reaching even more people and organizations. That’s a win-win-win for everyone!

Featured Image by artistlike from Pixabay