By cuidadoria from their April 2019 newsletter, written by Thianne Martins, translated and further edited by Elaine Favero and EE Magazine
“We live in a world in which life wants to happen. This is a simple, though profound, realization. (…) For me, this means that I belong to a whole planetary community of life, and that I am supported in my own small efforts by a deep natural history spanning between four and five billion years — life wants to happen as a community and we are all part of it”. ~Margaret Wheatley
Here in cuidadoria, we are really happy and getting our rhythm back, after deep experiences we had the last weeks.
We just returned from our immersion in Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park in Brazil, (part of cuidadoria’s Evolutionary Leadership Program), and the theme was Evolutionary Purpose! The nature of Chapada has taught us a lot. We revived our connection with nature, and with the certainty that we, being nature, need to express in our leaderships, organizations and lives the principles that guide life across our planet.
Still in Chapada, we had the opportunity to see amazing and disruptive initiatives, energized by members of a NGO called Middle Way Institute (Instituto Caminho do Meio). One of those is the Vila Verde School, an evolutionary school, nationally and internationally awarded, that works under the premise that students each build their own path of knowledge.
Our Insights from the Evolutionary Leadership’s immersion on nature at Chapada dos Veadeiros
We humans are nature. That’s a fact. As much as we have, somehow, backed off of what’s natural in many aspects of life, there is no denying. We are nature. We are not apart. As a species, maybe we are the youngest child, the most recent version of a super app, that allows us to make conscious intervention in the natural system.
However, within all the unbalanced scenario we see nowadays, it is clear that our intervention hasn’t been as conscious as it should be. We interfere without understanding the system as a whole, with its connections and interfaces.
It is interesting to see how each technological headway helps us advance in comprehension of our relationship with the world. For example, during the Industrial Revolution, that was also a scientific revolution, we came to understand ourselves, as well as nature, as machines. We thought that if we could dismantle, see the pieces, components and engineering, then we could understand it all, raise the performance of everything, gain in scale, longevity, infinite production… Well, we already know that’s not how it works.
So what new understanding of the world is there now? Today we have web’s technology, that allows us to realize how interconnected we are, realize how every movement, post or action, I take has effects in the web as a whole. And the more connections there are on the web, the faster the information spreads and the more complex the system becomes.
Today we understand that nature works through webs.
Some plants have advanced forms of communication through roots and fungus that act like a neural system, like internet! With an intelligence capable of creating a resilient system that is applied in every situation – including the most catastrophic ones – to make the system more intelligent, complex and healthy (autopoiesis).
So what about us, as human beings, in our day-by-day lives, in our cities, organizations, and in our leadership? How to be nature?
Nature is collaborative, as we humans naturally are. Nature appreciates balance, as we do.
Each one of us, individuals, have something to offer to the world, as much as every plant, animal or fungus… Why don’t we look at our leadership as something situational? Why not bring to light the particular talents of the individuals in our teams, setting forth that everyone can be a leader, of themselves, of projects, of teams?
Why don’t we observe how nature woks and start bringing its inspiration and practices inside the organizations,
- by respecting cycles,
- by observing the talent that is most valuable to each situation, and
- by allowing intelligences that emerge and bring solutions from people—that can happen in completely unexpected places?
Why don’t we listen more, and why don’t we make decisions with a more amplified perception, through asking questions, including a variety of ideas from people and areas with different knowledge?
Today the web and networks allows us to do that very easily. We can bring ideas not only from different areas, but from other cultures, from places where we wouldn’t have access before.
Being nature, what is our responsibility as leaders? Have you thought about it? What would be the role of your leadership if, in our organizations, we could express our maximum potential?
Thianne Martins, Master coach, consultant in organizational design, new management models and human development. Founder of cuidadoria. [email protected]
Elaine Favero is a coach, facilitator, and learning designer, Partner of cuidadoria and Atma Pessoas, former tax lawyer, and forever a yoga practitioner. She found her joy in life by helping people and organizations raise their level of consciousness. Get in touch [email protected].
Featured Image/graphic link added by Enlivening Edge Magazine, image
