Moreover, to secure this pretence, teams, groups and communities tend to order their reality to the nth degree. Everything gets agendarized, broken down into parts and then worked on. This tendency, we might say of indulgence, lets teams, groups or communities potter around in the known. The challenge is to let go of this order and embrace chaos. For on the other side of chaos lie simplicity and elegance. Paradoxically, though, we can only reach elegance by first wallowing in and secondly enjoying complexity.

      Learning to work with chaos and complexity is a very different game altogether. It demands that each of us reveals our vulnerabilities, discloses our edges and truly opens ourselves to ‘not-knowing’. In short, we each need to be willing to get lost – to wander with wonder into the unknown. This is particularly hard for leaders, whose success is usually built upon their ability to know the answers and not get lost.

       now-here

      If we can find the courage to lose ourselves, the next step is to still ourselves – to become truly and deeply present in the now and here. For, as discussed earlier in this chapter, the power of presence brings with it a much higher and more acute sense of awareness. Our senses heighten and our intuitive capabilities expand. The boundaries between us and those around us begin to dissolve as we increase our collective frequencies and resonate at a higher order of meaning.

      In this phase, silence moves from being empty to being full of possibilities. Our whole selves become available to us as we begin to touch the Field.

       no-where

      From this place of heightened awareness we now need to tune in, to find and follow the flow. This is when new meaning starts to flow through us rather than from us. It comes from a deeper place, and we know it when we hear someone express it. Who has it? Who has managed to remove their ego and become a conduit for the team, group or community? Who is speaking from the collective wisdom of the group and the wider systemic Field in which the group belongs?

      Noticing that flow is an art in and of itself. It could be in a subtle gesture, eye movement, tear or burst of energy…

      When a group finds, trusts and follows this flow, magic happens. Time simultaneously slows down and speeds up, as something new begins to emerge in the space between.

       know-where

      Once we find and follow the flow, simplicity rises and chaos falls. The challenge is to keep up! We have caught a glimpse of a new way and we can now only move forward.

      Moreover, we have transformed. For we have discovered the way forward together and we are a part of that way forward. How can we be anything but a part of it? And it propels us forward in purposeful actions that over time help us to manifest our creative dreams.

      the four realms of nowhere

      an experience … by a nowhere catalyst

       There were 13 of us. We had been working together for a year on the inspiring-innovation training programme. Now we were sitting in a circle in a room dating back to the thirteenth century in a retreat near Oxford. Focusing on a single breakthrough question, we were spending two days in creative dialogue and then a day making sense of the experience.

       The first words seemed like a pebble being dropped into a still pond in the space between us. I noticed my immediate visceral response to the words and then my brain catching up, noticing what lay behind the words and what unfolded from them – so many possible lines of enquiry and yet none moved me. So, in between the words, we sat in the silence and waited for the next pebble.

       And so it went on. Some pebbles created ripples and some sank without trace. And gradually a sense of the flow seemed to emerge. I felt as if I knew when the flow was with me. Each of us, at some point in the dialogue, knew we had the flow and, in that moment, we had to choose whether to give it our voice. Or not.

       Patterns of flow started emerging. Some words were following the flow and others were seeking to describe and explain our shared experience. And so each thread would come to its natural energetic climax and then we would again be left in silence.

       At one point I was overcome by a sense of both the intense joy and the deep sadness of life and felt my eyes filling with tears. At another point I felt I was seeing through what was being said to the elegant pattern that lay underneath. And emerging through this was the sense that I was held, that we were all being held, by something bigger than all of us.

       After two days of exploring through dialogue we spent a day trying to understand what had happened. Time had a different quality. We were now working to a specific deadline. The listening was different. There was less silence and a growing sense of excitement that we were onto something. Slowly a shared sense of meaning emerged and crystallized into a model of our experience together.

       This experience has stayed with me. At home it has slowed down the way I listen to my wife and my teenage children. I'm more aware of my assumptions. As a family we have had conversations about creating holidays that excite all of us – exploring our likes and dislikes until ‘our’ perfect holiday emerges. At work it has enabled me to be still and wait for breakthrough ideas to emerge and not to get triggered by disagreements but just probe underneath them. I'm more aware of when a line of enquiry feels right and I have the confidence to follow that instinct.

      being present

      a micro-skill

      Escaping the constant ‘monkey chatter’ of the mind is a skill in and of itself. Learning to be truly present, appreciative and attentive to what is, to be now and here, from moment to moment, is an expression of true mastery. Creating moments where we can remember to still and ground ourselves is the first step. It enables us to see and feel what is most needed.

       Can be used to…

      journaling

      a micro-skill

      ‘Journaling’ is a simple but effective way of capturing what is and reflecting on what has been. When used with discipline and skill, on a regular basis, it can accelerate learning and support our internal creative process.