Читать книгу CONFESSIONS OF A CORPORATE SHAMAN - Harrison Snow - Страница 13

Not being able to see something does not mean it does not exist. Dark energy and dark matter are invisible to us but they hold our universe together. The soul of a group may not have a material substance, but you can still feel it and see its effect on others. The wise leader will notice and work with that influence instead of ignoring it.

When a group starts to open up on more than the mental level, something happens that is hard to put into words. Something new and different emerges and touches the people in the room. A change takes place in you, and consequently and inevitably a change takes place in others who are part of your world. If reality is cocreated, then when your part of that cocreation is altered, the whole picture shifts. As stated in the beginning of this book, tacit knowledge is what you don’t know you know. If you can access that knowledge, insights become available that lead to new possibilities. Tacit knowledge resides in a field of intelligence below the threshold of awareness. Since all individual consciousness is connected at the subconscious level this knowledge resides in the collective unconsciousness of the group. The collective unconsciousness has also been described as interchangeable with or representative of the zero point field, the morphogenetic field, the unified field, and the big mind, or the knowing field. In this book we will call this place of knowledge and intelligence the knowing field.

It won’t serve our purpose here to attempt to explain how these fields work or even to try to prove they exist. Even Einstein attempted to explain the unified field but did not succeed.

Perhaps that is why he once said, “There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”

Like Einstein, let’s not worry about proving anything. If unexpected, but often profound, insights arise in that higher plane then that is good enough. The foundations for accessing this knowing field include the following domains:

Multimodal: Mental, spiritual, physical, emotional, and psychological

Multidimensional: Conscious, subconscious, and collective consciousness

Phenomenological: Working with “what is” in the physical world instead of theories or expectations of what should be

One metaphor to help you visualize this knowing field is to see the approximately three pounds of gray matter in your head as your computer. Bring online your heart and gut, which also contain millions of neurons, and you create a supercomputer. Establish your online connection to other supercomputers through an invisible field of knowing and you’ve entered the realm of quantum computing. Three pillars that help us utilize this amazing realm are:

Use of Self: Gaining insight into an organizational system by noticing how and where its issues resonate within your own personal system

Systems Thinking: Observing the organization or group, the relationships between their component parts, and the systemic patterns that may arise

The Knowing Field: The field that connects each individual subconscious; it is a reservoir of tacit knowledge, accessed through methodologies based upon the foundational worldviews mentioned above

So, how do we draw upon these foundations and utilize the pillars in a way that can be operationalized to produce insights and inspire change? An organizational constellation is a highly versatile tool that enables leaders to make sense of situations that challenge them with their complexity and opaqueness. In addition to leadership development and change management, this tool can be applied to many different situations leaders face. Case studies that illustrate a number of those situations are detailed in this book. And, even though those case studies will walk you through the sequence of steps followed by the facilitator, it’s important for you to appreciate the three pillars—and the worldview they represent—that are behind those steps.

As the facilitator or leader you can’t take anyone to a place you have not gone to yourself. Any blind spot or lack of self-awareness limits your capacity in that area. The skillful use of self utilizes the knowledge that arises from the observation of yourself in relationships with others. In effect, you stay one step ahead of your client or group using the space provided by that step to facilitate what needs to unfold.

Systems thinking helps you see what should happen and what is in the way in that space. The process breaks a challenge or issue into its component parts and the desired outcome. Identifying those parts and physically mapping their relationship to each other illustrates the nature of the breakdown and where it occurred.

The knowing field is accessed through the use of representatives who stand in for key parts of the system. The interactions between the representatives uncover the insights and actions that lead to the desired outcome or solution.

In traditional societies, the shaman uses symbols and ritual to create a sacred space. In this space, he or she has access to a heightened state of awareness. According to Malidoma Patrice Somé, “. . . we enter into ritual in order to respond to the call of the soul.”⁴

Somé also says, “What goes wrong in the visible world is only the tip of the iceberg. So to correct a dysfunctional state of affairs effectively, one must first locate its hidden area, its symbolic dimension, work with it first and then assist in the restoration of the physical (visible) extension of it . . .”⁵

Both the shaman and the facilitator/leader are in service to others. Their ability to help others come to terms with the dysfunctions in their system depends, however, on the extent to which they have done the same with themselves. Whether it is through a vision quest or 360-degree feedback, some form of self-knowledge—through self-observation and reflection—is called for.

You may recall the motto on President Harry Truman’s desk: “The buck stops here.” The motto is fine for those who react to change but insufficient for those who will be the change they want in the world. “The buck starts here” is the motto for the holistic leader or facilitator who seeks to drive change. An experience I had when I was first introduced to the systemic approach demonstrates the central role the use of self plays.