Sunday Select: Peter Senge on Leadership
Happy Autumnal Equinox, Three Thresholds, Wisdom Labs, and Sources of Connection
Greetings friends and wisdom-lovers, and welcome to Sunday Select, with some quotes, links, ideas and invitations from the Wisdom Workshop network. Happy Autumnal Equinox! 🍂
Peter Senge on the Art and Practice of Leadership
Peter Senge, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, surprised me with opening his book with a reprinting of a Navajo sand painting, and ending with a four-page riff on astronaut Rusty Schweickart’s experience seeing earth from space. Senge titled this final section: “The Indivisible Whole.”
Apparently, it’s difficult for astronauts to describe the experience of seeing the earth from orbit. They lose words trying to share that felt fact that we are all connected.
In this cosmic frame, leadership opens the door for magic. Opening doors, and crossing thresholds, the leader is a designer, a teacher, a steward.
The verb ‘lead,’ comes from the Indo-European leith, “which means ‘to cross a threshold,’ an image also often associated with dying.”
Extraordinary leaders … often have deep personal stories of awakening, when some old part of them died and a new part emerged. . . .
And this connects to “charisma,” a “poorly used term” that actually means “to develop one’s gifts:”
We develop as true charismatic leaders to the extent that we become ourselves. Herein lies the secret of real leadership development.
Three Openings to Magic
Senge and Scharmer identify three thresholds that leaders invite us to cross.
First, an opening of the mind.
Second, an opening of the heart.
Third, an opening of the will.
Leaders design spaces where people can open their minds, their hearts, their wills. They steward spaces that allow for felt senses of the indivisible whole.
These spaces are created from leaders developing their own gifts of becoming, crossing their own thresholds of mind, heart, and will.
Five Quotes from The Fifth Discipline
In teaching, designing, parenting, and the arts, this seems true in my experience:
The primary determinant of the outcome of an intervention is the inner state of the intervener (Bill O’Brien in Senge).
On the third opening, the opening of the will:
Here we connect “with the future that comes into being through us and with what we are here to do.” Passing through this third threshold does not mean that all our questions about the meaning of our lives are suddenly answered, but that “we are alive in the heart of this question and how it can move us forward” (Otto Scharmer in Senge).
What does this third opening of the will look like?
We become willing to let go of our agendas and pre-determined goals, to allow our intentions and strategies to be molded by forces larger than our individual wills (Senge).
Quoting Marianne Knuth, stewarding a learning network in Zimbabwe:
“Life is sacred and should be met that way. . . . slowing down enough to really appreciate the beauty that surrounds us . . . each time I notice and appreciate the miracle of these seeming simple acts of creation, I also feel more certain that life is infinitely rich and full of magic and love, and that the being that manages to stay connected to that sense is richer than the one who does not.” (Marianne Knuth, founder of Kufanda Village, in Senge).
Senge concludes:
. . . .And through the journey, they grow closer, to themselves, to one another, and to life. . . . it is a system of management consistent with nature, human nature, and of larger living systems; it is working together in ways that realize our highest aspirations; it is being the change we seek to create.
Resources and Remembrances
Peter Senge: "Systems Thinking for a Better World" via Youtube.
University of Chicago Center for Practical Wisdom published “People seen as wise share these characteristics, according to a new study.” “Across different cultures, participants’ judgements converged on two dimensions: reflective orientation and socio-emotional awareness.”
University of Waterloo Wisdom and Culture Lab defines the “core features of wisdom” as “intellectual humility, open-mindedness to change, integration of diverse viewpoints, and prosocial orientation.” Missing, imo, decision-making capacity, and the creative joy that goes into the process of making those decisions.
Phronesis Lab at Oregon State University. Phronesis, for the uninitiated, is the Greek word for the practical dimensions of wisdom. It is the type of wisdom associated with skillful means. The How-To of living a good life. This is the kind of wisdom we’re most curious about.
Lori Gottlieb’s book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, Our Lives Revealed is heart-opening catalogue of psychodynamics and therapeutic interventions. Gottlieb is observant, funny, and full of care. Irvin Yalom’s endorsement says it all: “I’ve been reading books on psychotherapy for half a century. I’ve never encountered one like this, so bold and brassy, so packed full of insight.”
Remembering "The World is Open To Play,"the Nerdwriter’s tribute to Robin Williams. Such a wonderful philosophy for an improvisational life.
Acknowledging the first stewards and peoples of this land where I write these words, the traditional territories and ancestral homelands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute, Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Lakota, Pueblo and Shoshone Nations, and further acknowledge the 48 contemporary tribal nations historically tied to the lands that comprise what is now called Colorado.
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Thank you for reading!
Wishing us well across our thresholds,
here’s to the earth that is wildly alive,
joyously effulgent, indivisibly whole,
amen and hallelujah,
Sean
More about me and the Wisdom Workshop here. If you are curious about gathering wisdom in an inspired learning container, please consider opening an inquiry with me.
🗓️ Sept 22-29 Invitations to Gather
Monday, Sept. 23 at 2-3pm MST. Emergent Learning Facilitation Lab. Zoom
Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 12:30-1:30pm MST. Sean Waters Open Office. Phone.
Wednesday, Sept. 25 at 10:30-11:30am MST. Good Life Writing Lab. Zoom
Wednesday, Sept. 25 at 2-3pm MST. Wisdom of Perspective. Clubhouse.
✍️ Start your Week Off, Write
What are my sources of strength today?
Connecting to the seasonality of our lives is a source of strength.
Savoring the good moments is a source of strength.
Our families are sources of strength (and health, and balance, and support).
Our abilities to give ourselves grace are a source of strength.
Slowing down and not rushing ahead to the next thing is a source of strength.
Spending time with our elders is a source of strength.
Connecting to the deep well-spring of life and light is a source of strength.
To be seen and to slow down and listen are sources of strength.
To follow the clues of the universe, and act on them, is a source of strength.
To get in tune with our intuition is a source of strength.
To let go of fixed ideas is a source of strength.
To feel a deeply personal connection is a source of strength.
To open our will to the indivisible whole is a source of strength.
Links to gatherings, office hours, and extra writing invitations below.
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