Unlocking the power of enterprise for a more beautiful world, Part #2
If you missed Sunday Syntropy last week, that is because we did not publish it. Consistency is important to me, and sometimes, missing a week is a better option than trying to be everywhere and always on. I did take a literal holiday, by the beach, National Park, very off-grid. It was beautiful.
This week, we cover the second of seven articles about the Considerations for a Beautiful Syntropic Enterprise.
If you would like to read the introduction article from March 17th, you can access it here. https://syntropic.world/unlocking-the-power-of-enterprise-for-a-more-beautiful-world-part-1/
As a reminder, here are the 6 Pillars.
Pillar 1. Clarity of the Source Idea – the original impulse and Evolutionary Purpose
Pillar 2. Self-development as a leader/steward.
Pillar 3. Structural Integrity of Organisational Design. Creating Ecologies of Trust and Synergy
Pillar 4. People, teams, culture. A company of people and relationships.
Pillar 5. Networks and the field. A healthy economy is a healthy network of relationships with people, creatures, our Earth, the future, and the sacred.
Pillar 6. Strategy and Implementation. The Dance of Time, emergent strategy, strategic intention, and the autopoiesis of a living enterprise.
This week, we cover Pillar 1.
Pillar 1. Clarity of the Source Idea – the original impulse and Evolutionary Purpose
1.What are you creating and why? What is the Pattern Integrity?
Let’s get to the marrow of the why.
Let us be sure that your enterprise is an expression of your deepest desire.
Many people skip over this step. Or their why is shallow, a desire fed from lack—lack of recognition, lack of being heard and seen, lack of love, lack of worth. Indicators of desire built from lack are the desire for fame and fortune as the lead desire, the desire for stuff, toys, and glory, and the desire to be the Hero—the Time Magazine cover shot—the keeper of the keys and the holder of the power.
When we build from a desire that is far greater than we can ever imagine, something bigger than our “I”, when possibility (instead of lack) leads desire, then we just might pull it off.
When we lead from a desire that is genuinely bigger than us, we can also get out of our own way, as the “x” that is being created is far bigger than any one person and will require a tribe to pull it off. This takes away from the traditional model of leadership, where you have the “CEO”, the dominator, the elevated authority.
The new boat requires a very different type of leadership, which I describe as the Steward Leader. Very, very light touch, very conscious and considered holding. I liken this to cell membranes. It pays exquisite attention to the inner and outer ecosystem, is a guardian of inflows and outflows, and enables the holding of the strange attractor that brings people and things together to create the enterprise. The cell membrane also keeps the polarity that enables the cell to hold its shape (integrity). A good cell membrane in a healthy ecosystem goes unnoticed. A good Steward Leader in a Syntropic Enterprise goes unnoticed by most.
2. What will be the short—and long-term consequences of your project or business? What will the field effects and precessional effects be?
“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decision on the next seven generations.” Iroquois Confederacy.
Very few of us ever take the time to really sit in this, not just for the overall direction of the business, but for the actions along the way. Almost all of our current systems are designed around the quarterly review, the half-yearly result, the increase in shareholder return, and the political election cycle. Youth is celebrated, age is denigrated, and the business model is one of inbuilt redundancy/planned obsolescence, so we need to be constantly replacing/upgrading our goods. Throw-a-way goods, throw-a-way people, throw-a-way Earth.
When considering seven generations, we need to consider all of our actions: who we bring on board as a team, how we treat each other, how we treat every single stakeholder, including Earth, and how we manage success, failure, feedback, coherence, and dissonance. When we make any decision, what are the consequences, now and much, much later? Who and what will be affected? How will we manage that effect?
Do we comprehensively consider our actions, decisions, services, and products in their past, present and future wholeness?
For an extraordinary example of comprehensive consideration, listen to the podcast with Hugo Spowers from Riversimple.
3. Who is your service/product offering being created for? Right down to the detail. Know your customer, love your customer.
If you don’t absolutely love your customers, want to spend time with them, and show them respect and appreciation, then the arc of your offering will not stick.
Using Integrity as the guide, your customer is not separate from your enterprise. They are woven into the Source Idea and Pattern Integrity of all you do. The relationship is partnering and deeply respectful.
4. Does your customer absolutely want this?
How do you know? Have you asked them? Tested it? Created a minimal viable product? Invited them to partner? Considered the feedback provided?
Have you sat with them and heard their worldview expressed back, asking for what your enterprise seeks to create?
Your customers can be people, creatures, enterprises, institutions, communities, the Earth, or life itself.
5. What is the measure of profit? Money? Service? Well-being? Warm Data? Community? Knowledge? Health?
All of these? Others? Can we celebrate profit in multiple domains without being beholden to a single domain expression?
Profit means to advance. In what areas do you seek to advance, and how do you know you/the enterprise/all of your people/all stakeholders/Earth are advancing?
Any system that does not have its ability to thrive built into its design is going to fail. Profit is not a dirty word. However monetary profit has been appropriated as the only reason for business to exist. It is a partial and, therefore, incomplete model. It is out of Integrity.
6. What are your inviolate values?
This DNA, if damaged, will result in death. In Syntropic World, we speak of the DNA of an idea as the Pattern Integrity. Inviolate principles and values must remain no matter what the form of expression of the enterprise. Everyone must be super clear about the Pattern Integrity. The Pattern Integrity is built into every single act, offering and promotion. The Pattern Integrity of the Source Idea is the sacred ground upon which any beautiful Syntropic Enterprise works.
7. What is the enterprise’s ideal lifespan? And what is your lifespan within the enterprise?
Let’s discuss that now. What is its natural lifespan, including lifestyle milestones? Given that everything will change as the enterprise is brought through the stages of its existence, this question is fluid. Yet, we rarely consider the natural lifespan of any enterprise. Some enterprises must, by their nature, be designed to end because to achieve the purpose of the enterprise will mean that it is complete. For example, ending any of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals must mean that an enterprise designed to do that will be done when the goal is reached. In other enterprises, the creator of an enterprise may not be the best person to steward an enterprise to a different stage of the enterprise. A wise leader/steward will be aware of this from the beginning. In Syntropic World, we are designing beyond my lifetime. I am also clear that I am not the best person to lead this next stage of the enterprise expression.
8. What does growth look like?
Name the stages of growth for different dimensions. For example, Robert Kegan describes the growth of the humans working in the enterprise in the book “An Everyone Culture.” He also mentions the growth of the number of clients, the growth of the positive effect you are having on humanity, and the growth of the negative effect you are having on any area.
When will the enterprise be at its growth peak, and where may growth switch to another form of growth? (Growth in one dimension only is a very poor measure of success and is completely unsustainable. Yet not nurturing growth in one or several domains simultaneously will lead to entropy. Most businesses focus on one dimensional growth which is rapacious growth and leads to community and environmental breakdown.)
Because our culture currently deploys a model that relies on capital/resource use/monetary profit growth to survive, we prefer to deploy Syntropy. While entropy is a natural breakdown, Syntropy is its opposite, a natural regeneration towards a higher order.
9. Following the conversation on growth, what is enough?
Repeat the question. Tell the truth. What is enough for the enterprise? And what is enough for you? This is an iterative question, yet it needs to be answered honestly and captured in a timeline. Consider all domains when answering, including enough money, clients, profit, media, and well-being.
10. How do you commune with your enterprise?
Stay in heartfelt connection with it, enabling its own agency. Yet, can you partner with it to enable its full thriving without sacrificing your own well-being? How does the team commune with the enterprise, and how is communion shared as a respectful experience? Your enterprise has its own life force; your role is to provide the stewardship to enable that life force to be fully expressed.
11. How will you know you are on path? Off path?
And how do you keep track? Synchronicities or their absence are good indicators of on-track/off-track. An aligned path, even if challenging, will have a clear set of events that might affirm the direction. Learning to read/interpret signs is a good skill. Feedback loops with fellow team members and external advisors are also helpful to ensure we do not become delusional or collusional. A synergistic team ensures that the enterprise architecture holds the shape of the purpose of the enterprise.
12. Who else in the world is attempting something similar?
We do not need to compete with others. A partnership might be a better option if the similarities are too great. Or maybe we can offer a different product but use similar processes.
Who are your global tribe? How do you connect with them? Learn from each other? It is lonely to create something that has never been created. Outreach and connection to fellow pioneers makes a difference.
Next week we will cover Pillar 2. Self-development as a leader/steward.
