Book 1 3.0 singles

So when you are listening to somebody, completely,attentively, then you are listening not only to the words,but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to thewhole of it, not part of it. -Jiddu KrishnamurtiWhat is needed, rather than running away or controllingor suppressing or any other resistance, is understandingfear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directlyinto contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not howto escape from it. - Jiddu KrishnamurtiThe range of what we think and do is limited by what wefail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail tonotice, there is little we can do to change, until we noticethat failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds. - Ronald Laing[O]ne can be both free and economically secure whileleading a totally meaningless and empty existence.” - George LakoffThe journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. - Lao TzuAt the center of your being you have the answer; youknow who you are and you know what you want. - Lao Tzu, quoted by Deborah Hartmann Preuss

The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimen-sions of consciousness into our awareness. - Lao TzuIt is better to do one’s own duty, however defective itmay be, than to follow the duty of another, however wellone may perform it. He who does his duty as his ownnature reveals it, never sins. - Lao TzuThe snow goose need not bathe to make itself white.Neither need you do anything but be yourself. - Lao TzuAn organization’s collective capacity comes in threelayers: what the organization knows it knows, what itdoesn’t know it knows, and what it has the potentialto invent. Only the first layer is visible to leaders andthe view is often incomplete. The other two layers areinvisible; the knowledge in layer two is there but mustbe uncovered before its potential contribution canbe developed, and layer three doesn’t even exist untilsuccessful experiments generate valuable innovations.Leaders who are confident about practicing self-discov-ery believe that layers two and three can be exposedto deliver homegrown solutions that will be successful.They also believe that they and others will know how tounlock those layers reliably time after time. They buildwidespread faith and confidence in the process throughrepeated successful experiences at many levels. Creatinga growing wave of successes is the only way to build a

more self-sustaining and resilient organization thatdoesn’t continuously depend on external experts. Front-line people are no longer left out of the innovationaction. Groups that discover their innate productivecapacity and creativity through the power of self-dis-covery don’t want to return to having external solutionsimposed on them. This is their incentive for developingtheir own ability to facilitate self-discovery and inviteexperts only as needed. They own the changes they haveto make, which is the best preparation for implementa-tion and adaptation.Our job as leaders is to remove obstacles and create theconditions for self-discovery and co-creation. - Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandlessDetermine that the thing can and shall be done and thenwe shall find the way. - Abraham LincolnDreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unlessyou can imagine it. - George LucasA working definition of integrative thinking: The abilityto face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and,instead of choosing one at the expense of the other,generate a creative resolution of the tension in the formof a new idea that contains elements of the opposingideas but is superior to each. - Roger L. Martin.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to holdtwo opposing ideas in mind at the same time and stillretain the ability to function. One should, for example, beable to see that things are hopeless yet be determined tomake them otherwise. -F Scott Fitzgerald , quoted by Roger MartinThe Chinese character for “crisis,” he pointed out to me,combines the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.”Quoting Michael Lee-Chin. - Roger L. Martin.The leaders I have studied share at least one trait, asidefrom their talent for innovation and long-term businesssuccess. They have the predisposition and the capacityto hold two diametrically opposing ideas in their heads.And then, without panicking or simply settling for onealternative or the other, they’re able to produce a synthe-sis that is superior to either opposing idea. Integrativethinking is my term for this process or more precisely thisdiscipline of consideration and synthesis-that that is thehallmark of exceptional businesses and the people whorun them. - Roger L. MartinCreativity arises out of the tension between spontaneityand limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcingthe spontaneity into the various forms which are essen-tial to the work of art or poem. - Rollo May

Artful Making. This term was introduced to the softwareworld by Lee Devin and Rob Austin in the book ArtfulMaking. Devin, a theatre director, and Austin, a businessprofessor, proposed that for any team to be successful ina creative and improvisational space (whichis exactly what software development is, at its heart)four qualities are required. They name these as: release,collaboration, ensemble, and play. This suggests theidea that a team needs to be given freedom for its mem-bers to interact, so that a collaborative environmentis fotered, leading to ensemble, where both the thingbeing created and the team itself are larger and moreinteresting than any one person’s input: the whole isgreater than the sum of its parts. For this to happen, aspirit of play needs to be encouraged, risks need to betaken, failure embraced as a learning opportunity— andteam members learn to take the product or businessgoals seriously, rather than themselves! -Tobias MayerScrum is a framework for helping people improve theway they do their work. It does this by setting clearexpectations and boundaries— two essential aspectsthat allow self-organization to occur and dysfunction tosurface. Scrum uses an iterative process wherein eachiteration (aka sprint) is kept as short as sensibly possible,keeping to an even rhythm as it pulses through plan-ning, execution, and reflection. This strict, rhythmical,timeboxing aspect of scrum provides scrum teams withan uncanny ability to unearth organizational dysfunc-tion.

Scrum specifies three roles (scrum master, product own-er, and team), requires a prioritized set of requests, a goalfor every sprint, and a simple way of measuring progress.Scrum uses timeboxed dialogs to plan, to align on a dailybasis, and to inspect/ adapt on a sprint basis.A clear distinction is kept between the “what” (the des-tination) and the “how” (the pathway). Scrum requiresclear focus, commitment and complete transparencyat all levels; it embraces, or emphasizes, certain hu-man-centric values including (but not limited to) trust,integrity, courage, and engagement. - Tobias MayerHappiness can only come when you are truly and un-ashamedly yourself, which takes time, support, study,trust, and love. - Karla McLarenThe greatest danger for most of us is not that our aimis too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and wereach it. - Michelangelo

Embodied cognition, the idea that the mind is not onlyconnected to the body but that the body influences themind, is one of the more counter-intuitive ideas in cog-nitive science. In sharp contrast is dualism, a theory ofmind famously put forth by Rene Descartes in the 17thcentury when he claimed that “there is a great differencebetween mind and body, inasmuch as body is by naturealways divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible... themind or soul of man is entirely different from the body.”In the proceeding centuries, the notion of the disembod-ied mind flourished. From it, western thought developedtwo basic ideas: reason is disembodied because themind is disembodied and reason is transcendent anduniversal. However, as George Lakoff and Rafeal Núñezexplain:Cognitive science calls this entire philosophical world-view into serious question on empirical grounds... [themind] arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, andbodily experiences. This is not just the innocuous andobvious claim that we need a body to reason; rather,it is the striking claim that the very structure of reasonitself comes from the details of our embodiment... Thus,to understand reason we must understand the detailsof our visual system, our motor system, and the generalmechanism of neural binding.What exactly does this mean? It means that our cogni-tion isn’t confined to our cortices. That is, our cognitionis influenced, perhaps determined by, our experiencesin the physical world. This is why we say that somethingis “over our heads” to express the idea that we do notunderstand; we are drawing upon the physical inabilityto not see something over our heads and the mentalfeeling of uncertainty. Or why we understand warmth

with affection; as infants and children the subjectivejudgment of affection almost always corresponded withthe sensation of warmth, thus giving way to metaphorssuch as “I’m warming up to her.”Metaphors We Live By was a game changer. Not only didit illustrate how prevalent metaphors are in everydaylanguage, it also suggested that a lot of the major tenetsof western thought, including the idea that reason isconscious and passionless and that language is separatefrom the body aside from the organs of speech and hear-ing, were incorrect. In brief, it demonstrated that “ourordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we boththink and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.”Samuel McNerney - in Scientific American: A Brief Guideto Embodied Cognition: Why You Are Not Your Brain.Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity ismaking the complicated simple. - Charles MingusThis is precisely the time when artists go to work. Thereis no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need forsilence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do lan-guage. That is how civilizations heal. I know the world isbruised and bleeding, and though it is important not toignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb toits malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains informationthat can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art. -Toni Morrison, quoted by Maria Popova

This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence.Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chanceto draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning allacts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementarytruth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas andsplendid plans: that the moment one definitely commitsoneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream ofevents issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor allmanner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and materialassistance, which no man could have dreamt would havecome his way. -W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalaya Expedition 1951The choices that actually matter when it comes to yourhealth, when it comes to healing, when it comes topositioning yourself, empowering yourself, are the tinyones -- that are the choices, I should say, that you thinkhave the least power, that you make in the privacy ofyour own company, that perhaps you think are the mostinsignificant.I would make studying the power of choice part of everyschool curriculum. That everyone should learn that thepower of the choices you make have infinite conse-quences. -Carolyn Myss

If I have seen farther than others, it is because I wasstanding on the shoulders of giants. - Isaac NewtonI can suggest one little change right away: Stop generat-ing action plans and start doing experiments. - Hiroshi Hiromoto NakoHe who has a why to live can bear almost any how. - Friedrich NietzscheIn their spiritual classic, Compassion, A Reflection on theChristian Life, authors Nouwen, McNeill, and Morrisonwrite:…the question arises, “How can we build community?What do we have to do to make community happen?”But perhaps such questions come from an anxious heartand are less practical and helpful than they appear to be.It seems better to raise the more contemplative ques-tion, “Where do we see community occurring?” - quoted by Tobias MayerThe best stories are lived (not written)- Song title, The Ocean’s Eyes

Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in thewrong direction.- Kenichi OhmaeI did not think of language as the means to self-descrip-tion. I thought of it as the door — a thousand openingdoors! — past myself. I thought of it as the means tonotice, to contemplate, to praise, and, thus, to come intopower.I saw what skill was needed, and persistence — howone must bend one’s spine, like a hoop, over the page— the long labor. I saw the difference between doingnothing, or doing a little, and the redemptive act of trueeffort. Reading, then writing, then desiring to write well,shaped in me that most joyful of circumstances — apassion for work.I don’t mean it’s easy or assured; there are the stubbornstumps of shame, grief that remains unsolvable after allthe years, a bag of stones that goes with one whereverone goes and however the hour may call for dancing andfor light feet. But there is, also, the summoning world,the admirable energies of the world, better than anger,better than bitterness and, because more interesting,more alleviating. And there is the thing that one does,the needle one plies, the work, and within that work achance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and toplace them slowly and with meticulous effort into someshapely heat-retaining form, even as the gods, or nature,or the soundless wheels of time have made forms allacross the soft, curved universe — that is to say, havingchosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out ofwork and love, a handsome life. - Mary Oliver, quoted by Maria Popova

The InvitationIt doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I wantto know what you ache for and if you dare to dream ofmeeting your heart’s longing.It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know ifyou will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream,for the adventure of being alive.It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring yourmoon. I want to know if you have touched the centreof your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’sbetrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fearof further pain.I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own;if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill youto the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioningus to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations ofbeing human.It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me istrue. I want to know if you can disappoint another to betrue to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betray-al and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is notpretty every day. And if you can source your own lifefrom its presence.I want to know if you can live with failure, yours andmine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout tothe silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or howmuch money you have. I want to know if you can get upafter the night of grief and despair, weary and bruisedto the bone and do what needs to be done to feed thechildren.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came tobe here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre ofthe fire with me and not shrink back.It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom youhave studied. I want to know what sustains you from theinside when all else falls away.I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and ifyou truly like the company you keep in the empty mo-ments. -Oriah Mountain DreamerWhen you work only for yourself, or for your own per-sonal gain, your mind will seldom rise above the limi-tations of an undeveloped personal life. But when youare inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinaryproject, all your thoughts break your bonds: your mindtranscends limitations, your consciousness expands inevery direction, and you find yourself in a new, great andwonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talentsbecome alive, and you discover yourself to be a greaterperson by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be. - Patanjali, quoted by Nick WilliamsA few centuries of listening to the head and more or lessignoring the wisdom of the body have produced a worldthat makes sense to the head but bewilders the noblephysical being that’s hiding beneath our business suits. - David Pearl

The truth is that our finest moments are most likelyto occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable,unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments,propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to stepout of our ruts and start searching for different ways ortruer answers. - M. Scott PeckLife is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatesttruths. It is a great truth because once we truly see thistruth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life isdifficult -- once we truly understand and accept it -- thenlife is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, thefact that life is difficult no longer matters. - M. Scott PeckLove is the free exercise of choice. Two people love eachother only when they are quite capable of living withouteach other but choose to live with each other. - M. Scott PeckYou cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else atthe same time.Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose ofnurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth... Loveis as love does. Love is an act of will -- namely, both anintention and an action. Will also implies choice. We donot have to love. We choose to love. - M. Scott Peck

If we know exactly where we’re going, exactly how to getthere, and exactly what we’ll see along the way, we won’tlearn anything.How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled tohide our wounds when we are all wounded! Communityrequires the ability to expose our wounds and weakness-es to our fellow creatures. It also requires the ability to beaffected by the wounds of others... But even more im-portant is the love that arises among us when we share,both ways, our woundedness.The overall purpose of human communication is - orshould be - reconciliation. It should ultimately serve tolower or remove the walls of misunderstanding whichunduly separate us human beings, one from another.”We are incapable of loving another unless we love our-selves, just as we are incapable of teaching our childrenself-discipline unless we ourselves are self-disciplined. Itis actually impossible to forsake our own spiritual devel-opment in favor of someone else’s. We cannot forsakeself-discipline and at the same time be disciplined inour care for another. We cannot be a source of strengthunless we nurture our own strength. -M. Scott PeckWandering in nature is perhaps the most essential soul-craft practice for contemporary Westerners who havewandered so far from nature. . . .The Wanderer allows plenty of time to roam in wild na-ture, and roam alone. Maybe you start out on a trail,

but if the landscape allows, it won’t be long before youwander off the beaten track. Because you are stalking asurprise, you attend to the world of hunches and feelingsand images as much as you do to the landscape.. . . You will get good at wandering, good at allowingyour initial agenda to fall away as you pick up new tracks,scents, and possibilities. You will smile softly to yourselfover the months and years of wanderings as you noticehow you have changed, how you have slowed downinside.Through your wanderings, you cultivate a sensibility ofwonder and surprise, rekindling the innocence that gotburied in your adolescent rush to become somebody inparticular. Now you seek to become nobody for a while,to disappear into the woods so that the person you reallyare might find you. - Bill Plotkin, quoted by Richard Rohr.Trust, not authority, is the only glue that will hold organ-izations together in a diverse, global, technology-em-powered world - Paul Polman, CEO Unilever, courtesy of Sarah RozenthulerThe whole concept of managing complexity is not planand meet the plan, it’s probe, observe and adjust. - Mary Poppendieck, courtesy of Agilequote.infoIn reality, we are servants of the Mystery. We were puthere on earth to acts as agents of the Infinite, to bringinto existence that which is not yet, but which will be,through us. - Steven Pressfield, author The War of Art

You may think that you’ve lost your passion, or thatyou can’t identify it, or that you have so much of it, itthreatens to overwhelm you. None of these is true. Fearsaps passion. When we conquer our fears, we discover aboundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion. - Steven Pressfield, Do the WorkA child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nordoes the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, withour big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and over-think and hesitate. Don’t think. Act. - Steven Pressfield, Do the WorkThe drawing is also a reminder that there’s an artist with-in each of us, and we must encourage that artist to dothe work, to make something that matters, regardless ofanything else that is going on. - Steven Pressfield, Do the WorkThe opposite of fear is love - love of the challenge, loveof the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at ourdream and see if we can pull it off. - Steven Pressfield, Do the WorkThe real voyage of discovery consists of not in seekingnew landscapes but in having new eyes - Marcel ProustWhere there is no vision the people perish. - Proverbs 29:18

The root word of education -- educare -- means to leadforth a hidden wholeness in another person. A genuineeducation fosters self-knowledge, self-trust, creativityand the full expression of one’s unique identity. It givespeople the courage to be more. - Rachel Naomi RemenAt the end of the Healer’s Art in all the 90 schools thatpresently teach it, the students stand in a large circle,silently review their memories of the course and identifythe most important thing that they learned or remem-bered during the course. They then turn this insight intoan affirmation: a little phrase which begins in one ofthree ways: I AM…. I CAN…. or I WILL. One at a time, thestudents go around the circle each saying their phraseout loud. This year will be the 24th year that I havetaught the course at my medical school. The most com-mon thing that students say in this sharing is a simplethree-word phase: I AM ENOUGH. Year after year it is thesame phrase I myself say as well. It is the beginning ofeverything. -Rachel Naomi Remen, MD.Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses whoare only waiting to see us act, just once, with beautyand courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, inits deepest essence, something helpless that wants ourlove. - Rainer Maria Rilke

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you. - Rainer Maria RilkeIf your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame your-self that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches;for the creator, there is no poverty. - Rainer Maria RilkeThe only journey is the one within. - Rainer Maria RilkeBe patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart andtry to love the questions themselves, like locked roomsand like books that are now written in a very foreigntongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot begiven you because you would not be able to live them.And the point is, to live everything. Live the questionsnow. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,live along some distant day into the answer.” - Rainer Maria RilkeLet life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right,always. - Rainer Maria Rilke

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things. - Rainer Maria RilkeI hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people:that each protects the solitude of the other. - Rainer Maria RilkeThis is the miracle that happens every time to those who reallylove: the more they give, the more they possess. - Rainer Maria RilkeA person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you hadwith them - they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole rela-tionship. - Rainer Maria RilkeI want to be with those who know secret things or else alone. - Rainer Maria RilkeStart anywhere and follow it everywhere. - Myron RogersKeep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.- Franklin D. RooseveltAll work is an act of philosophy. - Ayn Rand

In order to deal with the chaos that exists in the worldtoday, you need some grounding. That grounding bestcomes from knowing who you are. -Michael RayIf you live for the highest goal, you are living a life of thespirit -- whether or not you consider yourself to be on aspiritual path. If you consciously notice the larger aspectsof life, always consider whether what you are doing co-incides with these aspects, never forget the times whenyou were enlivened by the power of the highest goal,use those memories in new situations, and act with theknowledge of the support you have and the journey youare on -- you will be living for the highest goal. - Michael RayBefore you can answer the question, “What am I goingto do?” you’ve got to first ask the question, “What do Iwant?”That shift in focus will change completely howyou respond in your life. It will change you from focusingon everyone else’s demands for your attention, or whatyou’re afraid of, or what might give you pleasure in themoment, to what’s most important to you. - Anthony Robbins

It is not the critic who counts; not the one who pointsout how the strong one stumbles, or where the doer ofdeeds could have done them better. The credit belongsto the one who is actually in the arena, whose face ismarred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives val-iantly; who errs and comes short again and again; be-cause there is not effort without error and shortcomings;but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knowsthe great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spendsherself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in theend the triumph of high achievement and who at theworst, if she fails, at least fails while daring greatly. Sothat her place shall never be with those cold and timidsouls who know neither victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt (pronouns adjusted by SD)Natural giving: anything we do in life that isn’t comingout of that energy, we pay for it and everybody else paysfor it. Anything we do out of fear of punishment, if wedon’t, everybody pays for. Anything we do for a reward,everybody pays for it. Everything we do to make peoplelike us, everybody pays for. Everything we do out ofguilt, shame, duty, obligation - everybody pays for. Thatisn’t what we were designed for. We were designed toenjoy giving, to give from the heart. -Marshall Rosenberg

Our nature as human beings is to exercise our enormouspower in the service of life, to enrich life in ourselves andothers. - Marshall RosenbergEveryone has been made for some particular work, andthe desire for that work has been put in every heart. - Jalaluddin RumiEvery so often a Celtic game would heat up so that itbecame more than a physical or even mental game, andwould be magical. That feeling is difficult to describe,and I certainly never talked about it when I was playing.When it happened I could feel my play rise to a newlevel. . . . The game would just take off, and there’d be anatural ebb and flow that reminded you of how rhyth-mic and musical basketball is supposed to be. . . . It wasalmost as if we were playing in slow motion. - Bill Russell quoted by Keith SawyerOut beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing thereis a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down inthat grass the world is too full to talk about. - Jalaluddin RumiThere is an invisible strength within us; when it recogniz-es two opposing objects of desire, it grows stronger. - Jalaluddin Rumi

Looking up gives light, although at first it makes youdizzy. - Jalaluddin RumiRabbi Tarfon taught: “It is not your responsibility to finishthe work [of perfecting the world], but you are not freeto desist from it either.” - Courtesy of John Rowe, in conversa- tion with Jerry DoyleIn thinking about religion and society in the 21st centu-ry, we should broaden the conversation about faith fromdoctrinal debates to the larger question of how it mightinspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging thatredeem us from our solitude, helping us to constructtogether a gracious and generous social order. - Jonathan SacksIf you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together tocollect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, butrather teach them to long for the endless immensity ofthe sea. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Leadership is about making others better as a result ofyour presence and making sure that impact lasts in yourabsence. - Sheryl Sandberg[Czikszentmihalyi] discovered that extremely creativepeople are at their peak when they experience “a unifiedflowing from one moment to the next, in which we feelin control of our actions, and in which there is little dis-tinction between self and environment; between stimu-lus and response; or between past, present, and future.”Drawing on research with mountain climbers, club danc-ers, artists, and scientists, Csikszentmihalyi found thatpeople are more likely to get into flow when their en-vironment has four important characteristics. First, andmost important, they’re doing something where theirskills match the challenge of the task. If the challengeis too great for their skills, they become frustrated; butif the task isn’t challenging enough, they simply growbored. Second, flow occurs when the goal is clear; andthird, when there’s constant and immediate feedbackabout how close you are to achieving that goal. Fourth,flow occurs when you’re free to concentrate fully on thetask. When you’re lucky enough to work with these fourfeatures, you often enter the flow state— where peoplefrom all professions describe feeling a sense of compe-tence and control, a loss of self-consciousness, and theyget so absorbed in the task that they lose track of time. - Keith Sawyer

In group flow, each person’s idea builds on those justcontributed by his or her colleagues. The improvisationappears to be guided by an invisible hand toward a peak,but small ideas build and an innovation emerges. In dis-cussing a colleague who often participated in groups inflow, one executive had this to say: “He is animated andengaged with you. He is also listening and reacting towhat you are saying with undivided attention. - Keith SawyerThe future belongs to those who see possibilities beforethey become obvious. -John ScullyWhen I write I am trying to express my way of beingin the world. This is primarily a process of elimination:once you have removed all the dead language, the sec-ond-hand dogma, the truths that are not your own butother people’s, the mottos, the slogans, the out-and-outlies of your nation, the myths of your historical moment -once you have removed all that warps experience into ashape you do not recognise and do not believe in - whatyou are left with is something approximating the truth ofyour own conception. -Zadie Smith

Every man (sic) takes the limits of his own field of visionfor the limits of the world. - Arthur SchopenhauerTo the person who does not know where he (sic) wantsto go there is no favorable wind. - SenecaIt’s not what the vision is, it’s what the vision does. - Peter SengeThis is the true joy in life, the being used for a purposerecognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a forceof nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailmentsand grievances complaining that the world will not de-vote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion thatmy life belongs to the whole community and as long as Ilive it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want tobe thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work,the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no‘brief candle’ to me. It is sort of a splendid torch whichI have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make itburn as brightly as possible before handing it over tofuture generations. - George Bernard ShawLife isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creatingyourself. - George Bernard Shaw

To be in hell is to drift. To be in heaven is to steer. - George Bernard ShawYou have to know what you want. And if it seems to takeyou off the track, don’t hold back, because perhaps thatis instinctively where you want to be. And if you holdback and try to be always where you have been before,you will go dry. - Gertrude SteinWithout leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose theexcitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a formof planning. -Gloria SteinemNo matter how good you get at reframing, the singlemost important rule about managing the interaction isthis: You can’t move the conversation in a more positivedirection until the other person feels heard and under-stood. And they won’t feel heard and understood untilyou’ve listened. When the other person becomes highlyemotional, listen and acknowledge. When they say theirversion of the story is the only version that makes sense,paraphrase what you’re hearing and ask them somequestions about why they think this. If they level accu-sations against you, before defending yourself, try tounderstand their view. Whenever you feel overwhelmedor unsure how to proceed, remember that it is always agood time to listen. -Douglas Stone et al

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. - Jonathan SwiftDeep listening is the kind of listening that can help re-lieve the suffering of another person. You can call it com-passionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: tohelp him or her to empty his heart. Even if he says thingsthat are full of wrong perceptions, full of bitterness, youare still capable of continuing to listen with compassion.Because you know that listening like that, you give thatperson a chance to suffer less. If you want to help himto correct his perception, you wait for another time. Fornow, you don’t interrupt. You don’t argue. If you do, heloses his chance. You just listen with compassion andhelp him to suffer less. One hour like that can bringtransformation and healing.” - Thich Nhat Hanh, quoted by Olaf Lewitz and Christine Neidhardt.Most people lead lives of quiet desperation and go tothe grave with the song still in them. - Henry David ThoreauIt’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The questionis, what are we busy about? - Henry David Thoreau

If a man (sic) does not keep pace with his companions,perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Lethim step to the music which he hears, however meas-ured or far away. - Henry David ThoreauI went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I couldnot learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came todie, discover that I had not lived. - Henry David ThoreauIf one advances confidently in the direction of herdreams, and endeavors to live the life which she hasimagined, she will meet with success unexpected incommon hours. - Henry David Thoreau (pronouns adjusted by SD)Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimateconcern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns aspreliminary and which itself contains the answer to thequestion of a meaning of our life. - Paul TillichYou’ve got to think about big things while you’re doingsmall things, so that all the small things go in the rightdirection. - Alvin Toffler

Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those littlebits of good put together that overwhelm the world. - Desmond TutuHow could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeep-ers? How would it be an orchestra if all were Frenchhorns? - Desmond TutuIf you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talkto your enemies. - Desmond TutuMy humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only behuman together. -Desmond TutuYou cannot depend on your eyes when your imaginationis out of focus. - Mark TwainI never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark TwainAll leaders affect space whether they know it or not. Bydefault of their structural position in a hierarchy, and/or by their intellectual capability, their charisma, or theirpresence, leaders determine the quality and quantity ofspace available in their organizations. The danger is that

leaders fill the space themselves rather than describeand hold spaces in which people and teams can step in,make meaning, play with possibilities and allow the newto emerge.The nature of the available space, and the leader’s rolewithin it, defines boundaries, and, in turn, determinesthe level of productivity and creativity in an organiza-tional system. The challenge is that many leaders aregood at, taught to, and rewarded for, taking up space, asopposed to the art of creating and holding space.Great leadership is a movement from taking up spaceto beautifully holding space, spaces that use collectiveintelligence, creative tension and flow to significantlyincrease productivity and creativity, and thereby thecapacity to out-innovate the competition.[These] containers, spaces and working practices need tobe strong enough to hold the uncertainty and emotionthat emerges when we disrupt the status quo. They needto be safe enough to speak the truth. They must createthe openness and trust needed to step into the un-known. They need to be subtle and still enough to catchglimpses of ‘the new’. And they need to be skilful enoughto transform creative sparks into innovations. Creativeinsight and collective breakthrough are born from thefrequencies created in these containers and spaces, andour ability to innovate is dependent upon them. Thisis how the new comes into the world. And this is howbreakthrough happens, not by accident, but by design. - Nick Udall

Creative teams are the DNA of cultures of innovation.While the previous layers focus on leveraging, order-ing and controlling the known (facts, figures and data),creative teams are able to embrace and work with theunknown, the intangible, the invisible, the unconsciousand the implicate. Meetings no longer require deliveryskills and now require discovery skills. This is why step-ping over the threshold to becoming a creative team isso difficult for achievers. Their success to date is likely tobe based on their ability to deliver results in the known.Their challenge now is to wander with wonder into theunknown.The entry-level skills for being a creative team have beendocumented by many. They include questioning, observ-ing, networking and experimenting. For example, theability to...Question the status quo and to challenge key assump-tions and beliefs. Observe with a beginner’s mind.Network into the new and novel intersections (the knots,nets and threads) of diverse experiences and knowledge.And, to fail faster through experimentation to succeedsooner.While each of the previous layers develop innovations intheir own way, they are but echoes of the insights andbreakthroughs that are possible from a creative team.Creative teams are formed around a quest – or quest-ion. This quest-ion points them into the unknown whilegenerating a creative fire, a passion and a tension in theteam. - Nick Udall

[In fourth-realm cultures] meaning-making and lan-guage become more playful as [participants] learn thatinnovation isn’t a linear process, or a fact-based deci-sion-making activity; rather it is about making marks inthe world and allowing new patterns and possibilities toemerge in the space between. They therefore conscious-ly call upon other ways of knowing, beyond the rational,to include feelings, intuitions and embodied knowing.They know that without these extended capacities it isvery difficult to hold complexity, integrate difference,challenge fundamental assumptions and creatively scru-tinize deeply held beliefs. - Nck UdallA colleague of mine ... describes how creative teams canstep into a peak experience that he calls ‘our beautifulmind’. This is when he believes a team is able to acti-vate and access over 90 per cent of the total numberof available combinations of creative relationships andintersections across its members. At this point they moveinto a creative hive-like mind (not to be confused withgroup-think), where a larger collective intelligence be-comes accessible. This is where the creative team is ableto see new pattern in complexity, new order in chaos,and where innovative foregrounds start to emerge fromstrategic backgrounds. - Nck Udall

The impetus for organizations of all kinds to learn howto step over this subtle threshold continues to grow.We need to embrace diversity and leverage differencein order to innovate our way to more purposeful andsustainable futures. We need to break through the nu-merous super-wicked problems of our time if we are tocreate futures fit for generations to come. We need a newand next generation of leaders to step forward who canwork from the fourth realm. And we need these leadersto evoke the music of innovation within their organiza-tions and across wider and more complex ecologies ofresource. The challenge for evocative leaders is to createand hold post-conventional containers and spaces inwhich teams and organizations can ride the highs andlows of the creative process, work with creative tension,tap into our collective intelligence and thereby discoverthe new, by design. This is in contrast to teams and or-ganizations that consciously, unconsciously and prema-turely collapse creative tension, - Nick Udall

As the creative tension increases so we need intentional-ly to thicken the space between people. This thickeningprimes the field for the ‘new’ to reveal itself. This thick-ening happens as a result of people disclosing more,speaking their truth more, exploring the nature of thespace between each other more. We follow a simple rule:create a safe space, and then a healthy space, if you wanta co-creative space to emerge. It is only from a place oftrust that we can leap, feeling into the wider context. Asour intellect can only take us so far, we need to tune intoother ways of knowing. These include gathering datafrom our feelings, our bodies and our intuitions. Withpractice, we can start to feel into a wider context andits underlying and interrelated rhythms and cycles. Thatwhich we previously thought to be isolated and separateis often the opposite, woven into the fabric of cost andconsequence. Handing over knowing to our collectiveintelligence, at some point we stop trying to solve ‘it’ourselves, and realize that innovation happens at newand novel intersections. We surrender to this collectiveendeavour and realize that each of us holds a differentpart of the puzzle. Moreover, when we each slow down,lean back, deepen our quality of contact, and feel intothe wider context, we start to tap into a collective intelli-gence beyond that which is in the room. We start to tapinto a wider knowing field. - Nick Udall

Only when power is widely distributed, and only whenpeople work together to create the world they wantto live in -- only then can transformation be deep andholistic. While also being liberating, compassionate, andinclusive. - Sarah van GelderHow difficult it is to be simple. - Vincent Van Gogh, quoted by Henri Lipmanowicz et alNo plan survives contact with the enemy.Planning is everything. Plans are nothing. -Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke, quoted by Mike CohnMissing from the life of modern man is the deepestconnection with the changes of the seasons, sunrise andsunset, the phases of the moon, the dark forest, the soulof brother animal and the soil. Man’s soul is starving fromthis separation, lack and poverty. - Marie-Louise von Franz, quoted by Lewis Lafontaine

There is a world of difference between an inference anda feeling. You can reason that the universe is a unitywithout feeling it to be so. You can establish the theorythat your body is a movement in an unbroken processwhich includes all suns and stars, and yet continue tofeel separate and lonely. For the feeling will not corre-spond to the theory until you have also discovered theunity of inner experience. Despite all theories, you willfeel that you are isolated from life so long as you aredivided within.But you will cease to feel isolated when you recognize,for example, that you do not have a sensation of the sky:you are that sensation. For all purposes of feeling, yoursensation of the sky is the sky, and there is no “you” apartfrom what you sense, feel, and know. -Alan Watts, quoted by Maria PopovaWe are living in a culture entirely hypnotised by theillusion of time, In which the so-called present momentis felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline betweenbetween an all-powerfully causative past and an ab-sorbingly important future. We have no present. Ourconsciousness is almost completely preoccupied withmemory and expectation. We do not realise that therenever was, is, or will been any other experience thanpresent experience. We are therefore out of touch withreality. We confuse the world as talked about, describedand measured with the world as it actually is. We are sickwith a fascination for the useful tools of names and num-bers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. - Alan Watts, quoted by Johnny Tenn

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate thevision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly driveit to completion. - Jack WelchQuestions that have no right to go away are those thathave to do with the person we are about to become;they are conversations that will happen with or withoutour conscious participation. - David WhyteThe marvelous thing about a good question is that itshapes our identity as much by the asking as it does bythe answering. - David WhyteWhen human atoms are knit into an organization inwhich they are used, not in their full right as responsiblehuman beings, but as cogs and levers and rods, it mat-ters little that their raw material is flesh and blood. - Norbert Wiener, quoted by Joishi ItoBe yourself, everyone else is taken. - Oscar Wilde, quoted by University of Reading Career ServicesThe aspects of things that are most important to us arehidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond meas-ure.It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,talented and fabulous.Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of the Universe.Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so thatother people won’t feel insecure around you.We were born to make manifest the universal glory thatis within us.It’s not just in some of us — it’s in everyone.And as we let our own light shine,we unconsciously give other peoplepermission to do the same.As we are liberated from our own fear,our presence automatically liberates others - Marianne WilliamsonNinety-five percent of thought, emotion, and learningoccur in the unconscious mind--that is, without ourawareness. - Gerald ZaltmanIf someone tells you that there is a rule, break it - that’sthe only thing that moves things forward. - Hans Zimmer



Sources and readingsAbram, The Spell of the SensuousBarry, Shadow Work http://www.shadowwork.com/Beck et al, Manifesto for Agile Software Development http://agilemanifesto.org/Bohm, On DialogueBrown, Change by DesignBrown, Braving the WildernessBrown, Daring GreatlyBrown, Rising StrongBurnett and Evans, Designing Your Life: Build a Life That Works for YouCampbell, The Hero with a Thousand FacesCapra and Luisi, The Systems View of LifeChristensen, How Will You Measure Your Life?Cohen, I Carry Your Heart in My HeartCohn, Agile Estimating and PlanningCovey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective PeopleCsikszentmihalyi, FlowDoyle and Downs, Nine Questions for Career and Leadership DevelopmentDoyle and Downs, Conversations of InquiryFriedman, Leading the Life You WantGendlin, FocusingGodin, LinchpinGodin, What To Do When It’s Your TurnGoleman, Emotional IntelligenceHeath and Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is HardHill, Collective Genius

Isaacs, Dialogue and The Art of Thinking TogetherKegan and Lahey, Immunity to ChangeKofman, Conscious BusinessKotter, Leading ChangeKline, Time to ThinkLakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live ByLakoff and Johnson, Philosophy in the FleshLaloux, Reinventing OrganizationsLewitz and Neidhardt, Showing UpLewitz and Neidhardt, Leading with IntentionLipmanowicz and McCandless, The Surprising Power of Liberating StructuresMartin, Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive AdvantageMartin, The Opposable MindMay, In Search of EleganceMayer, The Peoples’ ScrumMcLaren, The Language of EmotionsMcLaren, The Art of EmpathyMoore and Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, LoverPatterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler, Crucial ConversationsPeck, A Different DrumPeck, The Road Less TravelledPearl, Will There Be Donuts?Ray, The Highest GoalRees and Sullivan, Clean LanguageRosenberg, Non-Violent Communication

Roth, The Achievement HabitRowland and Rozenthuler, Systemic Coaching with ConstellationsRowland and Rozenthuler, Leading Systemic DialogueSawyer, Group GeniusSeelig, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20Senge, The Fifth DisciplineScharmer, Theory UScharmer and Kaufer, Leading from the Emerging FutureSchwaber and Sutherland, The Scrum Guide http://www.scrumguides.org/Seelig, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20Servan-Schreiber, The Instinct to HealSiegel, MindsightSinek, Start with Why Sirajuddin and Willeke, Temenos, A Reliable Vehicle for Organizational TransformationStrozzi-Heckler, The Leadership DojoStrozzi-Heckler, The Art of Somatic CoachingTemenos+Agility, Introduction to Influence Maps https://www.visiontemenos.comTorbert, Action InquiryTurner and Udall, The Way of nowhereUdall, Riding the Creative Rollercoastervan der Kolk, The Body Keeps the ScoreVision quests: e.g. http://sacredpassage.com/, http://northerndrum.com/Whittington, Systemic Coaching and ConstellationsWilliams, The Work You Were Born To Do

Articles and websitesBlair Decembrele on The Quarter-life Crisishttps://blog.linkedin.com/2017/november/15/encountering-a-quarter-life-crisis-you-are-not-aloneThe Heroes Projecthttps://theheroesproject.org/heroes/MyHero.comhttps://www.myhero.com/Share a Dreamhttps://www.share-a-dream.org/aboutPassiton.comhttps://www.passiton.com/your-inspirational-storiesBarry, Shadow Workhttp://www.shadowwork.comVision quests:John Milton http://sacredpassage.com/Northern Drum http://northerndrum.com/