Episode 9: Organizational Healing
Can organizations heal? What exactly does that mean?
Marti & Todd explore the topic of healing in living systems - what it takes to restore connection and flow in teams and across an organization. They draw the distinctions between healing and fixing, and between reactivity and responsiveness.
From the Edge: What is a Healed State Anyway? (Marti)
Conscious Rant: Healing Starts with You (Todd)
Timeline
1:20 Dynamism of living systems
2:35 Why is healing necessary?
4:39 Acknowledging impact and increasing participation
5:18 From the Edge: What is a healed state anyway? (Marti)
14:24 Conscious Rant: Heal Yourself First (Todd)
18:27 Avoiding “the fix”
23:28 Thinking gets in the way
25:18 Relationship between past, present, and future
27:32 Emotions and meaning
28:46 Beyond reframing - new perspectives and energy
30:07 Woundology
35:24 Reactivity vs. responsiveness
38:06 Response-ability
40:36 Internal family systems
42:27 Connectivity between “the parts”
43:52 Dialogue as tool for healing
44:44 Why are organizations not talking about healing?
48:25 Fixing vs. healing
50:43 Ego gets triggered
52:02 Limbic fear circuit
Quotes
“In contrast to mechanical systems, living systems are dynamic – always evolving and shifting. Because of this dynamism we need a different set of perspectives, principles, and skills in order to be effective leaders.” — Todd Hoskins
“All of us are leaders. Every one of us takes actions that impact the systems we are in. We lead whether we acknowledge this leadership or not.” — Todd Hoskins
“When a living system is suffering from ill health, the remedy is found by connecting with more of itself.” — Francisco Varela
“Why is healing necessary? Because the living system is out of balance, out of flow, out of connection.” — Todd Hoskins
“So, what does it mean for an organization to be embrace healing? In that old mechanistic view of the world and organizations, problems need to be fixed. You can’t fix a living system, but you can move toward a healed state.” — Todd Hoskins
“If you do think your system needs to be fixed, you’re likely going to be looking for problems and solutions — likely simple problems and simple solutions. Healing means we are moving toward a state of balance, and we recognize this is an ongoing commitment and process. Healing is never done.” — Todd Hoskins
“In order to move toward a healed state, I have two principles to start with - we can acknowledge impact and we can increase participation. These are both key ways of connecting – the acknowledgment is a validation of connection – what I did or our company did had an effect on you. Participation invites people to be more connected to the vision, to the actions and choices, and to each other.” — Todd Hoskins
“One thing that is required for a healed state is total connectivity in the present moment; in other words — total awareness, acceptance, and engagement of what is actually occurring.” — Marti Spiegelman
“We have to be able to accept difficulty as part of a healthy life. The image I always use is that of a wavelength – living in a healed state is living the full wave length – peaks, troughs, and everything in between as one dynamic. The minute you try to only have the peaks, or only bring awareness to the troughs, you’ve lost your healed state. The only way to regain your healed state is to engage the whole wavelength.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Healed states cannot be achieved in isolation. A healed state requires connection – it requires intake and output. We need to receive energy and broadcast energy, we need to receive people, places, nature, and events into our awareness and in turn put our responses to all of this out into the world in order to live in a healed state.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Healing systems starts with you . . . And it’s not about you. This is the tricky thing about being a leader. You must focus on yourself – take care of your own needs, be aware of your own power acting within the system. And yet that power is not really your own. If you don’t get beyond yourself you will spread a myopic mess.” — Todd Hoskins
“If you think you have all the answers, if you find yourself needing to be a ‘fixer,’ running from one problem to another, if you are creating rules for yourself and others, trapped by the past, or chained to your own immovable vision of the future, consider what it means for you to step into connection. This is the essence of healing.” — Todd Hoskins
“I can’t tell you whether you need to address the past, or re-orient yourself in relation to all that is alive. I can tell you to slow down, relax, take yourself less seriously, and at the same time seriously consider how valuable you are in the web of life.” — Todd Hoskins
“The work of healing starts with moving with what is present – allowing access, letting in. It’s not, as our health system has taught us – a diagnosis and prescription. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, no doubt. We cannot escape the wounding of this world, the trauma of simply being in a society with so much noise, violence, and destruction. We have been harmed and we cause harm. We must learn to heal.” — Todd Hoskins
“There are many consultants, turnaround specialists, and so called ‘transformational agents’ who promote their ability to bring change into an organization.
When you sit with them, or talk with them, if you don’t feel the quality and depth of their presence, their ability to connect – their healed state – walk away.
Resist the temptation of “the fix,” or pretending there are easy solutions to complex challenges. We fix lawnmowers. We heal living systems.” — Todd Hoskins
“Healing is contagious. And it can start with you.” — Todd Hoskins
“If all our awareness goes to thinking and the thought produced, then we disconnect from the flow that produces the thoughts. And most of the world is living in that disconnected state.” — Marti Spiegelman
“If you're anchored in the past, you won't get very far into the future.” — Todd Hoskins
“If we have an emotional or limbic reaction to a certain meaning that we never change, we are trapped by our past . . . If I'm stuck in the past, I'm only flowing to the past and I'm only connected to the past and the past becomes my framework.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Not enough leaders are willing to actually engage what is. There's so much fear woven into the base of our culture.” — Marti Spiegelman
“We confuse our emotional responses with our identity.” — Marti Spiegelman
Links
15 Characteristics of Healthy Living Systems - Sahtouris