As a musician, I have music continuously playing in the background. 
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If it’s not ambient instrumental music while I’m writing or working, it’s a song (earworm) that won’t leave my brain until I play it nice and loud for everyone else to hear.

When I was writing and performing music, I would wake with a melody in my head and it would stay there until I recorded it as a voice memo. Sometimes an entire song, including the lyrics, would come to me fully formed. All I had to do was write it down.

But, not everyone appreciates, hears, or feels the language of music the same way I do. Those who read and write musical notation hear it much the same way they would hear words. And working to music (even in the background) for them is no different than trying to have a conversation while someone else is talking.

Many times in my life, I’ve acted as if something is true for me, then it must be true for everyone. It has gotten me into trouble every time. This example is no different. 
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I used to assume that since I enjoyed working with music in the background, everyone must feel the same. I assumed that music with words would be too distracting, but that classical or new age music would help to increase focus and productivity. I assumed that just the right volume or intensity was the “correct” sweet spot for working.
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I’ve come to find out that because of neurodivergence, different learning styles, past trauma, or individual taste, music is not the salve for everyone that it is for me. 
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Unless you plan to use music in a very intentional manner (i.e. “We will now silently sort the stickies from our team in Russia while I play two minutes of Rachmaninoff's Second Concerto”), ask your participants if they would prefer music while they ideate, write, or post up – or whether they prefer silence.

Allowing ourselves to function inside an organizational silo is just as detrimental as being exiled or excommunicated. If we are exiled, we will never know the territory of relationship and shared understanding. If we are siloed, we will remain beholden to a static map (or a small piece of it) in a dynamic, expanding universe. 

It is through creation, improvisation and consideration of the abstract that we find meaning. It is through meaning that we are connected to others. It is through those connections that we may see the bigger picture.

Unless we are working in concert with others, we may never know the sweet reward of lifting each other as we climb.

If you don’t occasionally return home from your vision quest — to rest and distill what you’ve seen — your mirror will remain clouded and unable to reflect or recognize the beauty and potential in those other sojourners along the trail.

If you are not committed to meaning-making, to engaging in the creative process, to dancing and singing and telling your story, you will find yourself stuck, paralyzed, holding on too tightly to brittle outdated maps that crumble in your fingers, or flying in a circle because you have only one good wing.

When the components within the individual are harmonized, and the individual is in harmony with the community, communities can create unlimited meaning and value. They can export and translate that meaning to the world beyond.

The hallmark of any great organization lies as much in their poetry as in their treasure maps. While the innovation opportunity may be in knowing how these maps and resources fit together, it’s the spark of creativity that resources the world.

Whether or not you are using creativity in your business, every organization creates. 

They create products, processes, ideas, artifacts, meaningful works of art, and masterful communication. Every business puts something new in the world. Every organization delivers some kind of value. 

Therefore, every business finds itself in the role of exporter — shipping ideas, processes or products that have a reach beyond the immediate tribe or community. Every business relies on their exports — things that speak to the tribes outside their own — to feed them.
Ideas are currency. Value is a transaction.

Sometimes, as a member of a community or tribe, you may feel sick, sad or angry. You may feel depressed or like you don’t “fit” in ways that you can’t describe. 

Most organizations have a medicine man (or woman) on salary and standing by that will happily invite you into their tent, cubicle, office or clinic and perform the ritual of healing, reconciliation, grounding, or coherence. They will most likely administer a series of questions, a bitter dose of truthful medicine, or possibly send you outside the organizational borders on a vision quest for meaning.

Sometimes those who are seeking (inside or outside the organization) are following the breadcrumbs of a personal development plan. Sometimes they are following road signs and looking for landmarks. Sometimes, they are fighting in the foam with the sea monsters at the frayed edges of the map – pushing the envelope where there is no established process. Those on the path of mastery have always known how to lean into the turn and embrace the plateaus. 

Theater and performance is yet another way an organization can express and create together. Groups can act out the stories they’ve told or written as a play or a skit, staging them for the world to see (either in person or on-screen). 

Through physical embodiment – “presencing” (pioneered by Brazilian drama theorist Augusto Boal) or constellation work (used primarily in therapeutic settings) a group can move through space and time, acting out with their bodies the roles of values (such as “teamwork” or “honesty”) or dynamic forces (such as “disruption” or “innovation”). 

At a 2019 conference of Visual Practitioners in New Jersey, I was shown this method for the first time. The team used their bodies as sculptures to act out a problematic process in the organization. After participants were assigned to represent the various stages of the serialized assembly line of bureaucracy, the facilitator said, “OK. Show me your stuck.”

And, there in the middle of this process, one volunteer froze up, looking like they had been magically turned to stone, and visually representing the bottleneck and inefficiency the group was experiencing. Everyone fell out laughing, but they all agreed that was indeed where they were stuck. They then had a productive conversation about how the handoffs could be improved and what they were missing. 

Playing out these ideas allows the organization to literally see where they are stuck or where group conflict may arise.

Great leaders in organizations can teach and train all of these creative skills. They will excel in scaling and amplifying these gifts. Great leaders train entire communities in holding the crayon and learning to doodle, creating sigils, erecting iconic flags, painting murals, devising visual gameplans, orchestrating performances, bravely standing in the spotlight and coaxing the first musical notes from trembling lips. 

With the spark and soul of creativity, organizations can make meaning as a community. They can mark their territory, stake their claim and learn how to communicate more effectively. Co-creating in a space together allows the organization to grow, explore, love, innovate and achieve like they never have before.

One expression of the creative flame is the art of storytelling. 

If we imagine the organization as a group of adventurers having survived a recent and harrowing ordeal, the group might next settle into their encampment and position themselves around the fire. They can call on newly-created, shared memories in order to conjure stories, myths, fables, legends and metaphors that are endemic and unique to the tribe. 

These stories are then passed on from one person to the next, sometimes becoming more incredible. They are even passed onto future generations. (Most of us have heard that “back of the napkin” story of the company's founding – or landing that big investor – that gets more sensational with each telling.)

The stories an organization tells are directly informed by the belief system they have about themselves, one another, and the world around them. They are stories about heroes and exemplars, villains and tragedies — mythic portraits of the organizational cosmos. These stories have the power to break or reinforce behavioral patterns that define an organization’s culture. 

In Building a Story Brand (2017), Donald Miller compares the journey of the end user (or customer) to the protagonist in Joseph Campbell’s famed “hero’s journey.” Most businesses consider themselves to be the hero, flying around and fulfilling everyone’s needs. Miller says, however, that the organization is best viewed as the mentor, guide, or oracle that appears to reveal a secret, share tools or insights, minimize risk, add value, and assist the hero in accomplishing their quest.

What happens when one of these organizational stories (or myths) travels outside the castle walls or the confines of the memetic bubble? 

Life on the inside of an organization sometimes doesn’t make sense to someone with a different cosmology or set of values. So, the stories that organizations tell the outside world are coded transmissions that require translation (through spoken language, marketing messages, or cultural training/onboarding). 

In Matthew Fox’s Creation Spirituality model, the via negativa is directly followed by the via creativa. It would stand to reason that an organization experiencing an intense period of grieving or “storming” (think industry disruption, bankruptcy, merger/acquisition, global pandemic, etc.) would eventually find itself on the path of birthing and creativity. Together, this group would begin the work of synthesis, recovery, language- and process-building, and begin to create something new. This collaborative work would take them to a new level of meaning-making that transcends and includes its previous iterations (values, culture, systems). 
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When groups of people make meaning together, they are opening themselves to one another in brave and important ways. They are sharing the white hot spark that flickers inside each of them. They are pointing the mirror of the self at one another in an effort to be seen as a reflection of the whole. 

When groups embark on this creative path together, we can see how that spark is amplified into an all-consuming flame – a vision or mission that ignites the group with a positive, healthy obsession and provides a new Guiding Star to which they can navigate. 

Organizations are made of people. They are microcosms of a larger social body. These groups perform and behave in distinct (and sometimes predictable) ways. They can be businesses, families, collectives, cults, or nations. It could be argued that all businesses are cults, but that’s another topic for another time. 

These organizations are so complex that we have turned to metaphor in order to comprehend and understand them.

In his 2006 book, Images of Organization, Gareth Morgan writes, “Metaphor is often regarded just as a device for embellishing discourse, but its significance is much greater than this. The use of metaphor implies a way of thinking and a way of seeing that pervade how we understand our world generally. For example, research in a wide variety of fields has demonstrated that metaphor exerts a formative influence on science, on our language, and on how we think, as well as on how we express ourselves on a day-to-day basis.” 

Whether an organization identifies as a machine, a hive mind, a band of pirates, or a party of explorers, they must find a path to trust and cohesion as they seek to achieve and face the unknown together.

​The cultural hallmarks of any functioning organization (or community of people) are how they communicate and what they create together — from music to meaning to marketing plans.

DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives are growing quickly in organizations around the world. Leaders and entire departments dedicated to DEI – or EDIB (equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging) – are being installed in for-profit and nonprofit organizations. These teams are committed to deeply embedding DEI principles into the values and actions of the business so that it can be more accessible, welcoming, and empowering. 

Here we’ll discuss the “E” in DEI. Compared to diversity and inclusion, the words equity and equality (with which equity is sometimes substituted) are ambiguous terms that can be defined very differently from organization to organization. 

According to Robert Harris, Director of EDIB at National Audubon Society, it's "not advisable to use equity and equality interchangeably."

"In general," he says, "equality is when folks receive the same resources in amount and proportion and equity is when differences are recognized. Resource allocation varies based on those differences to achieve equality."

How you implement your DEI initiatives will depend on how these terms are defined. Your definition of these terms will also influence your culture deck, hiring process, team charter, operating agreements, mission statement, media/investor relations, etc. Making sure that they are clear and meaningful for everyone on the team is very important.

Equity may be defined in the following ways:

1. Ownership - Quite simply, equity could mean that employees have part-ownership of the company. Many successful employee-owned companies (like Publix or Black and Veatch) have found benefits in this model, including employee retention and founder succession. 
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2. Clear Career Paths or Opportunities - It’s important that every person receives fair pay or wages (and opportunities for advancement) in ways that are transparent and accessible. This allows them to see themselves as part of the future vision for the company and plan their next steps as the organization grows. How do your team members know what their next steps are? Are they forced to self-advocate? Are they on their own to follow up or communicate with you about a promotion? If their pathway isn’t clear, taking their career to the next level with you might be a challenge. Privilege is how some people get ahead, but not everyone is comfortable with or able to employ that level of directness. It can’t just be the loudest (or most privileged) who get the most rewarding roles and positions. 
   
   
3. Personal Stake in Change - In the book, The Primes: How Any Group Can Solve Any Problem, Chris McGoff explores patterns of high-performing teams and describes a model known as the Core Prime. It looks a bit like a see-saw, with “As is” on the left and “To be” on the right. At the bottom is a triangle labeled “Stake.” In order to move any strategy, organization, or change initiative forward (from “As is” to “To be”) it must tip the “fulcrum of possibility” known as Stake. Having stake in something makes it personal.
   
   “Get it right, and people tip toward the “To Be,” McGoff writes. “Get it wrong, or under-invest in it, and people tip back to what is familiar.”
   
   If your team is not equally engaged in the dynamic growth and change within your organization, it won’t happen. If everyone is “all in,” that means you are listening to them deeply and motivating them (analytically, emotionally, and financially). 

To review, diversity means that you have various people in the room, equity means that there is awareness that they are not all on equal footing, and inclusion means that you have a process for engaging them. Equality is the outcome of people being equally resourced.

If you’d like to have a conversation about team performance, team design, or team development, please schedule a discovery call today.