A remarkable new community member, Anthony Lawlor, got me thinking about transitions this morning. In August I blogged about the experience of consciously moving from four different perspectives: individual, self-organizing group, community, and planet perspectives. He’s curious about what the transitions between these places look like. I am too, which may be why, although we’ve only just met, I’m already pretty sure that he’s a genius.
Community ask:
If you have a talent for drawing (and reading between the lines), and would like to draw images for future transition-related posts, will you let me know? Please don’t make me draw these images on my own, my friends. It might break my brain.
Three stories of individual and self-organizing group transitions follow. The three stories together are also a story of community. In upcoming posts, I’d love to add drawn images to further illuminate one or more of these transitions. Creative friends, what does the transition look like between and among:
- Our individual selves and our self-organizing group selves?
- Self-organizing groups and self-organizing work groups?
- These self-org group selves and my community?
- Our individual selves, self-organizing groups, and our community?
- Our communities and our planet? (You’ll need to rely fully on your own imagination for this one.)
The story of Doug and Lori
In the fall of 2010, Doug emailed me when he recognized something of himself in the Collective Self blog. We met for coffee and learned we’d both left Microsoft several years back. We immediately liked one another and believed that we could be better together than on our own, in part because our areas of focus are very different from each other. At that first meeting, I invited Doug to join the Seattle Consultants Grotto group I was part of, and we began to meet monthly as part of the group. By January 2011, we were talking weekly, as friends, and decided we’d like to work together somehow. Here are the highlights of what we’ve become and done together this year:
1. Across the spring:
- We created and submitted several conference workshop proposals together. The first was unsuccessful, the second one was accepted. Although still not fun, being rejected together felt considerably better than being rejected as an individual, and I spent less than 5 minutes feeling sorry for us before moving on.
- Doug found new, paid consulting work thanks to the Seattle Consultants Grotto group.
- Lori found a new group to study thanks to Doug’s recommendations and spent time with that group.
- Doug invited Lori to lunch with his friend Greg, who brought along his friend Cathy. Cathy and I connected immediately.
2. Across the summer:
- We facilitated a workshop at the Organizational Systems Renewal conference at Seattle University. We had a great time, even though I was recovering from food poisoning the day of the workshop. Had I been facilitating this workshop on my own, I would have cancelled because I couldn’t have done it alone. Doug’s friend Neil attended the workshop. Neil is now my friend and we recently started talking about working together as well.
- I invited Cathy to join the Seattle Consultant’s Grotto group.
- In our spare time, Doug and I wrote an eBook together—a first for both of us. I met Doug’s family and learned about a great group his wife Wendy is a part of, which I talked about a little bit in this blog post. During one meeting with Doug, I started to cry because I was so thankful to be learning with him and not on my own. This blog post, one of my personal favorites today, is a result of that meeting. Doug learned that sometimes my gratitude bathtub runs over and spills out my eyes. I learned that my best work is improved by my tears, not hindered by it. We planned to finish the book in June (ambitious since we started in May) but Doug had a lot of commitments in June and July. There was one day, one moment, when as an individual I worried that Doug wouldn’t or couldn’t finish the book. I decided that the experience writing it with him was more valuable than the finished book itself and let go of that worry. We finished and published the eBook to our Web sites in August.
- In July, Doug, Cathy, Doug’s friend Neil, and I together created a speaking proposal for a 2012 conference that none of us has ever spoken at before.
- From his boat one sunny day in July, Doug called me and told me about another person/group he thought I should study.
3. Across this fall:
- We haven’t been working together as much, each moving on to new work. However, we did manage to create another workshop proposal for a conference that Doug has spoken at in the past. Feels like it takes us almost no time to throw proposals together now.
- I met with the new group that Doug recommended to me this summer: a group I intend to feature in the new Different Work eBook I’m writing with Bas. Learned so much!
- We continue to meet monthly via our Seattle Consultants Grotto group. I love hearing about what Doug is working on now.
- Later this month I’ll be interviewing Doug to include his story in the Different Work eBook I’m writing with Bas.
The story of Cathy and Lori
Cathy and I met on May 19, 2011, at a lunch arranged by my friend Doug and Doug and Cathy’s mutual friend Greg. Doug thought there might be an opportunity for connection, since we all do consulting work. I liked Cathy immediately. She’s so open, welcoming, and warm. She has an amazing smile. She also has a very different life and work history than me—having spent most of her career working for and within the school system (my background was within business and several non-profits). She reminds me of my sister—another person who has spent her career within the school system. Cathy and I both have doctorate degrees (Yea, another book nerd to hang with!). She received hers studying trust. Here are the highlights of what we’ve become and done together this year:
1.Later that same day (that we met):
- Cathy sent me a list of questions about self-organizing groups.
- I invited Cathy to join our Seattle Consultants Grotto group.
- Cathy and I began discussing self-organizing groups and trust—a discussion, from my perspective, that is unlikely to ever end, because I’ve believed from the beginning that Cathy and I will be friends. Some of our earliest learning is in this blog post.
2. Across the summer:
- We continued to exchange ideas (our own and others) about trust and self-organizing groups. We got to know each other better as Cathy went through a medical crisis with a family member and I talked to her about my own experiences with medical emergencies and chronic illnesses within my family. I was pretty surprised to be sharing this much with someone I’d just met, but I trusted my trust in Cathy (after all, I’d trusted Doug from the very beginning and that turned out pretty well, plus, isn’t someone who spends years devoted to studying trust likely to be among the most trustworthy people on the planet?).
- We created a proposal, together with Doug and Doug’s long-time friend Neil, to speak at a conference together next year as a panel.
- Cathy joined our monthly Seattle Consultants Grotto group. I continue to be amazed by this because she lives more than an hour away (more than 2 during rush hour).
3. Across this fall:
- When I expressed my desire to start working with some of the Grotto group members, Cathy was supportive and the first person who volunteered.
- We’re now writing a paper (or maybe eBook) together titled, at the moment, Coming to Trust as Self-Organizing Groups. We chose an informal dialogue format so that our collective learning, vulnerability, and growing trust—as a group—is documented. We decided that the outcome of the work, whatever it is, is pretty much icing on the cake. The cake is our friendship, which will outlast this and any other work we do.
The story of Bas and Lori
I’m not entirely sure how Bas and I met—that is, which events came first. It might be that our mutual friend Ali (in Jordan) told Bas (in The Netherlands) about the Collective Self blog and Bas then showed up as a contributor to it. Or it might be that Ali told me about Bas’ The Project Shrink blog, and I showed up as a contributor there first. Or maybe we found each others’ blogs on our own and our mutual friend Ali had little to do with it. Can’t remember and it makes little difference to me now (although thank you Ali, if it was you). Here are the highlights of what we’ve become and done together this year:
1. Across this summer:
- Bas and I began reading each others’ blogs and regularly contributing to them.
- We began recommending each other within our respective online communities.
- I learned where Zandvoort, The Netherlands is (had to Google it) and decided to add it to my travel “bucket list”.
- I read Bas and Ali’s eBook.
- I remembered my experiences working with the best project managers at Microsoft (hi Josh and Maura) and decided it’d be really fun to work with a project manager again.
- Bas spoke so highly of the Collective Self blog in his blog that I offered to do his laundry for him the next time he’s in Seattle.
- We began speaking regularly and reviewed some work for each other. I learned that I can be my whole self with Bas.
- I included a picture of Bas in one of my first posts about community.
- We started following and supporting each other via Twitter and Facebook as well.
2. In early fall:
- We had a couple of Skype conversations, which is a little challenging but mostly fun given our 9-hour time difference. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest to meet at midnight my time so that some of our conversations can be morning conversations for him. This is a very different experience from my days at Microsoft, where I was at times resentful for having 10 p.m. conference calls. Heck, I’d meet at 3 a.m. if Bas wanted to meet then.
- I asked Bas if he’d like to work together and he replied YES roughly 10 times. We decided to work together.
- Two weeks later, we’d begun research for an upcoming eBook, tentatively titled Different Work.
- We enjoy working together enough that at some point we decided to consider this the first book in a series. Telling people I’m writing “an eBook series” is just a cool thing to get to do. Makes me feel fancy.
- I told Bas that I’d learned with Doug that it’s not a successful work group for me until I cry–in gratitude for collective learning–as least once. This didn’t scare him off. In that moment I decided that I really like The Netherlands–yes, the whole country–as a result. Any country that could produce Bas must be pretty great.
- I learned that Frau Shrink (Bas’ significant other) is an amazing photographer. So is my husband. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
3. This past month:
- Bas took on another large job on top of his current work. He feared he wasn’t working on our book to the extent that I was. I said I don’t care if I do 100% of the research work, I’m just happy to be working with him, which is true. That momentary pang of “Yikes, will he finish this?” that I had with Doug back in July taught me that no momentary pang of this nature is needed. We’ll finish eventually. Staying connected matters more now than finishing one particular project.
- We’ve found ~20 groups to include in the book and are plugging away on story gathering right now. Bas, who feared he wouldn’t have time, appears to have found ample time. As a researcher, I’m in heaven getting to talk to new groups almost every week between now and February.
- I’ve recommended Bas’ site to several project manager friends and people in my Seattle Consultants Grotto group—people who thought they might need my help. I think his work is more likely to help some of them than mine is, given what they need right now. Mine can be a bit long-winded for busy folks working within large organizations.
- Bas learned what the Seattle skyline looks like, thanks to the lovely image Daniel recently created and added to the Collective Self blog.
- I’ve begun sending Project Status reports to Bas periodically. He doesn’t seem to need them. Who is this magical project manager who feels no need for status reports?! 😀 Another score for The Netherlands.
Lori,
With these lovely stories do you still need more illustrations. I am poor in drawing and that is precisely what prompted me to take courses on computer back in 1969 so that he computer would write and draw for me to cover up for my bad handwriting.
Having said that you make the attractive challenge bigger by asking for the drawing of the transition stage. This is a formidable task; changes that take place on the what I would term “edge of transition” are beyond the imagination of any human. Just look at the transition points in your three stories and you shall find that always transition took you into unpredictable outcomes. You haven’t planned for a first eBook or conference, but your endurance and the company of great people made you do so.
Transitions branch out into new domains and mini worlds that we discover without planning for. My friendship with you was never planned. I can go back and sketch out some memories, but I can never tell what tomorrow will be like. It is enjoyable for sure as I share it with a warm heart and a great mind.
Great post, Lori
Lori,
An idea has just crossed my mind out of nowhere. Crystal clusters such as quartz will radiate energy around the room where it is placed and also absorb negative energy. I feel self-organizing groups are the same: they radiate warmth and absorb negative thoughts. See the positive comments above. Self-organizing groups are warmth radiating and negativity absorbing.
What do you think?
Hey Ali, thanks for the comment and the perspective on our collective heart and mind.
Yes, if I had the first clue how to draw the transitions I wouldn’t need help. I am clue free. 🙂 I am certain, though, that the community here as a whole has the ability to figure this out. Fortunately I study groups of humans working beyond the imagination of any one human. Gives me courage to ask for the “impossible for one person” regularly. In this case, though, I don’t need courage. There are many amazing people here now. I’m just hoping someone has the time to help out! Like I said to Anthony, drawing pictures, to me, feels like jumping out of airplane, blindfolded and on fire. It’s scary and I don’t want to do it alone. Surely drawing must feel like second nature to someone else here. I hope!
Lori,
At least I have the clue to say how much I appreciate your penetrating response. You do not give up and you believe in the talents people have, no matter how scarce sometimes they are at times you need them most.
Thanks for the lesson
Thanks, Lori for your kind words. Glad that my writing sparked this wonderful post. Thought it might interest you to see the story of Sherrie and my transition into relationship as expressed in art, poetry and stories http://www.inkmonkey.com/twoasone/
Wow! I visited the link of Anthony and words melted in my mouth and froze in my hand. How could I match the great music of what I read! Fantastic reading and great enjoyment of the progression of love
Agree with Ali, wow. So you’re an architect and a poet?!
Hmm, so it can be done. You don’t have to give up one to become the other.
Very good for me to know. I have so much to learn.
Thank you.
Also, Lori. Seeing visual diagrams of the beautiful transitions you describe would be interesting. This can be challenging, but I’ve found it to be a valuable exercise in deepening understanding of the forces at play in a given situation. Have fun!
Planning to get myself a set of colored pencils, instead of trying to draw within my various computer applications. Will be more fun to draw like I did when I was a child.
Wow. Just wow. Thanks for all the kind words, and yes, I should bring my laundry.
I’m also not sure who we all came together. I do know that are blogs are incredible instrumental in the connection. I have “downloaded” so many ideas and opinions from you already, that it equivalent to long and long conversations. So, I thank Lori, Ali, Collective Self and The Project Shrink 🙂
It is very cool to tell people “I’m writing “an eBook series” Yes! And although time availability has shrunk for this project, it is one big energy provider. And I think that the weirdness in time differences for example is something that makes it even more special, instead of being annoying or something.
It is really the process and idea of co-writing that is the awesome thing. It’s like having a nice longwalk together. But asynchronous and aspatial. This is the weird thing. Even when we are not actively co-writing the ebook, we are co-writing. Somehow we have similar topics on our minds.
So many nice and kind things in this post to respond to. 🙂
Bas, it’s fascinating for me to hear you describe what I wrote as kind (several times) and nice. I was telling our story as I remember it and wasn’t attempting to be kind or nice (not that I was attempting to be unkind or not nice either). Hmm. Need to think about this a little bit. Were you hearing my kindness from other interactions that we had? Were you listening with kindness? Hmmm. Interesting…
Ok, looking back, I find three clear places where I veered off telling our story somewhat objectively and landed in kindness:
“Heck, I’d meet at 3 a.m. if Bas wanted to meet then.”
“Any country that could produce Bas must be pretty great.”
“Who is this magical project manager who feels no need for status reports?!”
Ali would call these emergent feelings, and I would agree. In the old days I called this “sharing more of yourself than expected or planned” and saw it as one of the indicators that you were in a self-organizing work group. Today I’m wondering, “If I didn’t even notice I was doing it, does that still make it kindness?” Think for me, today, it’s an indicator that the nature of our universe is friendly and as these groups our eyes are open enough to be able to see that.
I love that you’re experiencing “Even when we are not actively co-writing the ebook, we are co-writing. Somehow we have similar topics on our minds.”
Kind of a “woo woo” thing to experience at first, isn’t it? Ultimately not entirely woo woo though, and my practical side loves self-organizing groups for this very reason! This “co-working all the time” experience is common in self-organizing groups. It’s not uncommon for people to describe the experience as magic, perhaps because their rational minds don’t fully know what to do with the experience (especially at work). It’s one of the reasons I’m certain that non “woo woo” people will eventually embrace self-organizing groups more fully. It’s extraordinarily efficient to be happily working together all the time and without the need to verbally communicate non-stop. And when we do verbally communicate, it’s usually to enjoy ourselves. 🙂 Go us!
Hi Lori and Bas,
I surely will call it emergent feelings. These feelings were not planned. They surfaced out. If not, then why didn’t we have the same feelings to all e-friends (I mi coining a new term?)
It is very early now here in Jordan. I didn’t attempt to wake up early. I made no effort to do that. It is my biological clock and my body hating to sleep normally more than 5.5 hours a day. But, to be willing voluntarily to wake up early like a mother would do to give her baby milk is a different story.
I have been writing much. It is not because I want to comment that often; it is the subject that matters.
Let me disappear the way I “emerged”. Is there a word such as disemerge? The spell check says no.
Lori, I meant to place my last comment here, and not after my first comment. Please delete the one above. Thanks
Lori,
An idea has just crossed my mind out of nowhere. Crystal clusters such as quartz will radiate energy around the room where it is placed and also absorb negative energy. I feel self-organizing groups are the same: they radiate warmth and absorb negative thoughts. See the positive comments above. Self-organizing groups are warmth radiating and negativity absorbing.
What do you think?
I love it, Ali. You should do a slide deck on the subject. That’s a beautiful image and thought! In line with my own experiences as a researcher and community member. These days I can feel the presence of these groups, sometimes before they speak a word. Sounds a bit crazy to my own ear, yet it is my lived experience.
Lori,
Your response is great and unbelievable. I have already started preparing a slide deck on this subject, but from a different angle. I am correlating social networks with quartz and ice networks. What do we learn from such comparison? Initial results are staggering. I plan to publish this work after the New Year as number of readers drop with the advent of Xmas and the New Year.
You proved Lori that you have a high telepathy
Ali, think we have proved that we are a self-aware, self-organizing group. Telepathy’s just a fringe benefit. Didn’t I mention that? Kind of makes you wonder what we’ll be capable of by this time next year, doesn’t it!
So I was searching for something this afternoon in an old blog post to share with another group, and I ran across this in a conversation that Bas and I were having in August. I said: “I’ve studied so many SOGs that I’m now aware the moment I’m part of one. I can feel it in the group–in the humor, in the syncronicity that people experience, in members’ awareness that they’ll be forgiven when they mess up, the ability to speak for the group without needing to verbally check in with each other, to expand on other people’s thoughts with minimal pause or worry, collective idea creation, in the fluid adaptability of the group, etc.”
See. You were right. These groups are like quartz crystal clusters. Reminds me of a Paul Simon lyric… “We’ve got diamonds on the soles of our shoes.”
Oh, and I forgot to mention that as I typed the words “You should do a slide deck…” I thought to myself “I bet he already is!”
We have got a diamond by the name of Lori. That is true and sincere.
My search revealed a somewhat strange result: people you don’t know make you happier than those people you know. Here is a link of one example
https://1000petals.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/happiness-clusters-social-networks-study/
May be because we expect friends to make us happy, but not from people we don’t know. I have just received a comment on my Ads Dispersal presentation. It made me happy because it came from a new commentator.
The question I am asking you is do you experience the same, Lori? If yes, what is your experience? Does familiarity decrease the generated happiness? Or, if say ALi makes a new comment it brings the same happiness as before? The analogy to self-organizing groups (SOGs) is evident
Interesting. This is something similar to what Barry Schwarz said in Paradox of Choice. Happiness comes from beating expectations. From people you know expectations may be high so difficult to beat. New people can easily beat expectations as they have no bar set yet 🙂 He said jokingly (in his Ted presentation) that the key to happiness is low expectations.
Hmmm. Now I have to ponder your question, Ali. Good, good question. Nice reference too.
And yeah. You should do a slidedeck. 😀
Hey Ali,
I read the link you shared. I don’t see how that information demonstrates that people you don’t know make you happier than people you do know. Is it because she says that “the effect decays with time”?
I like the overarching idea that she appears to be demonstrating, which is that happiness is a collective phenomenon. Overall I agree (even while wonder, awe, and delight are also clearly individual). I’ve also experienced and observed that happiness happens in clusters and that it spreads in “paths of most acceptance” to those interested in opening themselves up and letting others in. Self-org groups make this easier in part because members within them become more open, less fearful, and its simply easier for people around them to see this. At the community level, happiness appears to spread even more simply, but I’m way too early in my understanding to say much more from that perspective.
You ask “Does familiarity decrease the generated happiness? Or, if say Ali makes a new comment it brings the same happiness as before?”
I’d like to start by saying that I have zero interest in putting up barriers to human happiness. So if you you disagree with me, please be happy about it. I will be. 🙂
An easy way to answer this is to ask you to honestly answer this question: Does reading the comment that a stranger made on your last slide deck make you more happy than the comments I made?
From our example (you, me, and Bas), I’d say, for me, it’s yes and no. For me, familiarity increases happiness. Yet our familiarity is a living, growing, evolving familiarity. There are levels of vulerability and intimacy and learning within us as a group that we have moved through together and many, many more yet to move through. At this point, I honestly don’t believe there is a limit—certainly not one that can be achieved in a single human lifetime. My experience within my own family has taught me this as well. My husband, sister, and parents are more enjoyable to be with and interesting to me now than ever.
That said, if you, for example, decide in the future that there are new bloggers you’d rather be talking with than me, and you began to show up here once/month out of a sense of obligation—not out of a genuine interest in connecting and learning together—at that point you might start asking half-hearted questions. If that happened, then my happiness would go down (as I suspect yours would too). At that point, familiarity might decrease happiness.
But that’s not what’s happening with us. We are continuing to evolve and change and grow as a group. Your questions cause me to think. You bring ideas out of my head. We come up with collective ideas as well–ideas that didn’t fully exist within us as individuals but that we found together as a group.
I’ve also experienced and witnessed self-organizing work groups help members recognize when what matters most has changed to them as an individual and that its time for them to move on. So I am 100% certain in my own life that this “decrease in happiness due to non-evolving familiarity” will not happen. Because I wish only the best for you: including when the best for you means less, or even no more, time with me. When familiarity becomes “non-evolving” then it is perhaps dying. At that point, for me, it really can’t be called familiarity anymore. I’m thinking of two miserable individuals trapped in an unhappy marriage and allowing all sense of connection and intimacy to die. They know each other, but they’re moving ever farther apart.
That won’t happen here, Ali. We can’t settle for less. Because here our group gets a vote, and this group will push and pull us toward happiness, even at the expense of itself. 🙂
Dear members of self-organizing group (Bas and Lori),
I exchanged several e-mails today with Bas. Bas welcomed my suggestion to visualize our exchange of ideas on a social network type of map. I need that any way for my next slide deck. I spent sometime reviewing our previous comments on this blog starting June, 2011. I got so overwhelmed with the exchange we had that I forgot I am supposed to produce a map- a self-organizing one. I shall keep at it
Enjoy your Saturday night while I am enjoying my intellectual meal.
Thank you for agreeing to be part of the Different Work work! Yes, for those of us who love to learn, studying self-org groups is a slippery slope!! 😉
Lori,
If getting a response of your quality does not fill my heart with joy then there is something wrong with me. I bit you wrote with a great passion. You put me on the spiral of happiness. Yes, with a person like you there is always a room for growth, learning and exploring.. And as the quote on the top of this page which says do what you fear to do, my deep concern when I mentioned familiarity and affection was that as fear melts away will we have anything to fear? If not, then do what?
I assure you Lori I what you commented is worthy of expanding into a book. You know how to turn a simple question into a sea of knowledge. Thank you
Ali, just pulled my previous answer into my blog post (and cleaned it up a bit) for the week.
“…as fear melts away will we have anything to fear? If not, then do what?”
Now there’s a good question for us as a group to answer!