Creating the one team and considering the one planet with Janet Harvey, Neil Scotton and Alister Scott

Introduction: Covid-19 struck like a thunderbolt and has thrown the world upside down. Many are still reeling as we grapple to right side for a new order. All of us have been forced to wake to a new reality, to pause and immediately assume a virtual reality for most of the population. Teams have been beset too. Episode Six is an invitation to look at how we re-emerge as a collective, what we chose to  embrace and reflect on what we can generatively create with grace and gratitude.

Podcast episode summary: To answer these and several more questions I interviewed Janet Harvey, Neil Scotton and Alister Scott primarily because of their bold interest in sustainability, climate change and the business of big change. This episode was littered with big existential questions such as what is growth ?and how might we want to think about what it means to have a livelihood. In addition, the panel questioned how we have lived and suffered in the past and what could we do as a species to creatively destruct for the better of all.

Points made through the episode:

• What is necessary? How do we let go some of the unconscious habits and get out of our comfort zone? We have lots of cognitive food about Growth mindset and yet we don’t do it.
• There exists an opportunity to come back to self, to know we are not alone, and that 7+billion people are experiencing the same conditions. We have everything available to us to re-imagine our relationship to life
• Our professional and personal lives have never been so merged.
• We have an opportunity to see our humaneness – and we cannot take anything for granted
• Undeniable our interconnectedness. Globalisation has demonstrated some real negatives
• Seems like mother nature has sent us to our rooms to think about the damage we have done to the planet.
• There is a positive to this “lock-down” we are now appreciating the slow, the simple the beauty in our connections and connectedness
• Important that we are mindful of the consequences of ignoring reality
• More permission now to notice what is not working and to say it.
• We will emerge so much stronger and resilient as teams. Teams are like an antibody. Huge capacity to bring forth disparate views to imagine and vision a new reality. Teams have unique advantage of not needing to know it all but as a collective to allow something to emerge -the collective is the engine.
• There is a falling away of old structures, constructs, egos and silos- crystal clear we are in a crisis and we need to contribute. The sense of shared purpose will embolden teams and organisations will find it hard to return to old ways.
• Not all leaders will be suitable for the new forms of teams that will emerge.
• There is a strong desire currently for purpose to sit above profit.
• Some assumptions will need to be busted. Growth for example is questionable the way we currently view growth at all costs.
• We don’t yet understand how to operate a Global Citizenry.
• In order to access a “One team” notion allow people to bring whole selves to work
• Make teams your focus.
• Our vision has formerly been too myopic- we will get back to planning and prioritising
• Heretically nothing has changed. There certainly exists more courage to name what is not working but essentially team life remains the same. We are so swept up in the drama that we need to allow people to pause and feel the grief, the Global Grief.
• Important not to assume that what I am feeling you are too.
• The Zen and Art of Motorcycling says “we grab a handful of sand from the vast plains of awareness around us and we call it reality”
• Growth can happen in many ways not least in terms of learning and developing as human species.
• The panel is hoping that we allow :
  • Creative destruction and cited Joseph Schumpeter
  • We see the wisdom of giving space for reflection and thinking
  • To build a culture of ERA (Encouragement, Recognition and Appreciation) to buld confidence against a very uncertain future
  • The three G’s Generativity, Grace and Gratitude
  • To know and respect that everyone matters.
  • To know we are already enough.

Resources: the following include the resources I alluded to in this episode.

• Janet Harvey: invitechange.com
• Neil Scotton and Alister Scott: enablingcatalysts.com
• Neil Scotton and Alister Scott: The little book of making big change happen.
• Joseph Schumpeter: The theory of economic development
• Otto Sharmer: www.presencing.org