Science of Somatics

The Power of the Body

Humans have limitless potential. Through the study of neuroscience, we are beginning to confirm what many cultures have known for a long time. Stepping into our potential to lead – our life, family, community, at work or in the world – involves more than cognitive learning. Our potential lives in our ability to be aware of and “in choice” within our body.

In choice within our bodies means to choose our response to the world, instead of responding in the automatic way we have learned. Many of you may say, “I always choose my response.” Yet science has proven that not to be true.

We have implicit cognitive biases. Literally, we see, read or hear the information that will validate our belief system. This is reflected in our dismissal of each other’s points of view on either side of our political affiliations, or other issues close to our hearts.

We also have patterns of movement particular to us and our family system. As well as, habits of mood and emotion. Which is why extended family members or friends often say, “You remind me so much of your mother (father, sister, brother).” We all become our family system, even when we try not to.

Many will say “Well, that is just me. I can’t change who I am.” This is only partially true. You can make new choices in your habits of thought, mood, and action that will deliver new results. Changing your impact on others and the world.

Our potential rests in our body. Not our mind. Conscious knowledge of the body can expand our capacity for action: an ability to think more broadly, feel and express more facets of emotion responsibly, and take action with our body that we didn’t even realize was possible. This is called somatic learning – learning with and through the body.

Human Brain and Body Evolution

To speak about somatic learning, it is important to understand how the body and brain evolved, and how each of us is different within this similar construct of a body and brain.

Humans began life on the planet as single celled organisms whose primary capability was to sense and then move. This sensory motor capability is the foundation of human perception. Our senses are our first way of learning.

As species evolved, out of necessity for survival, they gained the capacity to flee, fight and freeze. This capability is the primary function of our primitive brain. It manages safety. It sounds an alarm when homeostasis in the individual’s body is disrupted by information perceived through the senses.

Homeostasis is our body in its particular state of equilibrium – from cells to hormones, from organs to mind. The homeostatic state differs in each individual, due to what their system has become accustomed to in its environment.

As mammals came on the evolutionary scene, they gave birth to semi-functional creatures who required assistance and care until they were fully grown. This change created the limbic system in our brain. An ability to connect with others in our species without words. Our senses pick up signals coming from another, and send signals back to communicate about the safety and connection of the group or individual. This capability is part of our unrealized potential.

The last layer of the brain to develop was our neocortex. This began when we needed to find safety and connection through social groups and a way to organize these more complex relationships. We needed to manage our dignity, where and how we belong.

As our brain was developing, we were also evolving in our nervous system. The vagus nerve, a cranial nerve that enervates our viscera – our internal organs, parts of our face and vocal ability – was also adding functionality. The vagus nerve manages immobilization (staying very still, not acting), mobilization (going into action) and social communication (how we connect with people). The vagus nerve is an afferent nerve. Its purpose is to send signals from the body to the brain. Because the vagus nerve is 80% (or more) afferent, the sensations in our body are a one-way communication to our brain. Meaning our gut feelings have more impact on what we do and think than our brain has on our gut feelings.

These basic automatic functions of both brain and nervous system happen below our level of consciousness. They provide the foundation by which we interface with the world.  When our basic needs of food, shelter and water are met, we move up Maslow’s hierarchy to managing for safety, connection and dignity. When these needs are met, we can move on to self-actualization – becoming who we are meant to be.

The foundation for leadership resides in our body. Our body is managing our safety, connection and dignity to maintain homeostasis. When we take a new action, one that is a stretch for us, our body will react. We must be comfortable with discomfort, and understand that physiological discomfort is part of moving into the leader we hope to be. To do this, it is important to be aware of how the mind impacts our ability to take action as a leader.

Systems Theory

All people have their own way of interacting with others to manage the basic needs for safety, connection and dignity. Even within a family system, each individual can have vastly different ways of getting these needs met.

For the first 20 years of life, you have been practicing being who you are. You have embodied your family’s way of interacting, connecting and leading. Embodiment means you live a certain set of values and take action on them daily without having to think about them. Embodiment happened over time through observation of, and interaction with, the systems we lived in: educational, cultural, familial, and generational. These systems are the way you learned to interact with the world around you and understand what you experience.

As you move out on your own, you meet people from different systems. These people embody their values and actions, developed from their lived experiences.

Because you learned how to be in the world to manage your safety, connection and dignity, you are actively scanning to maintain that world view 24/7. When your world view is questioned, you feel threatened. This triggers an automatic response to defend your world view. Even if the reaction is strong, it is familiar. And that is settling. We know this feeling. We have practiced it a long time.

Most parts of the brain and nervous system function below your level of consciousness. You have no idea you are busy scanning for and trying to meet your basic needs all day long. You usually have no idea you are triggered. You only use a portion of your brain to perceive the world. As much as 80% of what you think you see is derived from memory, a function of your optic nerve/brain connection.

This is not your fault. The brain is a pattern detection organ designed to be efficient. However, it does mean you are likely missing vital information that may help you see yourself, others and the world differently. As a leader, this limitation impacts the action you believe possible for yourself and others.

When your way of seeing the world bumps up against another’s, you discover your values are not universal. Again, this brings your world view into question and causes disruption to your system. We are not taught how to understand and talk about these value differences. We are led to believe our way is the only, right way, to be in the world. It is the only way we have practiced.

We must understand each individual and organization is a system. A specific way of functioning that helps them feel safe, connected and respected. When it is disrupted this causes ripples in other parts of the internal or external system. Change is disruption.

To be an exemplary leader, we must understand how disruption happens in our bodily system and practice settling our body. We must also be aware that our change will impact others and the systems that surround us, and compound the impact of the change on our body and mind.

Human Change Through Practice

As you begin to understand what drives your behavior and action, you may find you want to change. Perhaps you see qualities in others that you admire and wish to have. Maybe you want greater range as a person or leader. Or new ways to interact with the world. Due to the 20 plus years of practice you have at being who you are, change is difficult.

As adults, we think change happens in our mind. This is true to a degree. To even start on the path to change, you must have a compelling, practical reason. From there, change happens through the body.  When you attempt change and do not engage the body in your learning, you put lipstick on a pig. It is like trying to add another operating system to the existing operating system on your computer. It mucks up functionality.

For example, say you are feeling down, but not clinically diagnosed as depressed. You don’t know why, you have ideas, but those ideas seem too hard to face. Friends and family keep telling you to just be happy, you have health, a great life (from the outside) and a good job. Your boss tells you your attitude is impacting your job potential. You smile and try to be light. It feels strange. You hope it is helping, but people don’t seem moved by your efforts.

Inside of this person trying to change is a physiological system in distress. Change is physically painful. Disrupting the homeostasis within your system, even if it is smiling instead of frowning, causes alarm bells to go off creating heart pain, chest constriction, stomach upset, throat closing, and many other biological reactions.

If we know this will happen, have a strong reason for the change, and have support through the disruption, we will likely stay the course through the discomfort. If not, we may think something is seriously wrong. We may revert to frowning and anchor in this mood, developing a fear of change and these symptoms.

Somatics: Reason, Practice and Community

Somatics, learning with and through the body, creates the platform for sustainable change. The key is to find a sense balance between too much and too little change.

With a strong reason to change, we begin to practice new actions and behaviors. Smiling instead of frowning. We feel different. That is ok. We are trying to create a controlled amount of contrived physiological pressure to feel the boundaries of too much and too little change. Each person has a unique window of tolerance for change.

This new action stresses our physiological, biological and psychological systems. We likely begin to feel unsafe. Can this change be sustained? People are noticing. We may wonder if people will still like us if we change. Will we belong? We may encounter people who question our very way of being. They may be mad at us for changing. We may wonder if we have enough strength of character, dignity, to see it through.

The psychobiological foundation of who we are is in question. This is where a strong reason to practice something new, and a supportive community will help you stay the course. Alone, change is difficult. Sometimes impossible in certain systems.

In community, change becomes possible.

Somatics is a cutting-edge and effective way to build strong leaders able to sustain change. People who stand for each other while creating a safe place to belong and feel respected. Leaders who can thrive within the increasing stresses and complexities of the world while holding the paradoxes of a modern life. Leaders to respect.

 

 

Building Strong Cultures

Leaders in Every Role

Gone is the lone leader to save the day. Gone is command and control forcing, coercing, and bribing. To create the cultures that will survive in the future, we must play the long game of leadership.

We have entered a time where our baseline level of skill and conceptual abilty is high enough to understand that we need to work together: bottom-up, top-down, and sideways. We must all be leaders.

Leading from every role is not a common practice in the world today. It requires skillful groups of motivated individuals working together to navigate organizational complexities and manage their impact on the world. To create the cohesive, strong, and resilient culture of the future, we must practice this new way of leading.

Culture is hard, but not impossible, to measure. It contains three elements that when mixed in the right proportions have the desired effect.

• Strong culture starts with a desire for something to be different than it is today. A vision of the future we long to see.
• Then comes structure – speaking the same language. Important words that define our vision and the path forward must have a commonly understood meaning and a behavioral description of what they look like in practice.
• Practice is really the foundation of any culture. We must be in conscious practices that lead us in the direction of our purpose.

Building culture is based on the idea that leadership – of an organization, country, or family – is a process of social influence, not a role. Anyone in any system can be a leader. Through their social influence, this person has the abilty to enlist the aid and support of others to accomplish a common task.

To socially influence other people, the leader has acquired a skillset – a way of doing. They can communicate a compelling outcome, process, and structure for engagement. Before they apply their skillset, they must have a mindset – a way of believing – that their outcome can be accomplished.

Social influence is the tool we have to change the world. Force is relic of the past. Teaching all people how to consciously lead in any and every position is the key to building strong and resilient cultures.

Desire

The first step in building a strong culture is desire. The group of people must have a longing, a compelling reason why putting effort into culture is important to them.

Trust me, with any endeavor there will be doubt along the path. The desire must be strong enough to move through the periods of doubt and stay committed. If you shift gears due to your fear, you erode any progress you have made with your culture. There will be times where you will question your efforts, the cost, and the time. You must stick to the long game for creating a strong and resilient culture.

At Opal Food and Body Wisdom, the women who lead this business have a deeply compelling reason to put effort into culture. They hold people lives in their hands. The life and death role all people in their organization plays daily reminds them of the importance of a connected structure of care. Leaders can be in every role – even the patients.

Their desire is to contribute to a world where all are able to live fully with security, freedom, attunement, and connection. This is their deeply unique reason for being a company in the world today. This gets them up each day and brings them in to do good work building people up in world that continually breaks people down.

Structure

The second step is structure. Creating a common language. A mission, vision, and values that will guide you.

Few organizations use mission, vision, and values effectively. To be effective, they must be a daily practice. Something to return to when you get confused about your success, failure, what to decide, or how to proceed. They are the foundation and the structure for your business. They must be compelling and relevant. They must ask something of all people that work for and with you. This ask must be clear, understood, and behaviorally specific: why you are here, where you are going, and how you will get there.

Green Canopy Homes takes vision, mission and values seriously. Each year since their inception in 2010, they have set aside a half-day for their whole staff to gather and recommit to the mission and vision, and create a set of values and mantras – behaviors in action – that will help them live into it.

The mission and vision change infrequently. They shifted a few times in the early years to become crisp. Recently, the mission and vision went through an overhaul to represent their changing role in the world.

Green Canopies values are created annually at the whole-staff retreat. Some values carryover from year-to-year, but what changes is the mantras – the behaviors people will exhibit when living into the values.

Green Canopy gets specific with what success looks like in practice. Take their value of authentic communication. There are four mantras that describe what I will be doing when I am living into that value. One is “have hard conversations now.” This mantra is discussed at their monthly leadership development meeting. All team members are given a practical skill to have a hard conversation now. This becomes the common language. All individuals now have permission and are encouraged to be an influential leader. It shapes everyone’s daily practices around skills that help them live into that value.

Practice

The third step is regular practice. Daily conversational practices are required to live into the values that lead to the accomplishment of the mission and vision and the fulfilment of the desire.

Conversational practices are structures that guide people through common relational challenges like giving and receiving feedback, managing conflict, seeing another’s point of view, and listening to understand. An entire organization is taught the same practices. No matter who we run into in our day-to-day work life, we all know how to give and receive feedback, it is a practice – even if we choose not to go there.

In this way people all learn to speak a common language. These known conversational daily practices become habit for people. As they do, the structures fade into the background and the communication between people rises. These practices build trust.

In any business, whatever you do, at its core, is about relationship. At Microsoft, a global Fortune 50 company, people come from many backgrounds. Though this brings an amazing cultural diversity, it ensures that most will interpret the world differently.

Everyone can communicate, but there is not a similar structure of communication, which feels like a different organizational language.

When conversational practices are explicitly taught and practiced, people learn a common language to communicate their actions, thoughts, and feelings, and interpret and speak to those of others. This creates a foundation of similar capabilities leading to productive dialogue and efficient workplace exchanges.

Though not a global company cultural practice, over our 13 years of work there, we see leaders who use these practices everyday to their advantage. They are the ones promoted and relied upon for their leadership. They are the ones making cross company connections and driving successful businesses. They are the leaders weaving the culture that strengthens the company.

Results

Over the years, we have been regularly surprised by the impact of a compelling desire, the structure of a common language, and daily practice on weaving a strong cultural fabric to withstand local and global set-backs. Anything can happen with these three ingredients.

People often remark that not only is their work life more satisfying, but their home life has gotten easier too. They have better skills in all areas of life.

This impacts everything. Through practice with their employees, their children, and all people with whom they interact, they are influencing the leaders of the future.

Opal has been a leader in their field, steadily growing since its inception and doing so consciously. Though they experience bumps regarding growth – get bigger or stay manageable? And staff challenges. They are continually in a conversation about how to create a strong culture where people feel supported, but not catered to. They handle these conversations while maintaining their desire to be healthy inside and out – balancing family, work, and community. Their strong desire to be the change they hope to see in the world fuels their success.

Green Canopy is a risk taker. They have a bold vision and innovative ideas to achieve their vision. When they run into obstacles to their success they do a hard stop. A conscious structural practice. They created S2S – Slow-down-to-Speed-up. A practice that happens when they spot challenges that have thread throughout the entire company. For as long as it takes, they shut down all operations, gather the entire staff, and use the conversational practices we taught them – their common language – to decipher what is happening and where. This is a huge risk, but every time they come out stronger and more connected than before.

At Microsoft, they are a forerunner in global conversation. With 124,000 people employed world-wide, they are a leader in trying to create a common language to empower all to communicate effectively, efficiently, and create a global platform. Though leadership practices are not pervasive or common throughout the entire company, they are a microcosm of what it is like to change a large culture – say a country or state or political institution. Change takes time. It takes a continual, long-game commitment to practicing something new, teaching it to future generations, and weaving it into the fabric of everything you do. This provides and anchor to return to when the complexity gets overwhelming. A calm in the storm of the world. If Microsoft is trying, so can you.

Investing in the future, not only for yourself, but for the benefit of all, is not a small task. What is a company for if not to change the world? Maybe you have reached a level of success in the work you do. Are you consciously bringing everyone along? Is there a deeper longing?

We believe much more can be done. Not more time spent – more effective time spent communicating what is vital and important by understanding your longing, speaking a common language, and being in conscious practices. This will help you become the leader of the future.

Socially influence the world through your strong and resilient culture. Be the envy of others. Accomplish the common task of being a successful and conscious business working in harmony with the world around it. Your dream is possible. You just have to practice.

 

 

The Wisdom of the Body, Commitment, and Community

The Vital Elements of Sustainable Leadership Development

The body reveals the truth of how we are feeling and thinking: a tentative walk toward a meeting, speaking with a shaky voice, a sharp response to another, a fast beating heart, or sweaty palms.

Our culture tends to believe this Mind and Body relationship begins in the mind. However, the mind often lies. We can help you understand and use the body and the mind together to make you a better leader than you imagine possible: in the workplace, the home, the community, or the world.

It simply requires a few ingredients: a Commitment, a little Wisdom, and Community.

The Body Reveals

Our bodies evolved to respond to the world. The body takes in information through the sensory/motor nervous system and brain, and then takes action. This action is often automatic and reactive, based on the lens through which you see the world. It is true for you, but it may be misinformed.

The mind can hold – and keep replaying – an automatic story, a pattern of thought, that no longer serves you. You may be unaware of that story, because it is pervasive in everything you do. It is like a lens, developed over your lifetime, that colors how you perceive and respond to the world.

Learning the language of your body is like having the lens cleaned, and seeing clearly for the first time. You notice your automatic, bodily responses, thoughts and words, and whether they serve the situation. You begin to practice choosing, instead of reacting.

Commitment Deepens

Progress begins with a solid commitment to your growth and development. It opens a path to your potential.

A commitment defines an aspirational state of being, action, or behavior you are currently not able to embody. The commitment must be one that “stretches” you enough to be compelling and exciting, but not too much that it overwhelms you before you begin.

When you state this commitment, the body tells you if it is “stretchy” through its response. If you feel uncomfortable, or find yourself verbalizing an emotion such as anger (“that is stupid”), fear (“I could never do that”), sadness (“that time has passed”), or maybe joy (“that’s so silly”), then you know you have hit on something workable.

Once you have a solid commitment, both mind and body can guide you to strategically take action in line with your commitment in a way that deepens your impact and influence.

Community Strengthens

Wisdom is seeing the world through your lens (taking what you know, what you learn, and what you experience), and referencing against what others see, and how they experience you, from their lens.

To understand the automatic reactions we cannot see, it is essential to learn in community, seeking reflections from other learning partners: people committed to your and their own growth.

Learning partners see your actions through their own lens, developed over the course of their lifetime. The action you take impacts them. While the impact is neither right nor wrong, they can provide you with feedback on how your body’s actions (patterns of thought, moods and physical movements) may land differently than you intend. This helps you identify your automatic responses, your lens.

When we clean the lens from both sides, learning the language of the body and learning how we show up through community, we strengthen our ability to fulfill our commitment and live into our truth and power.

The Leader You Wish to Be

With a solid commitment, an understanding of the language of the body, and a community to help you on your journey, you learn practice that accelerate your trajectory toward the leader you wish to be. It simply takes practicing taking new action with a conscious commitment, which is no small feat, yet more rewarding than you can imagine.

Foundations in Building Strong Cultures

Diagnosing an Intervention – The Waterline Model

When problems arise – in an organization, family system, or community – people tend to look at an individual as the source of the challenge. They confront, question, or judge a person for their behavior, when there is usually more to the story than the person and their actions.

In 1970 edition of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Roger Harrison wrote about the Waterline Model. Harrison designed the model to assist people diagnosing where to intervene within an organizational system. Yet any, even the family system, can benefit from its structure.

In some way, every system is working to complete a task. In a family system, maybe it’s feed the kids or get them off to college. In corporate system, the task tend to be financial or product driven. In a community, the task could be the elevate the communication capabilities of all members.

Along the path, all systems run into challenges. Challenges are great way to build capacity individually and as a system, if we diagnose the right problem.

When we begin to look around for disruption to our task, we have been culturally trained to look for the individual who is causing trouble. Whether we learned this in our family system, “Who spilled the milk?” “It was Jamie.” Or in school, “Who threw that paper airplane?” “It was Chris.”

Though these people did spill the milk or throw the airplane, and we believe they are to blame, before we yell, criticize, or punish, Harrison suggests we snorkel before we deep dive.

Balance

In any system, a certain amount of maintenance or attention to relationship is needed to balance the task. Our emotions, though greatly stifled in our current cultural paradigm, are an important part of how we feel satisfaction in the world. Emotions are often the first experience brushed aside in service of accomplishing something. “I feel confused, but we have to finish this task. I don’t want to ask again for clarity as I am afraid they will think I am dense (disruptive, annoying, and so on).”

This has mixed results. We might accomplish an outcome which is often rewarded. Yet, focusing only on task – which is tangible, logical, and gets noticed – creates a lot of water under the bridge.

In the above example, the spilled milk or the airplane, Jamie or Chris can get a consistent message that they are the problem. But who put the milk on table? Could it have been in a smaller container? And why was there time to create an airplane? The lesson might not be as engaging as we hoped. These observable behaviors give us clues that something more is at play.

Relationship mishaps, that in the moment could easily be resolved with a little interpersonal communication, intra-personal skill, and some courage to break patterns, often get pushed aside for when we have time. We miss out on relationship in service of getting things done. It is like saying, “I will sit by the fire and put my feet up when I have done _______ or have ______ number of dollars in the bank.”

Tending to purpose, relationship, and dynamics takes time, desire, and some skill. This is time that can be spent doing something we have been trained to do: accomplish a task.

Yet, when people spend time maintaining the relationship, along with accomplishing the task, the doing happens faster (after initial effort), is more satisfying (after safe and bold conversations), and produces results that leave a lasting impact on the bottom line. People are more connected and more satisfied. This weaves a web that builds strong cultures.

Dropping Below the Waterline

When things are going smoothly, we rarely recalibrate to purpose, clarify roles, or dissect group dynamics. When things go wrong, we look for the person responsible. Deep diving to the intra-personal – within one person – and scapegoating that person as the anchor of the problem. Think Jamie or Chris.

Though one person can be the problem, it is wise to check your line by returning the surface before you stay in the depths too long.

Purpose – Vision and Mission

Clarifying purpose is the place to start. If the vision and mission are clear, people all over the organization will be able to draw a line to how their work is contributing to that end. If people do not know the vision and mission, you may have people in your organization all operating under their own vision and mission and losing site of being a team and working toward a common purpose.

If there is no rememberable or recitable vision or mission, or if it is flat – has lost its motivating factor – it may be time to revitalize or renew the vision and mission. Even if the vision and mission still seems compelling, clarifying if all are on the same page is always a good place to start. It reminds us why we began this adventure and gives us firm connection from which we can swim into deeper water.

Roles and Goals

The next place to look is at roles and goals. Though this model begins at the top and moves down, it is not hierarchical. It does not have to begin with the boss. We believe leadership must happen in every role. Using the waterline model can help not only the leader of a system, but the members, diagnose where to intervene.

Roles and goals are guidelines for how this person/these people will meet the vision and mission. Occasionally, our individual vision of our role or goals differ from the organizations. At other times, people have piled tasks onto a role that make the water cloudy and prevent a person from doing what they are hired to do.

When there is a disruption in the task, and subsequently we feel confused or overworked, we revisit the division of roles in the system and how those roles help us achieve the vision and mission. We can then shift our expectations, the role and goals, or recommit.

Confusion about roles and goals is common. Things move fast these days and people need to be nimble. Confusion tells us there is a break down in communication. When we intervene at this level of the waterline, we help alleviate individual power plays and hurt feelings, get people in the role that best serves them and the organization, and efficiently tick away at the task.

Group Dynamics

If roles and goals are clear, we move onto group dynamics. These are the norms of a group. Norms of behavior are consistently practiced – implicitly or explicitly – modes of interaction between people and within an organization. They define HOW interaction happens. They are comprised of how we include others, influence, make decisions, rely on each other – or not, how we give and receive feedback, and manage conflict.

Very few systems are explicit about their group dynamics. Most organizations do not make the connection between their implicit group dynamics and individual and organizational challenges. This is where we get into murky water. Implicit norms exist in every system. Healthy norms weave a strong culture. Unhealthy norms harm culture.

Group dynamics can be hard to diagnose. They require observation and curiosity. Then the application of explicit and healthy ways of managing the common mishaps of relationships.

To create healthy norms, teaching skills and practicing them is essential. Helping people learn how to listen effectively, give and receive feedback, and manage a difficult conversation are the foundations of healthy group dynamics.

When people have the same method for moving through an anxiety producing situation, they can feel safe and settle. They know the structure, and how they are supposed to be and what to do in the situation. They know the other person has the same structure. This makes a normally unpredictable situation, more predictable. People can relax and focus on the other person. They can let go of needing to protect and defend themselves.

To establish these practice takes time and consistent effort. It is much easier and quicker to blame a person and have them be the scapegoat. When they leave the organization we find relief, but then later recognize the problems still exist. We then deep dive again, trying to find another person to blame.

Sorting out messy, implicit group dynamics and making them clear and explicit takes longer than blaming one person. Yet, it sets the foundation for a level of interaction that far outperforms other systems, making it a place people want to work as it impacts their whole life in a positive way, not only their job.

Interpersonal and Intra-personal

Sometimes an organization has done their work. They understand the balance between task and maintenance, and have explicitly or implicitly created a system that feels safe and clear. This may be because the leader is clear or there are people who have been in the organization a long time, they know the ropes and things run smoothly.

But let’s say the organization is growing or people are leaving and there is an influx of new staff. These changes may cause churn even if the water is clear above. We might have become so practiced in our actions and norms that we don’t remember to teach them to new people. We may have had staff that just “got it” and the new people are from a different generation or culture.

We must then educate and mentor all people in the ways of the organization. Once people are explicitly engaged in reciprocal learning to blend their skills, views, and culture with the organizations, tasks will likely run smoothly.

Disruptions at this level occur between two people – interpersonal – or within one person – intra-personal. Interpersonally, two people can have different skillsets. They may come from different backgrounds and we must do some translating to help them talk with each other. They could also be two people with very different personal styles like introvert/extrovert in communication or compete/avoid in conflict. These styles can be worked through with active listening, focused time together, and with the help of a third party to paraphrase when the situation gets hot.

On the intra-personal level – where we normally deep dive to, maybe our individual vision has outgrown the organizations vision. We want the system to take certain steps that it is not ready to take. We may need to revisit our employment or create something new. Or we may be having disruptions in our family life or health that is impacting our ability to participate in the way we have learned. We could lack the technical skills. Or be unaware of the impact we are having on others.

In each of these situation, we need to inquire with individuals directly using our active listening skills to understand what they might be facing. Then, we can show compassion and focus our supportive attention on helping these individuals integrate (or not) into the organization.

Conclusion

The Waterline model helps take something confusing – diagnosing a complex system – and gives us a guide to help that system become healthy and efficiently productive. Using the waterline gives us a leg up professionally. It allows us to name patterns within organizations we may feel but not know how to speak about. It helps us get out of the cycle of blame and get into a productive and long lasting cycle of connection. It provides a time-tested structure to identify challenges and take good care of people in the process.

If you need more information, guidance, or support, invite perspective. We love to get into the water, murky or not, to help you achieve your vision.