Embracing Change
How do we embrace the inevitable constant chance in our organizations that is required to be resilient and thrive?
Evolutionary Purpose is a concept explored in the wiki Reinventing Organizations. The idea is that "organizations are viewed as an independent energy field with a purpose that transcends its stakeholders. In this paradigm, we don’t own or run the organization; instead we are stewards, listening to where it needs to go and helping it to do its work in the world."
Purpose is a key ingredient.
Taking time to define a purpose is a critical step to a framework that allows organizations to thrive. As noted in A Simpler Way, Margaret J. Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers,"Organization wants to happen. Human organizations emerge from processes that can be comprehended but never controlled." But there must a driving force, a seed, behind the initial spark that promotes organization to happen. That seed is the purpose.
Taking time to understand what that seed is, the inspiration, that motivates my work will make it possible for me to move forward in a flexible path as long as the path stays true to that initial force. That reason for being. This allows also for a taming of fear of competition. If I am truly following the purpose I am open to collaborations and see new connections that would be shielded from view in the face of fear. I want to learn from everyone and everything that enables me to move forward with purpose.
Fear fades in the face of purpose
As the wiki page explains, "With the transition to Evolutionary Purpose, people learn to tame the fears of their egos. This process makes room for exploring deeper questions of meaning and purpose, both individually and collectively: What is my calling? What is truly worth achieving? Survival is no longer a fixation instead, the founding purpose truly matters.
Organization thrives without fear, it opens all possibilities to follow purpose.
Bring that to the organizational level, the organization then is open to collaboration and collective innovative thinking driven by purpose not profits. Again from the wiki page, "the key is about separating identity and figuring out “What is this organization’s calling?” Not “What do we want to use this organization to do, as property?” but rather “What is this life, this living system’s creative potential?” This allows us to contribute something valuable and positive to the world.
Philosopher Viktor Frankl captures this well: “Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side -effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”