Patterns
Patterns in organisations lie everywhere. They hide in plain sight between what we say and what we do. They guide how we think about our work, how we manage conflict, how we think about each other, and they invisibly line the edges of possibility and our inherited imaginations.
The seeds of these patterns are often planted several organisational generations before we joined. Maybe hundreds of years before. Yet still we pick up on them intuitively, obeying the unspoken rules of belonging in our social groups. Fitting in and finding our place, whether on the edge or in the middle, speaking up or staying quiet.
Occasionally, we might question these unspoken rules when we first join, but soon enough without the guard rails of reflective practice, psychological permission, or another resource, we conform, or we leave, usually confused and frustrated.
Tied up in these patterns are our Beginnings, and how we begin shapes so much of how things end. So, spare a minute to notice your Beginnings and tune into what patterns feel true for you.
Maybe you carry a personal preference for a typical Beginning. How do you arrive?
Early? Prepared? Gradually? Noisily? Alone or together?
Maybe your organisation has a pattern too…
As you look around, what do you notice about how things begin…
- How are people invited to join new teams?
- What quality of attention is given to support someone in finding their place in the organisation and for people to find their place in relation to the new joiner?
- What do you notice about how you start projects or initiatives?
What priorities emerge as thematic?
Maybe to fit in, you start many things at once?
Maybe you start things that you know you can’t deliver?
Maybe the act of starting is how you get noticed?
What simple sentences capture the true essence of your experiences?
Shadows & Mazes
These organisational patterns are part of our shared-shadow, and to reduce our shadow we bring the light of awareness to rest in the dark. We acknowledge our existing patterns, without judgement, safe in the knowledge that once, for our equally resourceful and intelligent predecessors, this current problem was once a solution, just as our best solutions will at some point also become problems for our organisational successors.
We can all only really exist at one point in time but if we look to the past to understand our present, then we might also make real space for the possibility of a new future to emerge.
If we ignore our origins or exclude previous difficulties and don’t talk about them, then they remain in our shadow like a magnet, or an invisible maze, creating repeating patterns, re-solving the same issue it once looked at, holding us in place.
And as you will know, these shadows are even more important, giving rise to new tensions that can fester for years, when we merge teams and organisations, or bring in new leaders or ways of working.
If this resonates for you and you might like to look at this a little more deeply, you are not alone. Drop us a line and we’ll be happy to help you bring light into your shadows.
Founder, Exec & Transformation Coach