I'm interviewing, Peggy Holman. She's the
author of Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity. This
is an extraordinary, fascinating book that looks at how to create something
that makes sense; how to create order out of chaos. How to take new challenging
systems, new problems that our new technologies, our new worlds bring to us and
deal with them, even with people with very, very different ways of seeing
things. And Peggy is just about to go through the stages in this process that are
described in the book. Shoot, go ahead.
Peggy: Thank you. So, I'll start at a
50,000 foot level, which is with a pattern of change that I was actually
talking about earlier in the call. This
notion that all change begins with a disruption, and what that disruption does
is it tends to cause things as we know them to break apart. And that's why a
change can be, and particularly the bigger the change the more emotional and
experience it is, because experiencing emergence, experiencing change is not
necessarily an easy thing to do, it can be quite the emotional roller coaster
ride ,and that's in part because not everything makes it through to the other
side. Which means that for some, I do a lot of work with journalists, and it's
interesting working with mainstream media people, many of whom are mourning the
loss of the kind of journalistic values that have guided their work for many,
many years and they wonder if there's still a place for it.
So, as this kind of doorway from disruption
into what is called differentiation, it's basically what I was talking about
earlier. Things break apart, so we're in this place of experimentation of what
differences make a difference, and we don't know without trying, and so two
useful questions I find in that kind of state of experimentation as many
different aspects are tested is,
What do we want to conserve that still has value, and what do we want to
embrace that wasn't possible before?" And frankly, I see Occupy going through
that right now as the form of physical occupation, is one of the things that we
may want to conserve or we may want to let it go, to embrace other ways of
dealing with that deeper message, and I think that question remains to be
answered with journalists. A similar kind of thing, as things break apart, what
of journalistic values are still relevant and what do we let go of?
So for example, things like transparency, is
not only, I think being more recognized as a key value, it becomes almost
essential and it's certainly easier to do in an internet world. And as the
clarity begins to emerge, begins to show up through different kinds of
experimentation, a new coherence arises in which we begin to understand the
rules of the road, how things operate.
So that's a 50,000 foot level disruption from
coherence, being disrupted to differentiation, back into coherence. From there I drop to ground level, and talk
about a set of practices for engaging, and I've got them organized in four
basic areas. One is "how do I prepare
myself to engage with this area of mystery and not knowing as we go into this
open divergent chaotic kind of space."
So, how do I ensure as somebody consciously
stepping into that, that I am equipped as possible? And I see that as embracing
the mystery of it, knowing that I don't necessarily know the answers, nor is it
a good idea to know going in, because if I do, then by definition there's
nothing emerging, nothing novel emerging.
I find an attitude of possibility, looking towards what's possible, and
following the energy which generally shows up Where things get lively--it's
where the emotional roller coaster is most alive, and that can look like anger
or fear or joy even.
Rob: I've had a couple of times where I've had encounters
with opportunities for success. Chances
to make a lot of money, to have a big business happen or something, and I
called it "riding the roller coaster," and it makes you feel incredibly alive.
I mean, for me it meant flying in weird jets, and doing million dollar deals
and things like that, and you never know, you never know when you can the light
a cigar and take a puff and it will blow up in your face, or you can just trip
and fall, or you can move forward and big things can happen, and I think that's
the kind of stuff you're talking about here, really. It's very disruptive and
it changes everything, and you have to embrace it and love wherever it takes
you. Right?
Peggy: I think you've got the idea, and
the notion "that's where life is, That's where we're most alive" I think is a
really valuable insight around that. I think of it a lot as jazz. The more I
practice my scales, the more discipline I have in my life, the more equipped I
am when the moment comes to let go and jump in, and trust that I am equipped to
deal with what shows up.
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