We live in relation

I’m an explorer. How grand and pompous that sounds in an age where the limits of the physical world can be reached through a phone. Bear with me. An explorer of people and their paths. Only an explorer would call his outfit orangecairns for the symbolism of path-markers and guiding stones. 

For a while this exploration led down a path of partnering people around purpose and new directions. A path I embarked on after seeing the same challenges coming up time and time again with coachees over many years. 

When I applied that purpose lens to myself, I saw that writing fiction needed to be a bigger part of my life. And so these last few years have been spent writing in addition to the leadership development and the Samaritans and the Munros and all my other tracks. 

That purpose path has now taken a further turning. OK, maybe a river works better as a metaphor. It all flows together like a story. I guess I need a new name for the company. 

This tributary started a while back with my own coach training, maybe even further back with acting, when I saw the actor is always reliant on what they are given from the other cast members or the audience. 

We are always, in every moment, with every breath in relation to each other, to our environment, to our world. We are in relation to our partners, our children, our families, our friends. We are in relation to our work colleagues, our bosses, our clients. 

We are all in systems. We are all in constellations. 

In the beginning is the relation

Martin Buber

I’m loving Jim Ferrell’s work and where his thinking is taking me. Stepping out of the Arbinger Institute and now putting it all into practice with You and We. The nature of our relationships with others, the quality, the strength. Not how we see others as separate individuals but how we see the relationship between ourselves. Who am I in relation to this person? What do I bring? What do I show? What do I do? What do I think?

Leading to What do we both need to work on in this relational space? How can we work together on this?

The bridge for me – just to add yet another metaphor to the mix – is that when I see Buber’s quote above, my mind immediately goes to the oft-quoted Ubuntu phrase, 

I am because we are

So here’s where the tributaries join up. The interesting lens for me in this relational space is primarily the cultural. Beliefs-based, values-based, norms-based, assumptions-based, systems-based, good ol’ goldfish in the fishbowl culture. Yes, there’s personality in there and more too, but my turning this year is back to the culture. I think that’s what I heard Marty McFly say in a film a long while back. 

Back to the culture and back to cultural intelligence (CQ) specifically, the latter of which has been colouring my thoughts and distilling all the while over the years. Time to explore this more deeply again.

More to come on this, a lot more, but for now I hope your diverse relational spaces are giving you strength and learning and happiness and all such good things. See you the other side of a short northern summer break…

Julian

We help leaders and their teams find their voice and vision

www.orangecairns.com