By Jordan Nicholas Sukut, 2024.04.01 (updated 2024.04.01)
A post in Above The Chaos
This morning on tour I witnessed a painful interaction between two employees at an inn.
A very stressed and unsure new employee was trying to share some concerns with the woman coming in to pick up from his shift. She was explaining to hiIn a m that the last guy was fired because he tried to figure everything out himself, didn't ask questions, and made mistakes. She told him if there was anything he still needed training on, he needed to ask.
My experience working with thousands of individuals, on teams, accomplishing Goals and Objectives, is that when we enter a new environment, We Do Not Know What We Do Not Know.
There is a crucial difference between "We Do Not Know", and "We Do Not Know What We Do Not Know".
For example, the woman asked the new employee if he had "clocked out". It turned out that not only had he not "clocked out" this morning, he had not "clocked in" or "clocked out" since he started 3 days ago, and no one had even told him such a system existed. The woman seemed frustrated with him for not knowing.
In any given System and Culture, whether it is an inn, a community, or a country, it is up to the Stewards of that given Domain to uphold The Standards of "The Way We Do Things Around Here."
Culture, The Way We Do Things Around Here, must be systematically and intentionally transmitted.
When we look at the Cultures that have survived for millennia, we often see a deep synthesis of Ceremonies, Rituals, Systems, and Practices that Cohere the Community over the course of many subsequent generations.
In a single organization, we see a microcosm of this issue of Subsequent Generations. Whereas in Community, subsequent generations may vary from the 10 years a resident moves in before moving out, or the 100 years of someone who is born and dies in the community, in organizations it is not uncommon to see department leadership turning over every 1 to 5 years.
In my own organizations, I experienced the profound difference between hiring people to fulfill a function, and hiring people to co-operate a system. Imagine that you hire a bookkeeper, who comes into an organization to the function of bookkeeping. Instead of building a system, she performs the function in her own way. And it works. She keeps things straight in her mind, solves problems, and prevents things from falling through the cracks. Then she leaves. You hire a replacement, who comes in to fulfill the function. He has his own set of experiences and ways of doing things. So he discovers all the things she was doing "wrong" (in his mind), "fixes" things, and begins to do things in his own way. Eventually, the wound in the organization heals, and things are back on track. Until he leaves. After two or three generations, what exists is a mess of starts and stops, inconsistent records, and the frustrating process of answering the same questions and grappling with the same issues, for the fourth time.
Now let's imagine a different Path.
When you start a new organization, the first thing you do is set up a folder, and write on the front "The (Insert Organization Name) Way".
From the very beginning, you determine that what you are primarily building is a multi-generational System, Community, and Culture. You know that many leaders and teams will come and go in each and every function over the next several hundred years.
And so you know that the principle role of every person who ever engages is to Co-Operate and Continuously Improve the System, Community, and Culture of The Whole.
Over time, The Way your Organism Co-Operates becomes its most valuable and irreplaceable asset, organically developed over generations of Continuous Learning And Improvement.
The Lionsberg System is being designed and built as a New Human Operating System.
It is meant to be localizable and adaptable to every Domain across each of the Levels of Analysis.
How are we Co-Operating our lives?
How are we Co-Operating our families?
How are we Co-Operating our teams?
How are we Co-Operating our organizations?
How are we Co-Operating our Communities?
How are we Co-Operating our Tribes?
How are we Co-Operating our Bioregions?
How are we Co-Operating our Nations?
How are we as a human species Co-Operating the SpatioTemporal Domain we call Earth? It may be one of the Right Questions that deserves to be Continually Asked.
The Lionsberg System is built to be deployed through a process of Localization and Instantiation that adapts The System to any Domain.
Any Individual. Any Family. Any Team. Any Group. Any Organization. Any Project. Any Community. Any Tribe. Any Nation. Any Planet. Any Galactic Confederation of Unknown Civilizations.
It aims to help each and every element of The Whole find its Way towards The Goal, by Helping All Do The Same.
As we learn how to Co-Operate our New Human Operating System, it will be crucial to remember that we are building a Multi-Generational System that requires Multi-Generational Stewardship.
We are not just developing Systems and Patterns for "Us". We are developing Systems and Patterns that can continue to serve and lift Us up over millions of years to come.
Like The Peacemaker and other Messengers have reminded us, when we Sit In Council, Make Decisions, and Solve Issues, we are not to think of our selves, our families, or the near term, but of the Total Integrated Wellbeing, Development, and Right Relationship of the 7th, 52nd, and 1,000th generations to come.
All of us can imagine our grandchildren, and their grandchildren.
Many of us can imagine the 7th generation.
Many of us can imagine a New Millennium of Peace, Harmony, and Justice.
Some of us can imagine a culture flourishing for longer than the millions of years the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
Some of us can stretch our Minds out even further towards the Universal and Eternal, and imagine the interstellar journeys and transitions we will undertake to find New Domains to inhabit before our Sun expends its fuel and renders our local Solar System uninhabitable hundreds of millions or billions of years into the future.
We have a lot of Work left to do to ensure our Successors hundreds of millions of years from now do not perish in The Fire. Let's keep The Project on schedule.
When we Co-Operate in The Way most likely to positively iterate across the longest conceivable ranges of Time and Space, our Perspective and our Way approaches the Perspective and the Way of the God we All serve and Inter-Exist within.
With Love, In Community,
~ J