Ecosystem Leadership Principle 1: Intention
The first of the thirteen principles of Ecosystem Leadership is ‘Intention’. ‘Intention’, the word comes from old French, which means purpose. This leads to the question, “What do I intend?” In the Ecosystem leadership program I attended in 2019, ‘Intention’ was presented as a deep purpose emerging from one’s being:
What is the definition of ‘Intention’ according to the Ecosystem Leadership Principles?
“Noticing, clarifying, and cultivating your deepest intention is at the core of the work. It is not something that you impose on the world. it is something that emerges from your being when you serve as a vehicle for the future wanting to emerge. The intention sets the tone of the Work.”
How have I noticed intention?
This definition of ‘Intention’ reminds me of the word ‘Assareeri’ (which means without body in Sanskrit). In Indian myths, this is when a voice from the sky speaks to a person when the time is right, to give them a vision, or inspire them into action.
Many a time, I have heard statements of intention through my dreams or when I am totally still and quiet, as though someone is speaking inside me. Sometimes, when I am still and open to listen to someone else, I have heard the intentions that are wanting to emerge as statements that come from nowhere through the other person. This thought might sound esoteric, but this has been my experience. I have started trusting and listening to these statements of intention.
The first example from my life that came to me while writing this, is from 1997, after my father passed away. I moved to my native village to take care of my family business from being a budding consultant in a city. Every day, more than ten people would come to our shop and cry about his absence and talk about what he did for them and how he had touched their lives. I remember telling everyone around me that only purpose that we live is because we do not have guts to die. I assume that I was in depression then.
I was searching for an answer to the question ‘Why am I living if finally life is so transient? What is the use of living? What is the purpose? I used to ponder over this question for hours. One stormy, rainy night, I was preparing to sleep, I heard a statement in my mother tongue through the sounds of rain and wind, “You are born to churn yourself and create knowledge and wisdom for the goodness of the world”. I listened to this voice, and every thing changed from 1998.
In the language of Theory U, I believe that I was at the bottom of the U (Presencing) where because I have observed and suspended my Voices of Judgement, Cynicism and Fear over a period of five months and had reached a state of stillness and vacuum. In this state of vacuum I was ready to listen to what emerged from the universe through my being.
After this experience, there are numerous instances of noticing or listening to the intentions that come to me from the universe either like this or through someone else. So, I believe being empty, still and willing to receive what emerges in the moment is the key capacity for noticing intention that speaks to us!
I strongly believe that these intentions do not come from my logical mind of structured thinking. It is also not a statement of a solution for problem solving — when it comes from logic or problem solving, the statement of intention is a ‘Compensatory intention’, not one’s true calling.
What are the ways in which I have clarified the intention that comes?
Some thoughts about clarifying an intention that I have practiced are the following:
- Sit on it: I really spend hours visualising it and painting a picture in my mind, heart and gut. Hence it becomes clearer and sharper.
- Listen through my body and six senses: When I am sitting on it for an adequate time I can sense it through all six senses: Hearing, Seeing, Feeling it in my skin, Feel the taste of the experience, Smell it around me and Sense it in my intuition.
- Clarify with another person: If the intention statement came from another person I spend hours with the person in dialogue to see the picture together. Sometimes, I have done this even when the statement did not come from another person.
The questions that have helped me clarify the intention are:
- Who am I to do this?
- What would that lead to?
- Why is it important?
- What difference does it make to my Ecosystem and to the world?
How have I cultivated the intention?
Intention is like a seed, cultivation is like nurturing a seed to grow into a tree or even a forest. In a sense, what a cultivator does is to ensure conditions are created for plants to grow. That would mean ensuring the soil is prepared first, the best potent seed is chosen, it is seeded at the right depth. After this, the right level of water is provided, with enough sunlight, the right soil conditions, and pests and birds kept away till the seedling grows to a certain level.
This a perfect analogy of how I cultivate the intention. Let us see what I do when I do this for clients:
- Every day I remember and hold the intention for my clients. I sit on it and visualise it for some time.
- We ensure that at the start of any intervention a holding group is formed to collectively hold the intention by talking and thinking about it quite often.
- Ensure the ground is prepared at least with critical mass through dialogues and awareness building.
- We choose the people who are early believers to be agents facilitating the change internally.Then this group of people also start holding and cultivating the intention.
- We create multiple holding spaces inside the organisation to hold the intention through conversations and actions.
- We also protect these early steps from any disturbances from within the organisation or from outside the organisation.
Whenever I think of holding intention, I remember a mother’s womb, because it provides a safe and clean nurturing space for a seed to grow. This is what I mean when I talk about providing a safe, clean container.
Why do we waver in our intention sometimes and how can we manage it?
One of the concepts that has helped me in cultivating or holding my intention is that of ‘Structural Tension’. Robert Fritz talked about this concept in his book, ‘Your Life as Art’, and Peter M. Senge in his book, ‘The Fifth Discipline’. I refer to it as the Rubber Band Model of cultivating intention.
When we look at the picture above, there are three components in the structure. The vision, pulling one forward from the current reality and feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness, pulling one away from the vision. I use vision, purpose and intention interchangeably in this context. The two rubber bands pulling in the opposite directions create structural tension. In my experience this model holds true for the individual or any other system.
When the tension of the rubber band that is tied to the feelings of worthlessness / powerlessness becomes stronger, ‘Oscillation’ begins. Oscillation leads to our inner wavering about the intention — through doubting the intention, or doubting our power or worth to make it happen. In many cases, I have seen individuals or systems either giving up the intention or reducing the intention to a smaller one. Developing the capacity of a system to hold this tension is very critical for actualising the intention.
The strategies that have worked for me to hold intention either for self or the Ecosystems I am part of are:
- Continually strengthen my intention by clarifying and nurturing.
- See my current reality clinically and see the gap clearly
- Not deny my feelings of worthlessness / powerlessness/ face them squarely. In the language of Theory U, it is about observing and suspending Voices of Judgement, Cynicism and Fear.
There are times I have experienced that the third strategy does not help adequately to reduce the tension of the rubber band that is pulling me back. What has worked for me, is to go to the root of the structure, which might come from systemic stories and images that I hold.
This is something I have seen has worked in my organisational change assignments as well as my executive coaching assignments.
What does the statement, “It is not something that you impose on the world. It is something that emerges from your being when you serve as a vehicle for the future wanting to emerge”, mean to me?
Let us take a simple example — visualise a company creating a product that it believes will make it a lot of money. Now contrast this with a company which very deeply understands the customer’s needs and wants , as well as the first order and second order impact that it will create on ecology and economy, before even developing the product. The first intention comes from Egosystem awareness (I or Mine). The second one comes from Ecosystem consciousness (I in service of the Ecosystem).
I have been asked by a few people, “Why can’t I have an intention for only myself?” One of the examples that I have spoken about at the time is about making money. Let us assume that I want to make loads of money. Then when you ask a question, “What would that lead to?” If the answer is, “My family and I will have all the luxuries for generations to come”, then it is Egocentric (Focused in I & Mine). Whereas, if the answer is, “I will be able to contribute by employing a few people or contribute to the wellbeing of the community I live in”, then the same intention can be Ecocentric.
I strongly believe the intention that arises from Egosystem awareness moves us towards narcissism, self-orientation and focus on short term gains; whereas Ecosystem consciousness leads to other orientation and focuses on positive results that we will produce for generations to come. However, I am not judgemental when I say this because, many a time, in a given space and time, what comes to us, comes.
Let us look at the current situation in our world with COVID-19. I believe that the universe is speaking to us through this pandemic. To me, it feels like a disruption in which ‘something new’ is wanting to emerge. The question is, how many of us are willing to listen to this intention.
What helped me re-articulate my intention in the recent times?
Over the last two months, I attended ‘Become’, a program offered by Kaospilot, Denmark. They had a simple, effective format for writing ones’ work or organisational purpose. I loved it because it forces one to be Ecocentric in one’s intention.
They define purpose simply by saying, “A ‘purpose’ is to define what your project, team, job or organisation is in relation to the positive impact that it has on others. It is not what it does or how it does it.”
The format they gave us is to write down the 3 parts and combine them and sharpen it:
Main action:
Stakeholder:
Outcome (for the stakeholder):
Using this format, the statement of ‘My purpose’, that I wrote is: “To transform hearts and minds of individuals and organisations to live and grow meaningfully to create a borderless sustainable world.”
I have already started working on expanding the scope of what I do by building a few prototypes based on this re-articulated purpose.
Do hope this article triggered some thoughts for you to notice, clarify, and cultivate your deepest intention as the core of your work.
With inputs from Deepa Ram Bhat
