Permission to Emerge

A leader is perceived to be at the apex of the Fearful Pyramid. With that perception comes an expectation of certain behaviours. It is expected that the designated leader will take control and know more than anyone else in the room. It is not generally expected that the creative potential of others in the room will be allowed to flourish. Requests for help solving problems can be tokenistic because no-one really believes that the leader will allow, or need to learn from, the ideas of others.

Flipping the pyramid can be surprisingly easy. Uttering the sentence, 'I don't know the answer to this but collectively we do', instantly humanises the leader, therefore uniting them on an equal footing with the other human beings in the room. The possibility of creative emergence is instantly alive in the room as armour is dropped and people begin to wonder if their ideas may be listened to, as they realise that they may be able to make a difference.

The room comes alive and the conversation notably doesn't always include the leader. The leader takes the privileged position of listening to a broad range of perspectives with the potential of learning rapidly. Personal experiences are shared where people sense that their story is a valid contribution to the problem to be solved.

Otto Scharmer's Theory U describes a workable framework that helps teams to enter this space of emergence. He describes listing and putting aside previous solutions, perhaps those which haven't been questioned or challenged for some time and parking them well away from the space, as though they never existed. This powerful process powers minds into a place where permission is given not by the leader, but by the space that has ben made, for emergence of new solutions, new ideas. New.

The combined experience of Feeling Together leaves a physical memory in the body that, once felt, cannot be forgotten. Provided the leader continues to shape spaces in this way and doesn't return to being the Knower, teams will rapidly transform.

Showing up with children in this way, both as the leader and as the behind-the-scenes facilitator of such experiences, teachers will create similar spaces in their classrooms. The effect is exponential as children too feel the permission to emerge and a school becomes Fully Alive.