Heart of the Art

From John Atkinson

Healthy systems are beautifully connected. Think of your body. It is full of wonderful connections. Through them flow nutrients, oxygen, neural signals. Muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, connect to enable amazing patterns of movements. Some are conscious like running or jumping, some are autonomic like breathing or heartbeats. 

Ecosystems also depend on these connections for their healthy function. Our businesses are no different. If you wish to improve the health of a system, attend to its connections. 

As we connect people, teams, localities, customers, suppliers, we surface what is happening in our system and it’s environment. We are able to make new and better sense of circumstances. That means we can make better and more timely decisions leading to more appropriate and effective actions. 

And we must guard against becoming the spider in the web. What matters are the connections that we facilitate, not that we are the connector. 

Our purpose is to realise the inherent potential in the system. If that depends solely on our personal contact list and connections then we become the limit to that potential rather than its liberator. It cannot be ‘all about me’.

So what do you personally want from the energy you spend on connecting? Eric Fromm wrote that we can deceive ourselves about our real self interest if we are ignorant of our self and its real needs. 

And according to Socrates, to know thyself is the beginning of wisdom. 

Leaders cannot realise the inherent potential in their system without being mindful of their own needs and how self and system interweave.