Healthy systems

"To create a healthier system, connect it to more of itself."

The principle above from Margaret Wheatley has always struck me as both accurate and deceivingly hard to pull off.

The pandemic, remote working, and deterioration of social institutions make connecting anything to itself increasingly tricky.

There is a foundational assumption in Co-Active Coaching that people (and systems) are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole - that the solutions we seek are often held in quiet or hidden parts of ourselves (and our organizations).

Part of coaching is helping leaders access this hidden wisdom and move the organization toward greater wholeness, connection, and resilience.

When I coach CEOs, one of my standing questions is, "what part of the system most needs your attention now"? They are almost always surprised by their answer.

To release potential in teams and address our most complex challenges, leaders must begin to see themselves as "connection weavers" rather than "problem solvers." The passage below from Margaret Wheatley sums it up well.

"Living systems contain their own solutions. When they are suffering in any way-from divisive relationships, from lack of information, from declining performance-the solution is always to bring the system together so that it can learn more about itself from itself. Somewhere in the system there are people who have already figured out how to resolve this problem. They are already practicing what others think is impossible. Or they possess information which, if known more widely, would help many others. Or as a particular group that has been negatively labeled or stereotyped, they are far more capable than anyone knows."


What practices, questions or approaches have you found help connect a system to itself?