Excerpt #2: A Fast-Changing World Brings A Different Need

Over the coming weeks I will be sharing excerpts from my new book The Inner CEO. This week is a section from the introduction. More details at www.theinnerceo.com

“What used to work doesn’t anymore. We don’t know what to do.”

These were the words spoken to me by a clever and experienced CEO in the middle of the pandemic, and since that conversation I’ve heard a version of them said by leaders everywhere.

Today’s VUCA world is challenging our models of working, leading and living. At the root of all of these are our models of thinking.

The Past Is No Longer A Predictor Of The Future

When I was studying engineering at university, we were taught that all decisions need to be based on facts and rigorous data analysis. I later discovered that the same model is taught in business school.

As the former dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Roger Martin, says:

“this framework is beginning to crumble under the weight of an uncertain future”.

In a rapidly changing world, certainty is less and less possible. As discussed earlier, the corporate world assigns enormous value to ‘the business model’. It’s easy to forget that these models are in fact determined by our ‘inner models’ — by the ways we think.

In today’s world, where disruption and uncertainty are growing, any leader worth their salt knows that just because something worked in the past has no bearing on whether it will work now. In many cases, leaders are doubling down on models that are not creating the outcomes they want.

This is because the majority of our thinking is coming from The Past. As you can see in the graphic below, there are many origins of thought but if we don’t realise this, we can end up trapped in an ‘inner model’.

As Roger Martin says: “People have to look at the actions and the thinking that’s guiding the actions”, otherwise “models come to own their users.”

So for future success, it’s vital to recognise when you’re using a model or pattern of thinking. But what about those breakthrough ideas, solutions and eureka moments? Where do they come from?

And what if we could tap into this source? What would that bring to our worlds?

A Calling

Like many children, Joseph Jaworski had followed in the footsteps of his father, a very successful lawyer who in the 1970s was the lead prosecutor in The Watergate trial.

But as Joseph’s life unfolded something wasn’t right.

In his phenomenal book Synchronicity — The Inner Path Of Leadership, Joseph shares a story of awakening that led him to see that he wasn’t living an authentic life. He wasn’t doing the work he was born to do. He didn’t know what that work was, but he knew he had to explore new territories to find it.

His explorations brought him into contact with some of the most profound thinkers of the last century, in diverse fields including leadership, quantum physics, spirituality, economics, social change and the arts.

Conversations with these people sparked a question that puzzled Joseph immensely, particularly because no-one seemed to have a clear answer even though many were keen to know it.

Here it is:

What is the source of the entrepreneurial impulse and how do we live more from there?

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Joseph over the last couple of years, including being a co-facilitator with he and his business partner Susan Taylor , on a 12 month leadership program called 'Source Enabled Leadership'. I also interviewed him for an episode of my podcast The Inner Edge and in it I asked him what he considered the biggest challenge for leaders in today’s world.

“Conformity to institutional thinking” was his answer.

In essence, this is an unconscious attachment to the thinking from the past. Joseph went on to explain that the biggest challenge in bringing people to a more creative and inspired way of being was taking them out of their fixed mental models.

Early on in his journey, Joseph had a pivotal meeting with David Bohm, who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the last century. He contributed significantly to quantum theory, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind.

Another very smart dude, Albert Einstein, said that Bohm was the only person from whom he ever understood quantum theory. Here’s what Bohm said about thought:

“Thought creates the world and then says: “I didn’t do it.”

Bohm was convinced that thought literally shapes everything in our world. But in his conversation with Joseph, Bohm also pointed to a deeper source of original, innovative and breakthrough ideas, insights or solutions — what Bohm called The Implicate Order.

Quantum physicists call it The Zero Point Field. Some scientists call it The Source. In Eastern culture it might be known as Tao, Qi or Prana.

Joseph told me of a conversation he’d had with the Dean of Engineering in Princeton University, who acknowledged this unseen realm. They were calling it ‘The Source’.

By its very nature, The Source cannot be defined. Bohm told Joseph that “the reality which is most immediate to us cannot be stated.”

People who have somehow learned how to tap into The Source show a capacity for extraordinary functioning and performance.They can access a deep inner knowing and use it for breakthrough thinking, innovation, and an enhanced ability to envision and create the kind of life, organisation or society we desire.

In his book Source - The Inner Path Of Knowledge Creation, Jaworski called these leaders ‘Stage IV leaders’.

By definition he says that these leaders “believe that there is an underlying intelligence within the universe, which is capable of guiding us and preparing us for the futures we must create."

This is an excerpt from my new book The Inner CEO, which is available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audio. I will share more over the coming weeks.

For buying details please go to www.theinnerceo.com