Leaning in to listen

The controversy around Sheryl Sandberg is a sign that it’s time for the next stage of the #metoo movement.

When Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In was released in 2013, I was a burnt-out and exhausted business woman and mother of three searching for answers. I raced out and grabbed the book, looking eagerly for somethingthat would help.

But the book told me the opposite of what I wanted to hear. Lean inseemed to be telling me how to get better at “winning” in the established system – and I just wanted out. I was sick of negotiating with 20 men around big board room tables. Sick of navigating egos. Being in the business world just took me further away from myself and my three children. I didn't want to get good at being in this system. I didn’t want to try to be what men are. 

Most of the men I got to know didn’t really want to be part of it either. 

I had tried Sheryl’s version of leaning in, and it just meant me trying to manage and control all aspects of my life, leaving me exhausted and carrying more responsibility at home and at work than I could bear.

(I tried the goddess thing too but that didn’t go anywhere either. I love to dance in waterfalls and it felt good after boardrooms… but this sort of surrendering was not grounded in the every-day reality of my world.)

For me, the sentiment inLean Inwas -- and is -- a distraction from, and simplification of, the complexity of the larger culture transformation we are moving through. It was leaning in to make yourself successful in a system that is broken. It was the part of the myth-making about success and economic power as a desirable result in a world in which the way we are going about these things is killing our planet and the quality of our lives.

I started asking: Why is it important to bring women’s voices into the mix? What difference does it bring? What value does it add? 

Then of course my teenager chimes in saying “What is gender anyway, mom? Can't we just move beyond that?”

What does it really mean to empower women? Just because someone is a woman, does that mean that they will always bring a healthier relationship with power to the world?

What if empowering women didn’t mean givingwomen power, but meant changing our relationship to power? For women andmen? For the structures we work in? For the way we operate in the world?

The controversy around Sandberg – for whom I feel great empathy -- is for me a sign that the time has come for the next stage of the #metoo movement. Permission to speak up about the way things are not working in our structures. Permission to walk away and let them fall apart in order to leave spaces for a new way. 

That Sheryl Sandberg resorted to screaming in a board room to get things happening can hardly come as a surprise. She became a product of the system she leant into. Blind “empowerment” of women will not change the way things are done and will lend nothing to the evolution that is already occurring.

The importance of finding ways for us all to pause, stop and listen cannot be overstated. To hear what is beyond the noise. To listen and be in the moments of complexity with no right answer. To hear beyond what we have learned is no longer working.

We are Open Circle has emerged from this sense of urgency to find new ways to listen, communicate – and work. How to work with the recognition that our difference can be our special gift to give -- whether that is the difference of gender or culture or religion or experience. 

We teach skills to listen with a shared sense of our humanity, and with the recognition that wisdom can be found in our differences. A collective wisdom that acknowledges the natural ecosystem we are a part of – interconnected and yet each with an individual and unique role to play.  That is the miracle of life. 

So just as people do their daily yoga practice or visit the gym to keep their bodies and minds and spirits healthy, we need this way of being together in groups now more than ever to regenerate and make our culture healthy. 

This reframes the idea of what power is. It is the ability to stop in any given situation and make space to hear each other outside of our agendas, our identity as a woman or a man and to be with the complexity of our stories. 

Miriam Jones is a partner in We are Open Circle. The group’s foundational training: Listening as a transformational practice in work and life will be held in Santa Cruz on January 11-13. Click HERE more information or to register