Whose Fear Is It Anyway?

A caveat with regards the above quote. I acknowledge there are a range of socialised barriers that I will not have/had to experience, yet the question is offered with holistic and sincere intent.

If you are based in the UK, you may have come across across the comedy show 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?" In fact looking online I see this got exported to the US too.

Below you can find a YouTube video which gives you a good sense of the show. It really is very funny and for me, very clever.

Using a powerful blend of playfulness, humour and improvisation, the creativity and intuition that these comedians embody is really something to behold and it got me thinking about our personal and especially work lives.

In my humble, personal experience and through a mix of insights from my global, diverse network:

Play is rarely promoted outside of annual events or the occasion team gathering in the workplace due to it being deemed as 'unprofessional' or frivolous in mainstream, daily work

The desire for certainty and assurance is so deeply ingrained in our Western culture that it manifests in 3-4 month budget cycles, every year, even though we have zero control over what will happen tomorrow #checkcovid

Intuition is repeatedly and consistently sacrificed in favour of evidence and deference to power

Improvisation is valued, but only in certain areas of the business such as sales and marketing

Now I am lucky to work within a particular corporate team within my core day job that I am able to leverage a fair amount of all of the above, however only through previously being curious, a tad constructively challenging and seeking to actively co-create the conditions with and for the team to thrive. More about that initial 3-year intuitive journey below if you are curious:

I and we didn't ask for permission to start on what ended up being 3-year transformation of our team which, by the way added Euro 6m in top line sales and Euro 1.5m margin over those 3 years. Similar market dynamics and similar macro environment.

Colleagues taking on new responsibilities based on what the team needed, reimagined meeting design, and so much more.

What if we had asked permission to start a project that I and my line managed intuitively and creatively knew would add value, and someone with power said no?!

How often does this scenario repeat in your personal and/or work life today?

Whose Fear Is It Anyway?

Supremacy Culture Patterns

Let's dive a bit deeper.

A couple of years back I received an, at the time, concerning and now in hindsight, amusing recommendation past to me from the higher-ups that "XX are seeing you post on LinkedIn during regular hours, maybe keep it to the beginning or end of the day."

Now I have the utmost respect for my current line manager, he is a good human doing good work, but was this information exchange his fears being past down the line, or were they the fears of someone at the HQ who past them to him to past down?

Fun fact - By me carrying on with getting my job done on my terms in alignment with the team AND building my network via LinkedIn, I now have the most diverse, inclusive, expansive network I have ever had, the learning from which has regularly been offered to my employer .....

Now my line manager may assert that they are trying to help me out, but my point here is this is one, simple, seemingly insignificant example of how fear, as one of 18 cultural patterns as per Tema Okun's research over 30 years, continues to perpetuate racism and division, reinforcing a system that doesn't actually care about any of us!

What the heck Garry, are you comparing being on LinkedIn to systemic racism, eh?!

Let me take this in a different direction for a moment, but yes the conditioned pattern of fear shows up in a myriad of complex ways.

Let's look at 'Western-DEI' at this time, DEI = Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, rightly accelerated following the murder of George Floyd, and a HUGE wake-up call for me personally.

Why are so many companies still myopically focused on gender only when there is a whole lot more intersectional humanity that makes up, well, humanity?

Well, in comes a closely linked cultural pattern to fear, right to comfort.

Despite so much evidence out there around the business, societal and performance value of more diverse and inclusive teams, we are not seeing anywhere near the shift on well, diverse and inclusive teams. Just one brilliant example can be found as follows, from a Western organisation Harvard Business Review:

So whilst we know how much Western business leaders love evidence, even WITH the evidence, things are not materially changing, nor being prioritised beyond growth, growth and more growth.

Why?

I would assert that the patterns of Fear + Right to Comfort (especially of those with positional and resource power) = base reinforcement of White Supremacy culture

PLEASE, please don't get triggered.

Breathe and checkout Tema Okun's work, it is all very accessible and actually super caring and insightful.

A caveat, I am not a scholar nor DEI expert, I am one human being that cares deeply about us all reconnecting to ourselves, to one another and to the systems that sustain all of life so that we reimagine what healthy, inclusive, just systems look and feel like in all areas of our lives, with workplaces being a huge catalyst of potential if we can deal with our fears and allow ourselves to get more uncomfortable.

Are you willing to look at and behind your fears and to get uncomfortable, with guidance? - If yes we should talk

Just-centering

The sad thing about all of this is that this newsletter update is heavily Western-centered and does not center those actually MOST harmed by our deeply extractive, cancerous and growth obsessed ways, ways I am deeply ingrained within myself as both a full time employee and as an external practitioner and space holder. I wrote a bit more about this below at my medium blogging site:

Whilst I use provocative, energetic words like cancerous and growth obsessed they ARE toxic patterns that stop us slowing down, connecting, listening and reimagining, so they need be called as they are.

Also when you have experienced first hand the pressure of a 8X growth on and in your body, as I did with rapidly growing testicular cancer in early 2020, you are able to empathise with Mother Nature.

Indeed a number of the other culture patterns that reinforce iniquity and unjust structures and systems includes urgency, progress is bigger and more, binary thinking, defensiveness and more.

What does the future look like?

Conversations that WILL start to take place more often in the workplace during 2023.

Double-digit growth, M&A and expansion will not serve us in generations ahead, the model is collapsing, it has collapsed. We are IN it right now.

These are the conversations that MUST start being had, with care and constructive dialogue, within and across the chemicals and up/downstream sectors, one of the most important to modern life and one of the most extractive, but these patterns of fear and right to comfort run deep.

It will take time.

There is no shame required.

There is no guilt required.

However blending our deeply honed head skills with our connected heart and intuitive gut is critically important. Alignment of all three is the point, a re-embodiment if you will after 600 years of conditioning which was powerfully discussed at a recent Community Campfire exploration with Eleanor Snare as Sahana Chattopadhyay?and I's guest:

Curiosity, improvisation, intuition and even some play along the way.

I went live last night to share some of my personal thoughts about where we are, why I have been so disembodied myself and so disconnect for much of my adult life.

Now is the time to get vulnerable. We don't have all the answers.

Now is the time to be bolder. We need to imagine beyond our current stories/narratives.

Now is the time to center those most harmed so we can co-create a more thriving world that works for all, well beyond many of the right to comfort, Western-based 'global' initiatives.

This is not Pollyanna, this is necessary reimagining and systemic redesign.

Are you ready?

Whose fear is it anyway?

Shall we connect?

My name is Garry Turner and I am a Disruption and Innovation Catalyst working at the intersection of International Sales, People and Culture, Equity & Inclusion and Sustainability:

International business development and authentic relationship building human working within and across a Euro 3bn + corporation?

International speaker on topics around human-centered design, vulnerability and change is an inside job

Support senior leaders and mission driven solopreneurs as a Thinking Partner

Facilitator of people-centered workshops and organisational design

The co-creator with Jo Hompstead of Human Development Space in-person gatherings which are an emergent and co-creative space for both businesses and open groups

Digital Business Card — https://link.v1ce.co.uk/GarryTurner?

LinkedIn — https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/garryturnerthinkingpartner

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