The Integral Leadership Review has a wonderful article by Keith Bellamy called Integral For the Masses: Integral Leadership - Steve Frazee on The Gulf Betweeen Theory and Practice that can be found here.For those of you who may not know, or remember, Steve is the former CEO of Integral Institute, and Keith's article is as good an explanation of why Steve is no longer there as I've seen, including Steve's. The reason this is important is because many of us, including Integral Institute, seem to be struggling with how to step into second tier leadership. Speaking for SeattleIntegral as one of the original founders (and the only benefactor), we finally have a leadership group that is mostly second tier (but not necessarily everyone, at the same time, around all of the issues).
I consider myself to be operating most of the time from second tier, but once in a while I have shadow stuff that comes up where I clearly act in a first tier manner. We all do, because after all, these are developmental lines and the relative world we're talking about, folks, not just up and out.
What is becoming clearer and clearer for me all the time, and reinforced by Keith's article and Steve's quotes, is the absolute need for salons, and other organizations, to (1) have a structured membership that actually means something more than just belonging to a list, and (2) that SeattleIntegral, or any other organization, will not be an ongoing mature entity until it can support itself. If I were to go away tomorrow, the website would cease to exist, our Meetup would not be funded, and much of the organization would no longer function at the level it now functions at. Unfortunately, this is not healthy.
This is not new to me, and I've been the biggest proponent of developing the Core (leadership) Group, but there is much that remains to be done. In the next posting, I'm going to lay out out a temporary and a long term plan for SeattleIntegral to grow into maturity. It involves members, and the Core Group, stepping up, and it will probably change what it means to be a successful, mature salon....or how salons are not yet truly ready to emerge as grown-ups.
Interesting....everything at this point looks like a test to me.
Image by Gary Stamper
1 comment:
Hey Gary: Thanx for turning me on to the "Integral for the Masses" article. I am quite inclined to agree that "2nd tier" must transcend and include the basic structures of "1st tier". Just because someone wants to introduce basic business and organizational sturcture to a group does not necessarily mean that they are coming from an amber or orange cognition--amber and orange basic structure do need to be included to operate as an individual and colective at later spheres of development. Also, people with actual life experience in leadership are needed in a group for it to function--not just theoretical knowledge. I can now see why those who have spent most of their life living in the "ivory tower" are struggling with making I-I actually work. =)
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