Evan Renaerts

Cultures of Expression

November 14, 2007

Sunday’s wind storm stripped the last of the leaves from the trees; they stand with up-flung limbs expressing another form of beauty.

Last night my twelve year-old and I were at the open house of a high school she is thinking of attending next year. The teachers, students, and parents collaborated to create a presentation of the various programs, followed by a student led session for the kids and a parent and teacher talking circle for us old folks.

The entire evening was structured to make the new people feel welcome and to make it safe to ask all kinds of questions. This is no small feat, creating a culture where the hierarchy of management is just one part of how things work.

In my work I am acutely aware of the spectrum of safety and trust within organizations; everything from the model where the boss is the boss and questioning is not encouraged to a modified form of consensus decision making where every voice has equal weight. The more groups and organizations are structured to encourage every voice, the higher the levels of trust and the sense of safety.

Wherever people sense that they will be criticized or penalized for not knowing the “right” answer, for questioning the perceived wisdom, for opposing a main stream decision or for saying what they really think, they will revert to spouting opinions and positions. When people do not feel safe they seldom risk exposing their real self – their three dimensional, creative, playful, wise self.

The thing about creating an expressive organizational culture is that it can’t be faked. All of us humans have built-in detectors for pretence and bullshit.

To draw out the best in ourselves and each other and to truly invite in the “whole person” in each of us, then we as leaders (and we are all leaders) need to be alright with not having all the answers. We need to cultivate a practice of noticing what roles we have fallen into and be willing to step out of those roles; the roles seem to offer security but what they really do is limit the range of our expression.

Within our groups and organizations we must open ourselves up to the broadest possible range of voices and perspectives; this is our access to unexpected insight and wisdom; this is what’s outside that “box” that everyone talks about.

There is always a challenge in finding the balance between the process and the action in any group, and there is no pat formula for doing this. And perhaps this is where many organizations shy away from genuine dialogue and inclusivity – it isn’t simple and it doesn’t stay “fixed.”

To have an alive and vibrant organization means everyone has to stay engaged. In that way it’s like the rest of our lives; we can either be present and alive or glide through on autopilot.

Evan Renaerts
604 314 0835
evan@evanrenaerts.com