The Voice of the System

So what is the 'voice of the system'... what does it mean, what do we create when we become a partner with another person, set of people or business. What do we consciously invite into our lives? When are we conscious and intentional about the things that we create with others or even the change that happens in our own lives when we invite others to share it.



Take me as a classic example, I love to collaborate with others, I love to have other people in my life and I love to be open and honest with the people that I invite into my life, for the sake of my collaboration with them. What I fail to do, is, to be conscious about, what it is they want, I check that they want to play and yes they do. However I don't ask them, how much they want to play, or how long they want to play for or do they want to play as much as I want to play or what does play look like for them, to help me understand if their version of 'play' resembles my version. No, not really, I rarely have that conversation.



What I am starting to notice is that when I invite others into my life I create something with them, which is a mixture of me and them. So, if I am very organised and I invite someone or an organisation into my life that is not, then guess what, working or playing with them will be less organised than it is when I am alone. Because this is what we create together. Now here is the interesting bit, to create relationship and understanding we have to be open to each others differences and we have to own what we create together, whilst still being individuals as well as partners. So the voice of the system needs to be heard and the individual voices that create the system have to be heard too... interesting.

I believe as leaders and coaches we get hooked on deep democracy (all the voices of the system being heard - you, me) and don't spend enough time looking at or listening for the the voice of the system itself (we). In my case above that would mean that the disorganised voice (you) and the organised voice (me) creates a voice of the system which (us) which is both organised and dis-organised - Wow! If we own the fact that we are both organised and disorganised then we can do something with it. However if our individual voices are the only thing that is heard, (and sometimes we are so in our own stuff that we don't hear the others voice) then the impact can be to separate us rather than bring us together. We have to move from a place of 'who is doing what to whom' to a place of 'what is trying to happen' in the system. When all the voices of the system are not heard and this happens, in particular, with the unpopular or marginalized voices, then issues recycle themselves. When issues recycle themselves it is a clear indication that all the voices have not been heard. The opportunity here is to celebrate the diversity of being human and acknowledge and appreciate each others differences! Easier said than done!



Similarly, when I invite a partner to work with me then I invite the things into my life that we create together by being in relationship with each other. We would never go into a business relationship with anyone without a contract or a document of understanding or even simply a discussion about our intentions..... so here's the dilemma, is it not true that our personal relationships are more important than our business ones and yet we spend less time designing our partnerships and our alliances with these people, or should I say I do.......