CRYING "UNCLE": THE WAY TO BREAKTHROUGH

Things fall apart so things can fall together.

                                                                     Unknown

In the end is our new beginning. What does this mean? It often means when resigned, at our wit's end, we have a chance to breathe more deeply; to walk along the ocean. An “aha” comes. We wrest ourselves from old ways. Yet, we often exhaust ourselves before we surrender. There is a dreadful sense of defeat, having to cry “uncle."

In leadership and organizational development, we as consultants encourage people to declare their blinds spots or breakdowns. Otto Scharmer in Theory U talks a lot about our discovery of the "blind spots" at the individual, organizational and global levels.

When we continue to go about day, continuing the same ideas and methods that we know are not working, we are lost. When we stop to discovery what is our "blind spot," we have the possibility of discovering something we have not seen. Our blind spots are the space from which we generate our action. Our blind spots often are organizational stories, old learning strategies, doing it the same way handed down in our family conditioning. 

The question arises how does one connect with the empty openness of a future as the organization, learning community or personal leadership is falling apart? Surprising, part of that new discovery lies in declaring the blind spot. 

When tooling down the road, have you ever had a flat tire? There was this nail or rut in the road. Your means of being “in action” has broken down. Acknowledging breakdown is the step toward a better future. Why? Because with this flat tire, you realize you are not going anywhere.

Once acknowledged, take notice. What caused the breakdown? Are you and your organization driving too fast? Not checking the tires before you left? Is it your outmoded beliefs? 

Sitting along the roadside, dwelling on bad luck is not the answer. There are lots of steps in between staying stuck and being safely back on the road…and the better for it. How you go about it either generates more breakdown or gets you into genuine breakthrough. I write of having a “do-over” in my blog, Ceremony. It is my personal breakthrough and offers a mapping to a positive future.

What gives you pause to recognize the breakdown? You promised your sister you would not let her down? You have a dream for what the organization's future could be?

Priscilla Stuckey, who wrote Kissed By A Fox, describes her fifteen-year breakdown. An important soul moment goes awry. She writes, "I desperately wanted to find a solution. But in the fifteen years since, I haven't been able to think of one.” Her friend asks a question. The seeming resolution that comes to mind was not enough.

An important part of Priscilla's road to her breakthrough was her courage to not accept a death that seemed wrong to her. Another part was in her admitting her grief and finding ways to heal it.  "My bags of grief, already heavy, sagged even more with the weight...something in the law seemed wrongheaded." This is declaration is her beginning to admit a breakdown. She entreats us to join her in declaring a collective societal disintegration. She writes a compelling book after being led to her own personal breakthrough. In that breakthrough she invites us as readers to see our blind spots with our natural world. 

Wayne Baker of the Center for Positive Organizations says “extraordinary events--positive or negative--are temporary openings for breakthroughs in personal growth, organizational development, and human progress.” Priscilla shows us a positive way to generate communication and world breakthrough. Intrigued? I hope so; her book is a good one. 

Breakthroughs are the revolutionary pathways. They are everywhere. Andrea Chilcote's blog, The Way I Carry Things chronicles her recent breakthrough and invokes us to dare the same.

The world is full of innovative possibilities when we’re stopped in our tracks. What if, instead of staying stuck, you declare a breakdown, see your blind spot and get back on a NEW road to freedom?

Reader, are you willing to stop and invest the time in a leadership process that can take you into the generation of a breakthrough? What is the breakdown then that will you declare right now?