Setting the Stage and Generativity One

Generativity One and Leaving Something that Lingers

In his book on The Active Life, Parker Palmer (1999) employs a wonderful and quite poignant metaphor about dropping one pebble in a basin of water. At first the water in the basin is impacted by the dropped pebble. The ripples in the water serve as clear evidence of the pebble’s impact. However, the ripples soon die away, and the water no longer has any memory of the pebble’s impact.

We similarly often wonder whether our life is having an impact. Does the water (our world) remember anything about our existence and presence?  While Palmer has identified a profound existential issue that each of us must often confront, we gently offer a slightly altered metaphor. We chose to replace the basin of water with a lake. The pebble is dropped in the water and the ripples spread out across the lake lapping on the shoreline. While the ripples soon die out, there are usually small indentations on the shoreline. This suggests that our own impact on the world might not be immediately observable, but somewhere on a distant shore the impact can be found. We have made a difference. . .

Frequently, our impact is discovered many years later in the lives of our children, grandchildren, and perhaps even great grandchildren. While the distant shore is not far away in term of space, it is often far away in terms of time. Similarly, the lingering impact of our work in life might be found in a project we have initiated as its influence cascades across many other segments of our society.

Everything changes a little to accommodate the minor intrusion we have made on the fabric of our community, social system, nation or world. We tread on the earth and leave an imprint.  We leave a legacy. This is what Generativity One is all about—and where professional coaching can make a difference. The matter of legacy can be effectively addressed by coaches who spend time with their client considering the leadership practices that most effectively make a lasting contribution to an organization and/or community (Sandstrom and Smith, 2017; Bergquist, 2020)

Early on, and certainly by the time we are young adults, we hope that something endures beyond our life.  We hope there will be a legacy, a remnant that endures.  As Parker Palmer has noted, we don’t want to believe that the water has no memory of the pebble. We give birth to children and begin a project during our young adulthood often in hopes of leaving a mark on a distant shoreline. Furthermore, we often need help in leaving this mark, especially if it involved giving birth to one or more child and raising it.

Thus, the first generativity role is often engaged in relationship with another person.  There is collaborative generativity. While this form of generativity is to be found in Generativity Two, Three, and Four, it is particularly prevalent in Generativity Two. We find in an enduring, intimate relationship the opportunity to bear and raise children. In this essay, we turn to stories of first order generativity told by couples about the challenges and gratifications that come from shared generativity.

Not all adults find generativity in the raising of children. Some find generativity in a special project they initiate while in young adulthood or even later in life (e.g., lobbying the state legislature for a special cause, staring a not-for-profit organization, planting an annual community vegetable garden). In many instances, we have found that these projects are also shared with a life partner.

In this essay we focus on stories about conducting a mutual project but also touch on the matter of child-raising. For many of the people we interviewed, a shared project is their “baby” and should in no way be diminished by being relegated to some secondary role or defined as a “surrogate” for the child-rearing process. We will be focusing in particular on the role played by Generativity One in the promotion of projects since we are focused in this set of essays on the role played by coaches in guiding clients through their life of work.

We turn first to the central question in the engagement of first order generativity: should I (or we) initiate a project (or should I/we raise a child)?