Sustainable Transformation calls for returning to a zero point; returning to a possibility. It’s pure invention.
Sustainable Transformation is a misnomer as it’s generally used. You’re not really sustaining something. In order for transformation to happen, you have to become present or “real,” in the strongest possible sense, to what is now going on and to the inhibiting influences of the past. The past stops us from thinking about what’s new or could be new.
Sustainable Transformation means let’s look at things as they truly are right now, as we truly are now, with a clear mind. And then we can invent what we want. This may include re-inventing some of what’s already there, or something else.
Sustainable transformation is the essence of creativity. It’s the essence of sprouting something that isn’t already there. My view of creativity in its pure sense isn’t simply improving something. This is our approach to creativity when we are working with people in companies.
I had an interesting conversation with a woman from a food company in China which is working hard to improve a cookie. They’re having a difficult time because they can’t start from a zero point. The improved cookie has to look and taste like the old cookie, but somehow it has to be new and have greater appeal to more people. In such as case the effort at creativity largely goes towards messaging about how to present the cookie. They won’t have invented anything new because they’re stuck with what they already have.
In a similar vein, an awful lot of what’s going on in the world in the name of creativity and innovation cannot produce what companies after or what their customers want. They’re stuck with their past.
In order to have the type of creativity you’re talking about, you have to train yourself to not think about the past and your past experiences.
It’s the notion of “beginner’s mind” starting with a blank slate. If you take a Quantum Physics view you will realize that the world consists of an infinite number of possibilities that don’t come into existence until you ask a question. The real creativity involves coming up with questions for which the answers will generate something that’s actually new. A lot of it has to do with your worldview in the first place.
I’ve recently become interested in traditional Micronesian navigation. Micronesians sailed from island to island without navigation instruments. Their navigation was a discipline, but very intuitive.
Our view is that you move from here into the future, such as you and I are moving into the future right now. Micronesians believe that you’re standing still, and the future is coming to you. If you can put this into your mind, you’ll start to experience things differently. You’ll start to see which aspects of what’s coming to you are attractive, and what aspects are subtle. You’ll start measuring different things.
If we don’t “become present” with one another with the past being in the past, the future in the future, and accept that we’re just here talking to each other, nothing new will happen. You’re going to walk away thinking what you already thought, and I’ll walk away continuing to think what I already thought.
There are so many approaches to inducing the moment of change–that moment when a real transformation or shift happens. If you look at what’s in that moment of change, at the very moment when the altered state occurs, there’s nothing there. The past is in the past, the future is in the future, and the actual moment of transformation is rather like a funnel with a vacuum in it.
Developing skill in achieving this moment of transformation is the essence of our leadership training with executives and coaches.
Executive Coach Charlie Smith is a faculty member at the Leading Coaches’ Academy.
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