This is another raw edge writing getting turned into a honed blade and I need your help to make it better. I'm going to invite you specifically, please give me your thoughts as you read or listen to this. Let me know where something resonated like a drumbeat in your soul. Let me know where my writing was clear and bold. And let me know where you get lost or where you think I'm lost in the writing. Point out the specific place and tell me what your experience was. That is the most useful feedback to me. This one requires a new level of bravery in vulnerability from me. So if you do offer your thoughts, my special thanks. One last thing. I’m like a college student writing a term paper at the last minute. I only have about 48 hours to receive your comments. So if you are reading or listening and it’s past August 7, I’ve already turned it in.
#Future-fit leaders are collapse aware.
I live in a suburb in the United States. Individual houses with driveways and a plot of land around each, separating one from the next. It's a small neighborhood, with just three cul-de-sacs and a glorious canopy of mature trees. It’s one of the few neighborhoods where the developer did not clear cut all the trees to make construction more efficient.
My house is surrounded by these towering giants soaring into the sky and embracing all the houses in the neighborhood in their laps of roots and dirt.
My house has a plot of forest behind it, a little triangular shaped tract of trees that protect a meandering stream that flows to the Chesapeake Bay and on to the Atlantic Ocean. We bought the house for this wetlands-protected stand of forest, and it is our daily solace and source of greatest peace. Visitors often call it an idyllic setting.
Within a couple miles of my house are two huge grocery stores, a 10-screen movie theater, and more upscale shops and restaurants than you can visit in a year. Four diamond jewelry stores within a mile of each other, along with the four Starbucks within a mile of each other. Everything is easy to get to. Food, doctors, entertainment, dining. Nothing takes us more than five minutes to get to by car. And whatever we need that we can't get or that we're too lazy or busy to drive to, we can get on Amazon within two days. It is the height of convenience.
Idyllic, convenient, and so very comfortable.
As long as it all works.
During the early days of the COVID pandemic, people were making a run on toilet paper. No toilet paper on the shelves was mildly disturbing to me. Really disturbing was the grocery shelves empty of rice and beans. Once they became available again, I stocked up. I'll sheepishly admit that I have a plastic bin full of rice and beans in my garage — still — that we are trying to eat our way through.
The empty shelves of rice and beans was a wake up call for me. In an instant, I saw that the complex, multinational, multi-corporate supply chains I rely on for basic survival are not as strong and stable as I was led to believe by the experience of seeing the grocery store full every single day of my life. Not only were they not strong and stable, they were actually quite brittle. Easy to break. Easy to interrupt.
In the face of this shocking realization, my primal urge for survival kicked in. Hence the bin of rice and beans, and the stand-up freezer, and the one I'm most embarrassed to reveal, the portable gas powered generator we have never taken out of the box.
It’s a stark notion to grapple with: the systems I took for granted to be unfailingly there for my daily survival are brittle and likely to fail given stressors like a pandemic. Or stressors like climate catastrophes that set off mass migration, food shortages, and violence. Or global financial collapse because the house of cards we have built our financial system on has finally met a headwind too strong to continue to stand. Many paths could lead to societal collapse, and it seems we are heading down several of them at once.
Margaret Wheatley, a leadership author and prominent thinker, asks the question, ‘Who do you want to be as a leader in collapse?’ It's an important question. Not because collapse is a foregone conclusion or couldn't be lessened at least a bit, but because it sets up a powerful thought experiment: Imagine yourself still leading, still being useful, still meeting challenges with creativity even when everything you relied on is collapsing and everyone else is freaking out in the worst ways. Who do you want to be as a leader then? If you’re up for it, let ‘who do you want to be as a leader in collapse’ marinate in your thoughts for a while. See if your answer reveals a needed change in what you’re doing or how you’re being. Or, perhaps your activities and beliefs remain the same, but the motivation beneath them evolves.
As useful as this thought experiment can be, intellectual contemplation alone isn’t sufficient. We need to engage more than our intellect. Cognitive tools are not enough. We must engage our emotional toolkit as well.
As soon as your mind tiptoes into the territory of collapse, a number of emotional and physical reactions get triggered. Check it out for yourself. As you have been reading or listening to this, has your gut gotten tight? Have you started to experience a sensation in your chest? Or anywhere else in your body? Your throat perhaps? Have emotions arisen? Shock, anger, despair, overwhelm, fear, anxiety, guilt? Those are some common ones. All of this is normal. Of all the things you could be upset about, this one is definitely worth it.
Bioethicists have offered a set of maxims for ethical behavior during collapse. Two of these are: work hard to grasp the immensity of the changes ahead and train your body and mind to be psychologically fit for processing strong emotions.
When experiencing strong emotions, most people try to block them or distract the mind by moving on to something else. While these tactics may help short-term, they don’t improve your ability to stay present, skillful, and leader-ful during chaos. To do that, requires practice with emotional tools. These tools are simple and most find them relaxing. They are not difficult to do, but require repetition to create the necessary reserves. I have listed a few top choices at the end.
The planetary-level challenges we face now and into the future are the biggest context we all share. This set of circumstances shapes everything, including business. It is the primary source of constant and turbulent change.
Being collapse-aware while we lead now — before collapse — reorients the center point on which our minds revolve. We see “resources” differently. We make fewer unconscious assumptions that things will go on as they always have. We challenge the belief that success and progress are synonymous with continuous growth. Our imaginations get kindled as we think, ‘Maybe there is another way…’
==== RESOURCES ====
If you've never heard the terms collapse or collapse-aware, you are not alone. I've spoken with several people who I consider to be progressive leaders who go ‘huh?’ when I use these terms. Here are some helpful educational links:
The Week. Group experience conducted through 3 videos, co-created by Frederic Laloux, author of Reinventing Organizations. One week. Together. To make sense of the defining crisis of our time. One week. Together. To get ready for the defining adventure of our time. Search LinkedIn for people hosting The Week. It’s free and hosted by many people.
Breaking Down: Collapse podcast. The first 8 episodes are “collapse 101.” It’s two friends: one is an expert on collapse, the other is a skeptic. Listen to a warm and lively conversation between longtime buddies as you receive a tutorial on collapse. Apple Podcasts Spotify
Margaret Wheatley: Who do we Choose to Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity
Becoming educated on collapse is the first move, but expanding your emotional toolkit is also needed:
Box breathing. There are many resources online that introduce you to this ancient breathwork technique.
RAIN technique for working with strong emotions by Tara Brach: Meditation Introduction
10 minutes to an eternal perspective visualization by Dr. Roger Walsh
Long Time Academy podcast offers a healthy balance of the cognitive and emotional
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