Power vacuums and paradigm shifts
Kate here, pondering how power really flows (is it back to the centre?)
Dear Lynne,
Well, here we are, finally sniffing around the edge of what power means. Thank you so much for your last letter: I really enjoyed it, and found myself coming back to this part again and again:
Navigating the forest while being supportive in relation to actual and perceived power takes skill and nuance. … The tasks of balancing and prioritising, particularly when there are conflicting needs at play, takes an emotional toll. And all of this needs to be held and navigated while constantly giving power away to continue toward the goal of a non-hierarchical organisation.
If we are saying that earth centred holistic organisations tend towards being non-hierarchical (and I wonder if we will come to question this!) then we really need to get real about power. Almost all of my experiences in the past five years or so have been in organisations that are striving for less overt hierarchy, more distributed power, more self management. And I’ve been in a formal leadership position in many of those - therefore in a place of wanting to give away rather than take power.
Something I’ve been reflecting on recently though is that if everyone with power is keen (ideologically and practically) to give it away, then we can often find ourselves with a real vacuum at the centre. There can be a lack of people willing or able to take authority, to create momentum, and (while noone overtly wants this) we can find ourselves struggling to make decisions because of a sense of wanting to do things collectively.
Models like sociocracy are really rich and clear but can take a lot of time to establish and find the boundaries of - all while the world carries on and the business needs tending. I’ve seen in a couple of places the control and power ricochet back to those with the formal positional power when things get tricky financially or otherwise in the business, and find myself in the slightly uncomfortable position of wondering if these new ways of working only work in the good times.
One of my faves on substack,
’s New Ways of Working newsletter raised this question just a couple of weeks ago, and in his follow up post suggested that it might be that the new ways of working “movement” is part of a bigger paradigm shift. Even those of us who are in theory committed to them will revert back to the familiar home of the dominant paradigm when things get hard. I wonder if it’s helpful for us to think of earth centred holistic organisations as part of a new paradigm (and how thinking more mythically might help us here).I love the idea that power is a resource that can flow freely through an organisation. I LOVE the idea of building organisations that are leaderFUL and full of people with authority over their own work and lives. I come back again and again to Rich Bartlett’s great writing on how to work well with power in organisations - and I do believe - I have seen! that it’s possible. But it’s hard. Like Mark Eddleston says “Shifting a paradigm is like trying to move tectonic plates—a monumental task that takes time and tremendous effort.”
Are we signed up for this kind of effort? I think we are - but I wonder what myths can tell us about paradigm shifts and this kind of worldview change?
lots of (slightly confused!) love
Kate