The Edge of Chaos

The Edge of Chaos, the aptly named bar at Schumacher College in Devon.

A place where, according to the complexity scientists, phase transition is liable to take place.  I've got to say, I've transited through the odd phase in there myself...

This is Sky, one of the participants on last month's Artful Organisation course.

Sky had travelled over from the States where he helps run Perque, an company attempting to transform healthcare 'speeding the transition from sickness care to healthful caring' by addressing the root causes of sickness rather than simply fixing the symptoms.  He was there to join with artists and policymakers to think about how to respond artfully, aesthetically to the economic and ecological challenges we will be facing over the next decade.

And so that's part of the Schumacher story really; bringing interesting people together in a curious, mostly slightly chaotic, but always very creative way.  

What's not to like...?

Artful Organisation

This is my Ashridge colleague and Artful Practitioner, Chris Seeley, leading a morning exercise at Schumacher College in Devon. 

Chris was at Schumacher working with Chris Nichols, an Ashridge consultant with a long track record in strategy and sustainability, to deliver 'Artful Organisation'; a 4 day inquiry into the question: 

"How can organisations cultivate artful and creative ways to help re-imagine their role, relationships and themselves for a sustainable future?"

One of the key assumptions of the inquiry was that the world has now become too complex, too interconnected for us to apply logic and rationality and expect to get any sensible answers. In fact, the opposite; if we continue to think about the economic and ecological issues using the same old ways we will get the same old stuff. And with that comes the risk that we will continue along a path towards irrevocable damage of our planet...

By bringing our full 'artful' selves to our work we can creatively engage with these issues in a way that will offer new ways of thinking and being.  

So, what does artful creativity require? Courage, guts, edginess, putting yourself out there, risk, resilience... 

So this kind of work is not for the faint-hearted but one of the most matter-of-fact gutsy exponents I know is Dr. Seeley herself.  Here she is leading a 'hand dance' where participants closely mirror each other's hand movements.  

If intimacy and connectivity might set the conditions for different ways of 'being in the world' this a surprisingly interesting exercise... give it a go....