Turning to One Another
Part 2 of Meg Wheatley’s talk to the 2003 Circles of Recovery Conference PLUS Presenting the book, Turning to One Another

Turning to One Another
How Communities Can Change From Within
Meg Wheatley’s talk from the Circles of Recovery Conference Albuquerque, New Mexico, September 20, 2003
Part 2

Our leadership requires a shift from thinking of ourselves as the armless Roman hero, to the earth mother—to Gaia. This requires a shift in you. Are you really willing to become not the hero, but the host? Can you be the leader who welcomes other people’s contributions? Can you be the leader who is always inviting in other people for their point of view, their perspective, their insight, and their creativity? Think about what it feels like to host a party, a gathering, a powwow, or a sacred ceremony. How much attention is given to the kind of experience you want people to have there?

The Welcoming Circle
How many of you hold your meetings in a circle? The circle is deep in your traditions as expressed by the Sacred Hoop, which is here today. Circle meetings are the oldest forms of meeting. We have evidence now in the archeological record from 500,000 years ago that some form of human ancestor was sitting in a circle around a fire. The circle has not only a sacred geometry, but it has its usefulness. If they had chosen to sit around the fire in a rectangle, some people would have frozen. When we sit in a circle we all have access to the fire. We have access to each other. I’ve learned something really important from both Native American traditions and in the African use of the Circle: the circle is the form of equality. Everyone who is in a circle is equal. You can’t tell who is sitting at the head. There’s no org chart. It means that when we go into Circle or into Council we are stating that everyone is of equal value. We never know where the wisdom is going to appear from in that circle. We never know who is going to have just the right piece of information or a bright idea. We never know. That’s why we create the circle. We want everyone to feel welcome. It’s also the only form I know of where people get thoughtful rather than angry.

A Talking Circle on Hoop Journey II in Albuquerque, NM

So many of the processes we are using right now in meetings actually create the bad behavior that we don’t want. If the space for a public hearing is set up so that people have to come to the front of the room and talk, all you’re going to get is bad behavior. People will be dramatic, angry, and theatrical just to get our attention. If you sit in a rectangle or a square you are immediately creating the possibility for opposition. I use squares and rectangles when I actually want opposition, when I want to get out all the different points of view. I use a circle when I want people to be reflective and calm and supportive of each other, when I want everyone to feel welcome there. Thinking about which process works for what you want to accomplish as a leader is very important. If you want opposition, put people in the normal rectangles. If you want deep thought and equality, use the circle. If you want drama, use a microphone up front. You have to notice what you want and then change the form.

In all of this, the need is to be welcoming and inviting of other people’s contribution. That’s the role of host. You are inviting people to a party, to a celebration, to a ritual, not to another dumb, boring, time-wasting meeting. In you, there has to be a fundamental faith that other people have the skill and the ideas that the organization needs. You can no longer believe that it is all up to you. You can no longer hold onto the belief that “I know best.” You can no longer hold onto the belief that I’ll figure it out on my own, thank you very much. That I’m the smartest one here. Those beliefs are false.

Aspen Teachings and Other Prophecies
There is one more teaching from the Aspen trees. The Aspen trees apparently started in Wisconsin. Now they are all over the Rocky Mountains. They are a western species now. They are part of the poplar tree family so they are related to cottonwoods. Starting in Wisconsin, when the last ice age came 10,000 or 12,000 years ago, the great glaciers came down to Wisconsin and the Aspen trees traveled west. They couldn’t survive in the conditions where they had been thriving in the past so they went underground, put out their roots and they traveled west. To this day, farmers dig up Aspen roots in their fields, marking the journey of these trees. They are known as a pioneering species.

Aspens inside a large Aspen circle

For me, I think the lesson that I’m taking right now is that when the current conditions of a culture are moving in so much the wrong direction—more divisions, more disparity between the rich and the poor, more greed, more aggression, more separation of people, more polarizing factions, and that’s what America is right now—when that’s going on, I think we had better take care to notice how we are going to get out of this mess. For me, the learning of the Aspens is: we go underground, we notice our roots, and we travel with our interconnectedness. We are journeying towards a society that has more compassion in it, more respect, and far greater generosity of spirit and means than we now have. But we are not going to get there if we think we can do it on our own. We’re not going to get there unless we notice that we are already exquisitely interconnected. This journey will probably have to take place underground in order for us to be real pioneers. We can’t lose our connectedness. That’s the only thing that will get us to this new land and culture that we so envision.

I want to say one other thing that comes from another Native tradition, the Incans in Peru. Before the Conquistadors landed in Peru their king had a dream. In this dream the king saw men carrying sticks that belched fire. He was told that the Incan culture would be destroyed. It’s very similar to Black Elk’s dream. He was told to take the sacred knowledge and make sure it wasn’t lost from the earth. They took it up to 17,0000 feet. They knew that no Spaniard could live at that altitude. They hid it with their shamans in the caves. There was another part to the prophecy. It spoke of us Homo sapiens, meaning wise humans. It said that in this time, right now, human kind would face a choice, an evolutionary choice. We will either descend and disappear, or we will change to become, Homo Luminous, humans of the light body. And that’s where we are right now, at this choice point.

Another part of the Incan prophecy was that the teachers for this time would be found in the north, not in the south. I was very puzzled by that for many years until I realized that it is only those of us who have lived in this culture who really see it for what it is. You can’t tell a poor child in Tanzania that they shouldn’t have everything that they think Americans do. You can’t convince someone who hasn’t lived here that they should give up that dream because it’s not worth it. It’s only those of us who have lived inside this culture who now can see it clearly. And that’s why we are the teachers. But to be teachers we have to claim the ancient knowledge, not just the modern knowledge. We have to claim the traditional teachings. They are coming back in many, many forms among northern Native American nations. This is all part of the prophecy of our southern brothers and sisters from 500 years ago.

What kind of a leader are you?
I get to meet a lot of people and some of them are very, very smart people. Some of them are CEO’s and government people at high levels. But I haven’t met anyone who is smart enough to know what on earth is going on right now. Looking at the level of a large system, the problems are so complex. But we have the same difficulty at the level of the individual. How can any one of us figure out what’s going on with me, by myself? How can any one of us see our behavior as others see us? In our organizations, how can any one leader know enough about the dynamics of the community or the events that are going on in people’s lives? It’s just impossible to know anything by yourself any longer. I don’t think it ever was possible, but we are living with a culture that says it was possible—you could do it on your own. We know that’s not true.

I would like to have set in motion by speaking with you today a set of questions that you’ll think about.

• What is the image of leader that is motivating you right now?

• Are you trying to save people, are you trying to rescue them?

• Are you trying to be the hero and make it better?

• Are you engaged in competition with other programs, other agencies, other folks, because you don’t know another way to do it?

• If we were in your community, would they identify you as the hero or the host?

• What are the processes you are using, and for what purposes?

Whatever wisdom you hold around healing, relationship, interconnectedness, community, and life, this is the time to carry those teachings and the sacred wisdom that now has to be brought back in to our communities and into our work. This isn’t something you learn by getting an MBA, it isn’t something you learn by getting a college degree. This is something that we are accessing from another time and from other teachers, such as the Incan prophecies. The real challenge for us is to know that it is the right time to bring forth and fulfill these prophecies, and those from your own traditions.

I pray that we do that. Thank you very much

A baby Aspen

Dr. Margaret Wheatley is the author of Leadership and the New Science as well as Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future. She is a popular leadership and organizational development consultant.