We can’t give what we don’t have.
All our organizational redesigns from flattening hierarchies, distributing decisions, and creating self-managing teams, are attempts to create externally what we haven’t cultivated internally.
We’re trying to engineer trust, collaboration, and authentic empowerment through structures and processes.
Meanwhile, the people operating within those structures remain unconscious of their own reactive patterns, fears, and ego-driven behaviors.
The deeper truth is that distributed decision making requires distributed consciousness. Consciousness can’t be mandated, only cultivated.
You can’t have truly empowered teams if people haven’t done the inner work to distinguish between their authentic wisdom and their conditioned reactivity.
You can’t truly serve others while operating from ego and reactive patterns.
Most leaders are unconsciously asking: “How do I get them to engage and make better decisions?”
When the real question is: “How do I cultivate the quality of consciousness that allows collective wisdom to emerge naturally?”
The unspoken truth is that organizational transformation is actually human transformation in disguise.
We keep trying to shortcut the most essential part: the cultivation of our own consciousness.
We want the fruits of awakened collaboration and engagement without the labor of awakening ourselves.
This is why so many empowerment” initiatives fail.
We’re planting seeds in soil that hasn’t been prepared.
This matters.
— Bill
Bill Fox
Helping Leaders See Differently • Transforming Leadership from the Inside Out
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