Elysia Commons In Practice

An early paper discussing how the Elysia Commons will work

The Elysia Commons is a container that supports organisations that are united by a single purpose.  The purpose is:

The Elysia Commons meets human beings’ yearning for meaningful work by creating and sustaining a successful ecosystem of organisations that have an ethos of purposeful, accountable activity.

One concrete principle is transparency.  All formal reports are public, everything is transparent, and the information is contained in a central elysia.org website.

Around the outside is a partnership that everyone who is a co-worker in any organisation in the Commons belongs to.  No profit is distributed.  As the Commons is forming leadership will be held by Sebastian Parsons as Founder, but once it is established then leadership will move from the Founder to a democratic body elected by all the Partners (co-workers) of the Commons, see below for more details.

The Elysia Trust is to be created and will be a charity. This Trust will support organisations in the Commons, the Commons itself (for training, PR and so on), and will be funded by profits that the Elysia Commons’ organisations may choose to direct to it, plus whatever other funding it may attract or generate.  This process, in the sense of Steiner’s three-fold, is a mechanism for money to die out of the economy through consumption in charitable activity.

Case Study – The Elysia Consortium of Social and Therapeutic Renewal

A number of therapists some of whom used to work at Park Atwood and were inspired by its therapeutic model, got together after PA closed in order to create a therapeuticum in Stourbridge. In the process they formed a consortium of health care professionals and were the first organisation to be founded in the Elysia Commons.

The vision rests on a fourfold activity of healing leading to wholeness, celebrating imbuing with meaning, being underpinning the work and learning allowing the human being to engage in freedom with their life and their world.

The group meet every month to manage the Consortium, to develop the Therapeuticum and for a Bible Evening in which the Being of this organisation is nurtured.

The flip chart image shows the Elysia Commons (called Elysia Org at the time of the creation of the flip chart) with the various different organisations in it.  The arrow at the top right shows the single purpose that all organisations have in common.  The blue writing at the top and bottom relates to the purpose of the Elysia Consortium of Social and Therapeutic Renewal.

Case Study – Elysia Company

The Elysia Group is the distributor of Dr.Hauschka in the UK and the owner of the Liv organic clothing brand.  It also owns Rush Farm, a 200 acre biodynamic farm in North East Worcestershire, and Stockwood Business Park, based on Rush Farm.  The Elysia  Group is the company co-founded and run by Sebastian Parsons.

Case Study – Commercial Services

It is planned to have a commercial services company which will be dedicated to the task of keeping financial records, producing financial management information, managing HR tasks and supporting other routine administrative matters.

Services include:

• Finance
• HR
• Administration
• IT
• Reprographics

Services available direct from the Elysia Commons include:

• Leadership training
• Elysia Life co-worker magazine
• elysia.org website
• PR (PR is co-ordinated at the level of the Commons, even if it is delegated to different teams throughout the system for different tasks)

Elysia? What’s in a name?

Elysia stands for meaningful work and indicates a committed to a values driven organisation.  The name Elysia can be added to an organisation with agreement of the Elysia Commons, but an organisation does not get to, or have to add the name “Elysia” just because it has joined the Commons.

Governance of the Commons

The task of the Commons is two sided.  On one side it has to contain and support, and on the other side is the activity of holding to account, to their own purposes, the contained organisations.  It has an executive that supports the activity of the organisations.  It has specialist legal expertise for supporting the creation of all the partnership and commercial agreements and it has marketing expertise for the newsletter (inner), website (inner and outer) and PR (outer) tasks.

As part of the negotiation before an organisation joins or is created decisions are made about the relationship with the Commons.  This includes whether or not there will be any ownership and if so the way in which that ownership will operate.  Agreements may also need to be made to facilitate the use of the “Elysia” name if that was desired.

After the initial founding phase a Council is to be elected by a democratic process from the Commons Partners.  This Council is then re-elected every 5 / 7 years thereafter.  The power that the Commons has in each organisations life is strictly limited, as the highest sanction is of leaving the Commons, and that is only as powerful as the Commons is effective.

Possible Organisation of the Governance Process

The Council has 12 seats including a chairman.  Any Commons Partner can put their name forward for Council membership and to be the Chairman.  The names are then put to the members.  The election also elects the chairman, who has a casting vote.  If there is a tie for the election of the chairman then the elected Council members get a second vote, if there is another tie then a coin is tossed.  If there is a tie in the Council Elections then the Council can be larger.

Certain things, like the Commons’ Purpose Statement require a vote of the whole membership and require a 90% agreement to be carried. These rules are laid down in the partnership agreement of the Commons.

The Council meets 4 times a year.  Council decisions only become “formalised” when signed off by a person who has a role called "President".  The remit of the Council is the operation of the Commons, not the organisations within.  This includes the actual partnership agreement of the Commons.  All Council members must be co-workers in contained organisations.  Training is developed to support Council members in understanding and carrying out their roles.

When the President steps down he appoints a single successor, who must be approved by the Council. The President is the ultimate container of the whole system, but has strictly formalised power and is therefore principally a figurehead, with a certain amount of ultimate power that gives the role relevance.  This role has a sting like a bee such that if the President refuses to sign a decision off then this triggers an election process of the President and the Council.  Presidents are appointed for an indefinite period.  If no successor is appointed then the President is elected.  If the President overturns a decision of the Council then that will force an election for the successor.

The way the function of Ownership is held in more and more peripheral containers feels a bit like looking out of a railway carriage at night with the carriages reaching out in to the darkness.  Each layer of containment, the organisation, the Commons Partners, the Commons Council, the Chair of the Commons and the President or the Founder is in a flow of accountability, back and forth.  As the containers stretch outward the capacity of the power to act changes until at the outer extreme there is a certain element of dis-interest, and a strong element of self-sacrifice required if the power is to be mobilised.  This force is balancing the executive forces radiating out from the centre and filling the container with activity.  See the paper called “Leadership and Power” by Sebastian Parsons, 16/8/2011.
With this self-balancing  structure, no matter how big the Commons becomes, the system will be able to accommodate it.  If there were loads of schools, hospitals, doctors surgeries, the university, arts organisations etc then the Council would become bigger and meet more often.  If it works that well then there is likely to be other organisation that set up and compete.  Which is ideal.

Legal Basis for the Elysia Commons

A key principle of the Commons concerns the legal basis for the Commons, which is knitted together by agreements, and which will inevitably result in disputes occurring when agreements are not lived up to.  In all legal matters the Elysia Commons sits in the national legal system and processes of England.  The contracts that exist within the system are controlled by the national legal system and so justice within the Commons is delegated outwards to the national container.  This is in accord with the fundamental principles of the Rights Realm and a prerequisite for good organisational health.

Leadership and Power

I often hear that people do not believe in “hierarchical leadership”, and are strongly opposed to it.  Effective leadership is a core value of the Elysia Commons and this paper sets out some thoughts on the subject that seek to define the terms to allow the discourse to develop.

For I perceive there to be a danger that this statement paralyses our Will through the difference between “leadership” and  what is meant by “hierarchical leadership” not being clear.  The statement “we don’t believe in hierarchical leadership” is so strong that in the presence of any doubt at all, the concept of Leadership, as a whole, becomes forbidden.

Firstly I would like to differentiate ownership from control.  Ownership is the ultimate container and determines how control will deploy.

Control directs the activity of the organisation by deploying authority and through the authority flows the power of the human beings as they carry out their tasks.

Power deployed in directions that are not authorised is essentially abusive.  This can easily occur, particularly when power gets conflated with position and status becomes primary.

Perhaps “hierarchical leadership” has become a codeword for when power is wielded in an organisation in accordance with status instead of authority.

There is nothing in the research in to the Hierarchies to suggest that authority does not flow through a hierarchy.  There is also nothing in the way that Steiner founded the Anthroposophical Society to suggest that he did not believe in leadership. On the contrary, the big decision for Steiner himself was whether to directly take up leadership of the organisation or not.

Our research in to the Hierarchies leaves me with a sense of order and task, of each Being knowing its task and taking it up fully.  In Earthly life, in our organisations, we access our tasks through our roles.

It is interesting to notice that when authority is assigned to the role rather than the person it provides a layer of separation from the person, which is effectively a buffer against the power of the authority seeping through to the person and becoming power mobilised according to status.

Role offers us a critical frame to view ourselves through, because through that frame we can catch sight of ourselves, our system and the context of all.  We can clearly identify our authority, from whence it originates and to where it will flow through us.

It can be seen in this diagram how the ownership is a peripheral force that works inwards and will suffuse the organisation with a particular atmosphere, and that the leadership / management of the organisation is a force that works outwards and permeates the organisation through the paths and channels of authority.

The Elysia Commons offers to support the forces of ownership in properly containing the organisation, suffusing it with a healthy atmosphere, which will in turn support the forces of leadership in permeating the organisation with healthy authority, to foster effective, competitive action.

The Elysia Commons

What is the Elysia Commons?

The Elysia Commons is an ecosystem (association) of organisations that provides benefit to the organisations and the people working in them.  It is supportive in all that each one has in common, and it sharpens all that is particular in each one.  In consequence, it offers competitive advantage against other organisations in society.  The Elysia Commons actively encourages organisational effectiveness through applied values.

In this diagram the Commons is shown weaving between the co-workers and the organisations. This engagement of the co-worker in something bigger than the organisation allows the co-workers to take up a higher perspective that can deepen understanding, a sense of ownership and motivation.  On the other hand, it also allows the member organisations to engage with the “spiritual physics” of ownership in innovate ways that open up freedom and engagement.

Competitive Advantage

Organisations are the creatures of the mesosphere , that sphere which man generates in the course of his own activity in collaboration with others.  These “creatures” all represent different ideas, and through the competition between the organisations, the different ideas strive, evolve, compete. Thus society itself evolves and in it the human being too.

The Elysia Commons embodies a particular idea, the idea that there is meaning to life.  This idea is embodied in the Purpose Statement in a way that is relevant to the activity of the Commons, the activity of being an organisation.

An organisation is an organism of the mesosphere ( from macro = big, micro = small and meso = middle).  It is a contained activity directed to a single purpose.  It is made of people working together.

Purpose Statement of Elysia Commons

The Elysia Commons meets human beings’ yearning for meaningful work by founding and sustaining an ecosystem of organisations that have an ethos of purposeful, accountable activity.

The Administration of the Elysia Common

Organisations join the Commons through an application process.  The key to being accepted is to have a Purpose or Mission that aligns with the purpose of the Elysia Commons and to convince the Commons Leadership Group that your organisation has the intention and / or capacity to actively pursue its chosen purpose.  The following forms / processes are needed:

• Application to found an organisation in the Commons
• Application for your organisation to join the Commons
• Co-worker Induction form
• Elysia Commons Annual Return

The Annual Return is completed once a year before the Organisational Appraisal interview.  The annual return reports on the success of the organisation in working to purpose and fostering a culture of Living Business

Method of the Elysia Commons - Living Business

The method of the Elysia Commons is to enhance consciousness of purpose and to provide support to co-workers in their different roles in taking up their working tasks more effectively.  In particular, attention is paid to supporting a culture of agreement and accountability.  The method can be summed up as fostering Living Business.

Source of Inspiration of the Elysia Commons

The Elysia Commons is, in considerable part, a deployment of thinking that was set out by Rudolf Steiner.  A number of key works by Steiner cover this area, and these include: The Philosophy of Freedom, The Threefold Social Commonwealth, Towards a Social Future and World Economy.

The Elysia Commons support organisational life through a number of different activities:

• Developing Living Business
• Attention to purpose
• Transparency.
• Training to support co-workers in finding freedom of choice in the workplace
• Training to support management and leadership in a way that fosters Living Business
• The Elysia Commons actively supports the health of its co-worker Community
• Monthly co-worker journal, Elysia Life
• Website for co-workers

Supporting Accountability

Tough accountability fosters focus and therefore business success.  Accountability becomes human when it is to a purpose that includes the human being.  The Elysia Commons supports the leadership of the organisations in the eco-system through an annual report and organisational appraisal to ensure that the organisation is making the most of the Elysia Commons.

Leaving the Elysia Commons

An organisation can leave the Elysia Commons, or may be ejected. Ejection, would be because it is not working, in the view of the Commons' Leadership, to the purpose of the Commons.  As a consequence of leaving, the organisation no longer has access to the services and benefits.

Supporting Funding

The Commons seeks to support the flow of money from purely economic activity towards cultural activity.  It operates a Charitable Trust that profit generating businesses within the Commons pay in to, and this Trust pays out to charitable activities operating within the Commons.  The culture of the Commons is self-sustainability, but the reality of certain cultural activity, such as health and education, is that some extra funding is required.

Supporting Ownership

The Elysia Commons fosters a climate of ethical ownership in which the organisation is handed on to the next generation of leaders instead of being sold. This is quite normal in the charitable sector but is unusual in the business sector.  The Commons provide specific training for Trustees of charities.  When a business, with ethical ownership, transfers control from one leader to another the Commons can support the process.  In particular, it can provide consulting, mediation and in the case of a complete breakdown in the transfer process will appoint the next leader.

The Founding of the Elysia Commons

The Commons was founded by Sebastian Parsons.

Establishing the Elysia Commons

The task of establishing the Commons, sensing it, creating it, operating it, in the particular, in the general, bit by bit; this will be lead by Sebastian too, in collaboration with others who feel themselves drawn to the task.

Control of the Elysia Commons after the Founding Phase

Once the founding phase is completed then control will move to a democratic process.

Serving the Archangel Michael

The Elysia Commons is an activity intended to serve the purpose of the Archangel Michael.

Worcestershire Ambassadors' Soapbox

Worcestershire Ambassadors’ Heartbeat newsletter

Soapbox feature, Autumn 2010 issue

In each issue we invite a Worcestershire Ambassador to get on their soapbox and share their opinion on a subject close to their heart.  This issue Sebastian Parsons, Chief Executive of Elysia and Chair of the English Symphony Orchestra shares his views on a ‘living business’.

“A business that is alive is productive and responsive, fun and terribly serious, it is the perfect place to work, challenging and rewarding, and it generates profit in an ethical and completely sustainable way” explains Sebastian Parsons.

“For me, a living business is one that is run with the heart taken in to account.  People are alive, they can think for themselves and they have feelings and determination.  So often business leaders wish that staff would just do what they are told… and compare their businesses to machines.  But the advantage a person has over a machine is that they can think for themselves, so that in a living business in which the team are self motivated, a great deal of thinking can be delegated.  This frees up the leadership team to be creative and innovative.  

What else is there apart from relationships?” asks Sebastian, going on to point out that most of us spend most of our lives at work, and that that surely meant we should try hard to ensure our working lives are meaningful and rewarding.  

“The Living Business model for business offers tools such as boundaries and communication channels, much like other models, but it gives these components a broader task by using the human capacity for feeling to drive commitment and empowerment.  This works by overcoming a paradox that lies at the heart of organisational life – the contradiction between on the one hand staff being expected to do what they are told, but on the other hand, no body, actually, in truth, really enjoying being told what to do.  A tricky conundrum…” observes Sebastian with a wry grin.

“All life has movement, flux, flow, pulse, rhythm, and it is with movement that the paradox can be overcome.  We take our clue from the living human being, noticing how we respond, and building that in to our business management processes.  The key challenge is to notice and manage the anxiety around prioritisation through engaged communication and negotiation, and then once that is done, to ensure there is a full engagement and negotiation in the delivery process.”  Sebastian stops and points a finger: “you think we’re creating a talking shop!” he exclaims.  

“It is a tricky path to find, but the key is to focus on listening, and take the attention away from talking. We have a motto: ‘hear what is said, and say what has to be heard.’  When this is really lived then there is a lot less talking, much less argy-bargy, much less going round in circles, much more communication.  In an organisation that is listening more than it is talking there is always enough time to find the right solution, get everyone’s buy in, and still finish the meeting early!

One of the big mistakes people make when watching a Living Business at work is to believe that it is lovely to work in a Living Business.” Frowns Sebastian, “there may be lovely moments, and the feeling of doing something purposeful really lifts the atmosphere, but the moment the aim becomes loveliness disaster will strike.  Loveliness is about putting the person first, when you make how the person feels the most important thing then that is a disaster, because how people feel can be influenced by so many factors, many nothing to do with the business at all!  Feelings can seriously throw a business off track”.  Leaning forward, Sebastian says: “It is the purpose of the organisation that unites it and it is the purpose that must come first.  As long as the human being is included in the purpose, then fulfilment and all the other benefits of a Living Business, will flow from that.  The business has to successfully achieve its task, and at a financial surplus, otherwise the music has to stop.

When people learn to listen and start to take up their roles so that they work to common purpose with their colleagues then there becomes time to examine how things feel, and to work out what is important and what is a distraction.  Suddenly feelings become useful.  Human beings are paradoxical, and we put a lot of energy in to ignoring that.  In a living business that energy is released to everyone’s benefit.”  Sebastian concludes: “Living Business is about taking maximum advantage of the fact that we are people and not machines!”

Elysia is the exclusive UK distributor of the multi awarding winning Dr.Hauschka organic skincare and cosmetics brand, as well as Liv, Elysia’s luxury eco/organic  Fair Trade lifestyle brand of clothing and home furnishings. www.drhauschka.co.uk; www.liv-uk.com

For more information about Living Business try www.grubb.org.uk, or contact Sebastian on sebastian@elysia.uk.com. 

Leadership Workshop

Tom Ravetz and I recently ran a workshop on leadership from an Anthroposophical point of view. Tom and I have both attended BME and have developed an interest in systemic and group relations concepts, and we both work out of an interest in Anthroposophy. Tom is in fact a priest in the Christian Community (he is the Lenka, which means he is the Priest responsible for the UK region).

In these notes from that event there are refences to the works of Steiner and references to Lucifer and Ahriman. Who are they? Maybe you think of them as the Devil and Satan... perhaps you could think of them as two temptations: either to do nothing and just float in luxurious abandon, or to become so utterly absorbed in the specific matter that a connection is lost to the whole.

I hope that this blog can be enjoyed as an experience of the struggle to understand and then frame that understanding in a way that is useful in real life.


Notes on Leadership

Following a day workshop in 11th September, 2010

Notes written by Tom Ravetz and Sebastian Parsons

Finding out what to do

In the Philosophy of Freedom, Rudolf Steiner describes 3 stages that lead to our doing something:
· Moral intuition where we conceive the idea
· Moral phantasy where we imagine how it could work
· Moral technique where we bring the idea into reality

Thinking and imagining (the first two stages) are gifts of Lucifer, and when we work with them we have to resist the temptations of Lucifer (arrogance, vanity, delusion). Having good ideas tempts us to underestimate the struggle of bringing them to earth. We have to grapple with our own shadow, our fantasies and projections, and we meet the double of pride and delusion.
Making something happen inevitably involves us in human institutions - temporary ones like an ad hoc planning meeting, and / or permanent ones, like a company. For this paper, we will call any grouping of people working towards a commonly-held purpose a system. The moment we are involved in a system, other dimensions of reality come into play with an exponential increase in complexity. Now we bring our own shadow-side into relationship with those of the other people, and they become the objects of our projection and fantasy. We encounter too the being of the group itself, the whole which is greater than the sum of its parts, which in turn has a shadow, an unconscious, and a higher being - the angel of the group.

The moral technique needed for bringing ideas into reality in systems is the understanding of how groups and organisations work. The reality of power and what works unconsciously in groups takes us into the realm of Ahriman. In this realm, we are tempted to become cynical or to despair and give up trying to make our ideas come into reality. When we go through this temptation, we are following Christ in his ‘descent into hell’ on Holy Saturday.
When thinking of ourselves as human beings there is a tendency to form a picture that is rather one-sided. Either:
· we think that we are only angels, that we only have to have an ideal and we will be able to achieve it. This leads to being out of touch, and in extreme cases to hypocrisy and fragmentation.
· we think that we are only animals, purely the products of genes and external conditioning. This leads us to become cynical about any prospect of truly working towards ideals.

As striving individuals we know that we need to integrate all parts of ourselves. This is never about finding the fixed position where we have everything in the right proportion; it is about understanding the different forces at work in us and accepting our movement between them, continually seeing where we are on the continuumn and accepting that we will need to move on.

Life-experience tells us too that when we ignore our deepest emotions and motivations, we get cut off from our power. Only when I acknowledge that I am jealous do I go through the process - humiliating though it feels at first - of finding out what I am lacking and getting in touch with my deepest desires.

Rudolf Steiner spoke about this in his lectures about the incarnation of Ahriman, given in the time of his greatest activity in trying to bring about something new in the social life.

It all amounts to this, that modern man only speaks truly of himself when he says that he hovers perpetually between two extremes: between the Ahrimanic on the one side, where he is presented with an outer delusion, a Fata Morgana, and, on the other, the Luciferic element within him which induces the tendency to illusions, hallucinations and the like. The Ahrimanic tendencies in man to-day live themselves out in science, the Luciferic tendencies, in religion, while in art he swings between the one extreme and the other. ... And then, vacillating between all this, there are the people who want to be neither the one nor the other, who do not rightly assess either the Luciferic or the Ahrimanic but want to avoid both. — “Ahriman — no! — that I must not, will not do, for it would take me into the realm of the Ahrimanic; that I must not, will not do, for it would take me into the realm of the Luciferic!” They want to be virtuous, avoiding both the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic.

But the truth of the matter is that Lucifer and Ahriman must be regarded as two scales of a balance and it is we who must hold the beam in equipoise.

And how can we train ourselves to do this? — By permeating what takes Ahrimanic form within us with a strongly Luciferic element. What is it that arises in modern man in an Ahrimanic form? It is his knowledge of the outer world. There is nothing more Ahrimanic than this knowledge of the material world, for it is sheer illusion. Nevertheless if the Fata Morgana that arises out of chemistry, out of physics, out of astronomy and the like can fill us with fiery enthusiasm and interest, then through our interest — which is itself Luciferic — we can wrest from Ahriman what is his own.

That, however, is just what human beings have no desire to do; they find it irksome. And many people who flee from external, materialistic knowledge are misconceiving their task and preparing the best possible incarnation for Ahriman in earth-existence. Again, what wells up in man's inmost being to-day is very strongly Luciferic. How can we train ourselves rightly in this direction? — By diving into it with our Ahrimanic nature, that is to say, by trying to avoid all illusions about our own inner life and impulses and observing ourselves just as we observe the outer world. Modern man must realise how urgent it is to educate himself in this way. Anyone who has an observant eye in these matters will often come across circumstances of which the following is an example.

A man tells him how indignant he is with countless human beings. He describes minutely how this or that in a, in b, in c, and so on, angers him. He has not an inkling that he is simply talking about his own characteristics. This peculiarity in human beings was never so widespread as it is to-day. And those who believe they are free of it, are the greatest culprits. The essential thing is that man should approach his own inner nature with Ahrimanic cold-bloodedness and dispassion. His inner nature is still fiery enough even when cooled down in this way! There is no need to fear that it will be over-cooled.
...
What I have just said may make you think that all these matters are very paradoxical. But in reality they are not. It is man who is paradoxical in his relationship to truth. What he must realise — and this is a dire necessity to-day — is that he, not the world, is at fault. Nothing does more to prepare the path for Ahriman's incarnation than to find this or that tedious, to consider oneself superior to one thing or another and refuse to enter into it. Again it is the same question of finding the point where everything is of interest. It is never a matter of a subjective rejection or acceptance of things, but of an objective recognition of the extent to which things are either Luciferic or Ahrimanic, with the result that the scales are over-weighted on the one side or the other.

To be interested in something does not mean that one considers it justifiable. It means simply that one develops an inner energy to get to grips with it and steer it into the right channel.
GA 191 II 2.11.1919

I wonder whether we could apply this to our relationships when working in groups. There, we encounter an Ahrimanic world that needs our enthusiasm and idealism ‑ the gifts of Lucifer. If we ignore the unconscious and shadow realities of groups, we are falling into the same error as when we want to ignore our own anger, jealousy and other less palatable emotions. However we speak even less about the fact that groups have these aspects than we do about our individual shadow-sides; there is much light to be shone into group (or organisational) life with a deepening of awareness and consciousness.

Doing this empowers us by overcoming any tendency to think that we are the idealists, cut off from the problems of the nasty world. When we grapple with the realities of groups, we are in touch with the same world that seems so far away when we criticise politicians and other leaders.
There is strong evidence that historically, anthroposophically-inspired institutions have been strong on moral intution and moral phantasy, but weaker on moral technique.
This manifests in many ways:

· a reluctance to acknowledge the political dimension, and what rises from this, a lack of interest in it;
· an allergy to the word leader, and the making 'leader' mean the same as 'tyrant';
· a tendency to tolerate secret leadership groups, power cabals, and group bullying and scape-goating;
· polarised thinking about such issues, for example:
· either we believe in the spirit, and uphold the idea against all the evidence that human beings are only motivated by their consciously stated ideals,
· or we are reductionists saying that there is only power politics.

Recent developments in some anthroposophical institutions have given more evidence for this one-sidedness. The move to employ professional managers could be seen as making institutional the divide between power and ideals that existed before. Now that there has been time to accumulate experiences and reflect, this becomes more apparent. The employed managers state their admiration for the ideals held by the staff, and their dismay at the social and political reality: cliques, bullying, lack of effective mirroring and mentoring.
The staff describe a reality where the managers want to solve everything with regulations and rules.

Each side can easily feel the victim of the other, and in some instances there have been tragic breakdowns of trust. Turning the situation around and seeing a challenge instead of a threat, an opportunity instead of a dead-end, we might see the following openings:
· the managers might choose to find out more about the founding ideals of the institution and see in them the resources needed to work to their purpose of helping the institution to work well;

· the staff might look at the world through the managers' eyes and use this as a tool to hold themselves to account.
· Both parties might discover a need to describe more clearly what the purpose of the institution is, so that the arguments are around what will serve that purpose and not around an endless reworking of assumptions and habits.
I remember hearing staff working in an anthroposophical institution in the 90s telling me how relieved they were that the authorities had forced them to have proper procedures for reporting stress in the workplace, with legislation for free time etc. Publicly those same staff would bemoan the fact that the authorities were stopping them from living according to their ideals.

The Goetheanism of Groups
Goetheanism tries to find the way of looking which is appropriate for the thing being looked at. In The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, Rudolf Steiner describes how one can train oneself to find ways of looking. He makes a huge distinction between the tools we need to look at nature, and what is needed to look at Man. Looking at Man, we are beholding the being that has within it to create new laws. He goes a step further when he speaks of the fact that human beings are social creatures. Their humanity unfolds in wider systems:
But the human being does not belong only to himself; he also belongs to society. What lives and manifests in him is not merely his individuality but also that of the nation to which he belongs. What he accomplishes emerges just as much out of the full strength of his people as out of his own. With his mission he also fulfills a part of the mission of the larger community of his people. The point is for his place within his people to be such that he can bring to full expression the strength of his individuality. This is possible only if the social organism is such that the individual is able to find the place where he can set to work. It must not be left to chance whether he finds this place or not. It is the task of ethnology and political science to investigate how the individual lives and acts within the social community. The individuality of peoples is the subject of this science. It has to show what form the organism of the state has to assume if the individuality of a people is to come to expression in it. The constitution a people gives itself must be developed out of its innermost being. …

The constitution of a people, however, is nothing other than its individual character brought into a definite form of laws. A person who wants to predetermine the direction a particular activity of a people has to take must not impose anything upon it from outside; he must simply express what lies unconsciously within the character of his people.
(Chapter 18: Psychological Knowing Activity)

Rudolf Steiner spoke here about the widest ‘system’, the people, of which we are all part. What he says holds true however of every system – every grouping of human beings working towards a commonly-held purpose. Saying that there are dimensions of our experience in groups that we are at first unaware of; that there are motivations that spring from unconscious depths – is not the same as saying that we are purely determined by these factors. It is precisely in the meeting of our ideals with the realities that psychology describes that the struggle with Arhiman takes place.

If the gifts of Lucifer were enough to guarantee that our moral intuitions became reality, every institution based on Anthroposophy would have no problems. Facing those problems can make us feel a deep despair, particularly if we are unwilling to acknowledge that they will inevitable exist.

However, if we see what we encounter in working with groups not just as a problem but as a challenge that will allow us to develop new faculties, there is hope. The world into which we enter ‑ Ahriman's realm ‑ is the place that most urgently needs redemption in our time. We can experience a Christian task - the task of facing, acknowledging, learning and integrating this realm into our striving.

Understanding leadership
What is it about the concept of leadership that arouses such strong feelings?
We explored some of the words we associate with “leader”:
· old-fashioned
· arrogant
· follower
· (blind) obedience
· dictator
· charismatic leader

We remembered a model that we had encountered in anthroposophical circles of evolving modes of leadership: in Ancient Egypt pyramidal; in ancient Greece / Rome democratic; in the Consciousness-Soul consensual. Historical evidence flies in the faces of this; after all, Plato saw enlightened despotism as the ultimate form of leadership.

The work of Daniel Goleman suggests a different quality for our time. This would be that there is a process not of succession but of accretion, ie that one style doesn't replace the last but is added to it. He makes it clear that successful leaders can move between different leadership styles. They range from commanding to consensual, so could be placed on a continuum from pyramidal to community (see this summary). This works well with the image of the Consciousness Soul not as a fixed state, but as a willingness to move on a continuum, to oscillate or, to use Adam Kahane's image, to walk.

Another quality was brought in when we looked at the concept of containment. The leader's task is to make a safe container for the inevitable tensions that exist in groups, eg the tension between freedom and directedness. The strength of the leader can make a safe space in which consensus can unfold. If the leader uses his or her authority to make it clear that everyone is called to speak, to contribute; if he or she is not frightened of conflict, but allows the issues to be addressed, showing that he or she is interested not in siding with one or the other party to achieve some personal objective, but in making a space where an honest process can take place, trust will grow and the group will take up its agency and make good decisions.

This is not the same as saying that the leader does not, or cannot have a view, belong to one side or the other. In reality, the leader usually does have a view! However, if that view is stated along with everyone else as part of the process, then transparency and trust are actually enhanced. Alongside this there is a deeply experienced but rarely noticed paradox between the freedom of being an individual and the directedness of working in a group or team to a specific purpose. The desire to resolve this paradox without conflict arising underlies much of what has already been discussed and always results in more conflict and conflict that is often veiled and therefore all the more painful.

How a leaders supports a group in managing the tension between freedom and directedness has a lot to do with the space that is given for sharing views and the authority that is deployed to ensure the discussion resolves to a purposeful outcome. This authority could come through a simple rule such as in the case of a tied vote the leader will have a casting vote, or in the case that a consensus cannot be formed the leader will decide. Rules such as this provide a boundary within which the discussion can blossom in an open, frank and creative way, and it is exceptionally rare that such a contained process produces an outcome cannot be owned by everyone.

Something that was touched on but not overtly discussed, and perhaps deserves to be discussed more in the future, is the way a leader has a responsibility to the thought of the enterprise, and therefore the spirit-being of the enterprise. The leader is a lens through which that thought shone in to the world and the decision of who should be the leader is an important one (no kidding!). The deeply experienced fears, conscious and unconscious, around the appointment of a leader can, in themselves, prevent such an appointment ever being properly made. However, if the purpose is clear and the leader is consistent, then the question of how the organisation works in detail recedes in importance. Through the many psychological / spiritual gestures of human interaction, harmony and transformation can be achieved by any endeavour that is consistently managed and is directed by a clear purpose.

When we dig a bit deeper into the matter of consistency and purpose and it begins to become apparent that the success of an endeavour is deeply connected with its founding impulse. We have experience of many organisations and institutions that have disintegrated when their activity has ceased to be aligned to their founding purpose. It must be through the conscious / unconscious grasp that the human beings hold of the organisation that the authority of the founding gesture is mediated, and for those with a perspective informed by Anthroposophy, supported by the Spiritual World. The founding purpose can be rapidly intuited and the extent to which the current action is true to it can be deeply, intuitively and accurately grasped by team members. In every moment trust is growing or being eroded. In the light of this, the task of leadership begins to become clearer and the tools of Anthroposophy begin to seem very relevant.

The Dr.Hauschka Adventure Continues...

On the 9th of May 2010 Dr.Hauschka appeared in the Sunday Times Style supplement. It had been voted the Best Natural Brand in their 2010 Beauty Awards. It may be only thirty nine words long but every one of those words is perfect! ‘Not only are its organic formulations gentle and effective, but the celebs’ fave Dr Hauschka is one of the hottest brands to flaunt right now. Even the organic army can now get in on the beauty “It product” act.’ We set out at the start of the year with three clearly stated intentions for Dr.Hauschka. First to make the brand more visible, second to develop stronger relationships with our customers and third, to strengthen our communal faith in Dr.Hauschka.

Those 39 words not only strengthens our faith in Dr.Hauschka, but will strengthen many others’ faith in it too. Great press coverage like this supports everyone who works with Dr.Hauschka and I should think that there are quite a few users who will be sharing our warm glow too! It helps the Dr.Hauschka community to feel that the brand is being represented well and builds trust. However, I have to say, what could be more visible than this call to flaunt?!?!

Sunday Times Online

Politics, spirituality, the economy.

This article was first published in Perspectives, December 2009 - February 2010

Unlike physics or chemistry, which study the physical world, economics is a science of the spirit. Our economy is what we make it – it isn’t separate from ourselves, it is us, it is what we do, it is the decisions we make, it is the actions we take. At least on one very important layer, economics is a matter of psychology, of human need and desire, of human group relations, of the human spirit at work.

The recent financial turbulence has seen economists around the world scratching their heads as the economic theories of the last decades fall in tatters around their feet. Their commitment to their economic theories had been absolute and had, in a real way, ruled the world, and yet the economy has simply not performed to their expectations and everywhere economists are struggling to find a new paradigm, a new set of rules, a new belief system. As ever, when crisis blows away our expectation, minds are opened and there is a chance for thoughts, long waiting on the margins, to be seen at last.

We are in a period of mass unknowing and the desire for inspiration is palpable. However, what is happening in the largest scale is something we are all used to. In knowing we feel alive in our will and in our actions, bathed in the lightness of bus-i-ness. However, of our spirit connectedness we are oblivious – the spirit is in the dark. When unknowing brings our will to a halt the situation reverses: physical darkness, but if we are brave enough to stay in the unknowing, in time spirit dawning and spirit lightness appear.

With practice trust in this dawning grows and the unpleasantness of not knowing becomes a peaceful waiting for inspiration. I find myself called to this waiting by two lines from the Foundation Stone Meditation (http://sebastianparsons.blogspot.com/2009/11/foundation-stone-meditation.html): “Thou livest in the resting head” and “Practice spirit vision in restfulness of thought”.

This working out of the spirit, described by Otto Scharmer in Theory U[1] as “leading from the future as it emerges” is possible in the smallest and biggest moments of our lives, as individuals, members of communities, and as nations. But what is the geography of this moment? In practical life, what lies either side of this unknowing?

I experience a rhythmical movement between review and planning which in time may move decisively forward in to the carrying out of a plan. This movement, might take me once, or perhaps several times, in to unknowing. Sometimes I may act out of the unknowing itself – conscious that I don’t know, but that I have to act. Praying as I go – clear of my intention, but also clear that without a controlling plan I may need help from friends unseen. However, if I have time then I wait to act until I have a plan that I feel trust in, and a moment that I feel is right.

I experience ideas carrying me out of Not Knowing, and feeling carrying me through to action – the manifestation of my willing. At all times my thinking, feeling and willing are working, but in my consciousness, one or the other of them will be at the fore. In thinking my attention is carried inwardly away from myself, in willing it is carried outwardly away from myself, and in feeling I return to myself[2].

In my Actions my capacity is that of physical being. In its first verse the Foundation Stone Meditation speaks of “the strength sublime of world creative life” – my own I growing to full being as God creates our world and my I working toward full being as I shape the world that is around me.

In my Not Knowing I have access to the capacity of the Spirit: “which, from the eternal wellspring, opens for thee, the thoughts of the World”. Finally, in my Deciding I balance the “ideas of the World” with my “strength sublime” and shift from inaction (in-ner-action!) towards action (physical action), from thinking to willing, and feel “the surging deeds of cosmic evolution” flow through me as the actions I will – in however small a way - reshape the world.
I make a decision by testing my plan against my purpose – do I feel that my proposed actions will serve the purpose?[3] The Foundation Stone Meditation: “What with our heart we would found / And with our head we direct / With single purpose”. In other words, all the thinking, feeling and willing activity of my life is directed to a Single Purpose. But what purpose?

The Foundation Stone Meditation holds this image of world creation, and our world is the natural world and the world we create – part of which is the economy. I experience Steiner’s Threefold Social Order as a road map for understanding how we are sharing the task of World Creation. It describes how we strive after personal development in the Cultural realm and strive to meet each others needs in the Economic , and how through the Rights Realm these potentially paradoxical aims are united in to one single purpose.

My Cultural life is the journey of my “I”, in freedom, towards full being. My Economic life is the work I do that is directed by your needs, to help “YOU” on your journey towards full being. My Rights Realm life is the way “WE” agree how we will be together as we travel towards full being. I, YOU, WE, in every moment, always.

Our evolution towards freedom, articulated in so many ways by Rudolf Steiner, depends on our capacity to work together. Without community of effort the task of survival becomes all consuming. Community of effort and the division of labour combine our actions to meet each others needs and in so doing create spare time, create value, give us the chance to think about something else apart from when and how we will eat again.

Businesses, hospitals, schools, children’s homes, families, in all our organisations we work together so that we get everything we need done quicker and with less effort. Without the development of the economy how could we have found time to create the wave of emancipation that has carried freedom from Kings and Lords, through to men and now all of us? Without freedom for all there is no Rights Realm, and without the Economy there is only the I. Imagine life without washing machines (and if you think this would be just fine, are you a man?)
What amazes me about this picture is that it describes what is happening already. The difference between one successful but truly mercenary company, and one successful but truly ethical company is not the forces that are working through the company but the way the people at work understand their organisation.

In other words, it doesn’t matter what an entrepreneur thinks is driving his business, he is successful to the extent that he meets people’s needs by mobilising the personal capacities of his team through the agreements that he has made with them. To the extent that he motivates with fear and greed, perhaps by controlling with rigid detail, the people in the organisation will struggle to unite themselves in freedom with their tasks. To the extent that he motivates out of love, perhaps by sharing the purpose of meeting need and by inspiring team members to work out of their own initiative, the people in the organisation will have the chance to act out of their own freedom.

It is perfectly feasible, as we well know, for an organisation to be physically successful pulling against the spiritual the stream and motivating with fear. The approach a leader takes does not necessarily determine whether the organisation will succeed or not. The difference is in effort, physical and spiritual, that has to be continually exerted. It may prove, for an individual, unsustainable, and lead to personal burn-out.

I have a yearning for the Three Foldedness of society to be recognised, but not for it to be created. It has come about, and is there to be seen by anyone that cares to look. Seeing the Three Foldedness of society offers the usual competitive advantage that a more exact understanding always offers. By taking account of the Three Foldedness of society an organisation can become more efficient, can create more spare time and more value, with less effort, and help us move further on our journey through “cosmic evolution”.
In an organisation people combine their effort to the purpose of meeting another’s need. Whatever the product: healthcare, education, food, clothing or narcotics[4], the underlying gesture is towards another. It is a reaching out, and critically, the organisation is only successful if it achieve this, if it does meet the need. That’s the freedom of the Cultural Realm – rule number One.

Underlying this gesture of giving is a very strong force, the force of love. The sort of love we might call brotherly, as befits the Realm of fraternity, of working in community. The main driving force of our economy is love. Whether or not an individual is aware of this does not change the underlying dynamic force at work.

So a company that is striving to be ethical, that is striving to be conscious of the three folded nature of society will begin to be conscious of the role of love in what they are doing. They will begin to be aware that working together as part of a team they are held in a basket woven of love for the purpose of their combined activity, which is sending out in to the world something, imbued with love, that will, in meeting needs, be sharing their brotherly love with their wider community. Consciousness or unconsciousness of the force of brotherly love determines, not the success of the organisation, but the sense of fulfilment of the organisation.

By working together to meet each others needs we create freedom and spare time. In working together we are directed, we are not free, but by working together we become more efficient. This efficiency generates time and wealth with which we win the chance to exercise choice. It is deeply purposeful, and, willy-nilly it is the “Thoughts of the World” that have, through us, organised our society in the way it is.

The opportunity offered by the Credit Crunch, this colossal moment of collective “Not Knowing” is the chance to notice the reality of our society and rejoice in it, rather than stay slavishly focussed on our communal fantasy of the selfish economy. Whatever your job, you can chose to do it to meet the needs of whoever will benefit from your work. Rather than trying to find motivation for working from the money you will receive it is actually in everyone’s power to unite themselves in freedom with whatever task they are doing.

For a Chief Executive to make this transformation will have an effect that will, perhaps, be more quickly obvious. The truth is, though, that the whatever your job – cleaner, teacher, doctor, engineer, drain clearer – you will transform yourself, and in time those around you, when you transform the inner gesture you hold towards your work in to a gesture of loving giving to whoever’s need you will be meeting.

When a workplace is full of bullying, fear, darkness and so on, this workplace is in denial of the love that is flowing through it, the love that is generating the success it is achieving. The transformation of consciousness does not change the love, it simply changes the denial. Working ethically is more efficient because it means that all our capacity becomes available to devote to the task in hand, that of meeting another’s needs. Our load is lightened as all the negative, heavy feelings fall away. Suddenly we are rowing with the stream.

Critically though, an ethical organisation is not a lovely organisation. It is not an organisation that puts its co-workers first. An ethical organisation is one which puts all Human Beings first[5] – co-workers and those who receive the organisation’s output. When everyone is put equally at the centre of the loving endeavour then something potentially deeply sustaining, purposeful and effective is born.

In an ethical organisation a co-worker that does not manage their own feeling life successfully and lays it off on their colleagues in emotional manipulation is breaking the Rights realm agreement of the organisation. They are putting themselves before everything else. Ethical organisations sack people. Ethical organisations experience fear and doubt. Ethical organisations die if they stop meeting need. But in an ethical organisation the real fear of existence is faced, named and worked through.

In the developed countries we have currently lost our sense of knowing. We had expectations which failed us. Our long held paradigms have been proved false. However, the economy has not stopped, it still exists. Need still exists, and need is still being met. This is a moment when a new thought can come to the fore. Not a new way of doing things, but a new way of seeing why we are as successful as we actually are. It takes energy to live in denial of the love that is the driving force of our communal life. With this energy freed we open up capacity to carry out ever more healing and positive transformation.

[1] C. Otto Scharmer, Theory U – Leading from the Future as it Emerges, The Social Technology of Presecing. Published by Sol, 2007..
[2] It is true that in thinking I can make myself the subject of my thinking, and so my thinking takes me inwardly in to myself – as in this discussion, for instance, and that then I experience an inner separation between my self that is considering me and my self that is being considered. Which is complicated, but also quite useful as Steiner reveals in The Philosophy of Freedom: “This then is indisputable, that in thinking we have got hold of one corner of the whole world process which requires our presence if anything is to happen. And this is just the point on which everything turns. The very reason why things confront me in such a puzzling way is just that I play no part in their production. They are simply given to me, whereas in the case of thinking I know how it is done.”. p32, Philosophy of Freedom, Rudolf Steiner, 1984. This English edition 1964, trans. Michael Wilson.
[3] See also Philosophy of Freedom (ibid p200) “He determines the value of life by measuring achievements against aims.” Although this quote is not about decision making, but evaluating action taken, when making decisions I play through the possible outcomes which will come from acting out the decision. It is the same test, located both in the planning and the reviewing of an action.
[4] Whatever the need, it is the need that is powering the process. If the need is for heroine, for instance, then the need is there and people will strive to meet it. The fundamental problem is the existence of the need. Perhaps the need will have been created out of deeply unfree and corrupt practices – there are degrees of freedom in marketing too.
[5] If you truly put the Human Being first then you have to care for the planet. Without an ecologically sustainable economy we are curtailing the future of the Human Being we are striving to put first.