EE Magazine Editorial, July 2017 – Like a Storm Above the Wet Summer Prairie…

Editorial by George Pór, July 2017

You can read the entire July 2017 EE Magazine Highlights here.

Maybe because it’s Summer time in the Northern hemisphere where I live, maybe because what I hear the field of personal/organizational transformations crying for, what is most alive in my heart in this moment of writing this message to you is the feeling illustrated by following quote.

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“Creation does not take place

where there is a scattering and dissipation of energies.

Creation requires a gathering together and focusing

of your power within a circle of commitment —

like a seed and egg, a womb or a marriage.

Consider wisely the ways in which you would

use your power, and then around those ways

draw the sacred circle of commitment.

In the warm atmosphere of that circle, the power

of love builds like a storm above the wet summer

prairie until suddenly the circle can hold no more

and explodes in the conception of the new.

~ said White Buffalo Woman, in The Return of the Bird Tribe, by Ken Carey

Whether it is the longing of the soul for the profound peace that only reconnecting with nature can give, or it is simply our vacation habits, as we are heading to the beach, the mountain, or a remote island, let’s remember the birth of the commitment that White Buffalo Woman spoke.

No, I don’t want to spoil our fun with some serious stuff, only invite us to expand what “fun” can be, by taking a fresh look at how we can re-invigorate our participation in the best game on Earth: liberation of human heart and mind from anything that enslaves it, including undemocratic workplace structures and processes.

To support us in that re-looking, this cycle of EE Magazine brings us a video of the conversation between Frederic Laloux and Aftab Omer, where Omer sets the context by contrasting the recent bombings that extinguished many lives with the very encouraging developments in organizational life that Laloux wrote about in Reinventing Organizations.

The current issue of the EE Magazine Highlights brings us also the first Special Edition on Education

with an abundance of writings dedicated to reinventing education, thanks to inspired and inspiring work of Guest Editor Jean-Paul Munsch, Lia Aurami of Enlivening Edge, and the many authors who contributed their experience and wisdom.

With the completion of this bi-monthly cycle, EE Magazine is also celebrating the beginning of its 3rd year. We are just about entering into kindergarten, and excited about the learning, playing, growing, and transforming that the new year will bring.

Our major project of the new year is our “Reinventing EE” journey that has already energized the team in the phase of co-creating a deliberate design for the next stage of Enlivening Edge’s organizational identity. The reinvention might include the formation of an Enlivening Edge Association (a kind “Friends of EE”), the establishment of an EE legal entity, and a radical rethinking of how we can better serve our readers. Stay tuned for the news!

There are two other projects worth mentioning that we are pursuing. We are co-organizing the 3rd international Next-Stage World gathering of organization reinventors on Rhodes, October 16-20, and we are building the team for TOM, our Teal Organizations Mapping project. If interested in the latter, read Mapping Our Way to the Tipping Point and if you want to participate, contact Mieke Byerley.

The theme of our next bi-monthly Magazine cycle starting now is “Managing Complexity”.

Whether the various strands of the movement for next stage organizations will be able to prove their evolutionary advantage (over the presently dominant model of command-and-control organizing) will largely depend on whether they can learn managing complexity just as well and even better than today’s big bureaucracies manage complexity. Do you have some thoughts about it? Why not turn them into an article for EE Magazine by August 10, following our Writer’s Guidelines.

This magazine is reader-supported, so if you like what it brings to you and the world, please do your part through donation and through passing links for articles to your friends and colleagues. Many people would also deeply appreciate your comments on any articles. We’d love to hear anything that you wish to share with us.

Last but not least, if you want to get more actively involved with our work for organisational transformation and social renewal, consider joining our lively international team. EE not only needs you, but as you help Enlivening Edge enliven more people and organizations, it provides you with rich opportunities for your professional and Teal development.