Bibliography

1. Bohm, D., Factor, D. and Garrett, P. (1996) Dialogue – a proposal. London:. Routledge
2. Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge.
3. Bateson, Gregory (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University Of Chicago Press.
4. Capra, F. (1996). The Web of Life. New York: Anchor.
5. Csikszentmihalyi M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
6. Dutton, J., Glynn, M., Spreitzer, G. 2005. Positive Organizational Scholarship. Working Paper Series University of Michigan Business School.
7. Heron, J. (1992) Feeling and Personhood: Psychology in Another Key. London: Sage.
8. Heron, J. and Reason, P. (1997) ‘A participatory inquiry paradigm’, Qualitative Inquiry, 3(3): 274-294.
9. Heron, J., & Reason, P. (2001). The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry: Research with people rather than on people. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of Action Research: Participative inquiry and practice (pp. 179-188). London: Sage.
10. Heron, J. (2000) 'Transpersonal co-operative inquiry', in Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. (eds) (2000), Handbook of Action Research, London: Sage.
11. Kelly, K. (1994). Out of Control, Cambridge: Perseus Group.
12. Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoesis and Cognition. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel.
13. Morgan, G. (1997) Images of Organization, 2nd edn, London: Sage.
14. Perls, F (1951) Gestalt Therapy New York: Julian Press.
15. Quinn, R., Spreitzer, G. 2005. Entering the Fundamental State of Leadership: A Framework for the Positive Transformation of Self and Others. the Positive Transformation of Self and Others. Working Paper Series University of Michigan Business School.
16. Reason, P. (1993). Reflections on Sacred Experience and Sacred Science. Journal of Management Inquiry, 2(3), 273-283.
17. Reason, P. (2001b). Learning and Change through Action Research. In J. Henry (Ed.), Creative Management (pp. 182-194). London: Sage.
18. Reason, P. (2006a). Choice and Quality in Action Research Practice. Journal of Management Inquiry, 15(2), 187-203.
19. Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (Eds.). (2001a). Handbook of Action Research: Participative inquiry and practice. London: Sage.
20. Reason, P. and J. Marshall (1987). Research as personal process. Appreciating Adult Learning. D. Boud and V. Griffin. London: Kogan Page.
21. Reason, P. and Rowan, J. (1981) ‘Issues of validity in new paradigm research’, in P. Reason and J. Rowan (eds) Human Inquiry: A Sourcebook of New Paradigm Research. Chichester: Wiley.
22. Reason, P., & Torbert, W. R. (2001b). The Action Turn: Toward a transformational social science. Concepts and Transformation, 6(1), 1-37.
23. Seligman, M., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An Introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5-14.
24. Senge, P.M., C. O. Scharmer, J. Jaworski and B.S. Flowers (2005). Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society. New York: Doubleday.
25. Spreitzer, G., Sutcliffe, K., Dutton, J.E., Sonenshein, S., Grant, A. 2005. Thriving at Work. Working Paper Series University of Michigan Business School.
26. Stacey, R., Griffin, D. & Shaw, P. 2000. Complexity and Management: Fad or Radical Challenge to Systems Thinking? London: Routledge
27. Tarnas, R. (2006). Cosmos and Psyche. New York: Penguin Group.
28. Torbert, W. (1991), The power of balance: Transforming self, society, and scientific inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
29. Torbert, W. R., & Reason, P. (2001). Towards a Participatory Worldview Part 1. ReVision, 24(1), 1-48.

Final Note

The reflection for this paper and group review process helped me to become much clearer about the nature of my topic. It helped me to unveil why I am appealed to the topic. Answering the why side of the inquiry brought a much clearer purpose and meaning into my topic, which feels quite good at the end. In the overall process, I learnt a lot and can also say that I have grown intellectually and spiritually even at this stage.

Further Steps

Even though it is too soon to develop a research plan, I find it useful to do the following till the next workshop:

• Clarify my thinking further about my inquiry topic
• Explore further for relevant areas of theory to support my work and search new sources of theoretical comparison
• Identify potential contacts for second-person inquiry
• Develop my understanding of Action Research to assist me in my research methodology development

Reading and Theory

The quality of my inquiry will be affected by the literature that I will choose. With my current awareness and understanding, I am planning to benefit from:

• Complexity in Organisations will make it possible for me to look at organizations form complexity lens and understand the role and impact of social interactions which create patterns.
• Gestalt Theory which closely deals with awareness as well as contact allowing a change or shift in boundaries whether that is at the physical, emotional, mental or spiritual level.
• Quantum Theory which deals with connectedness in the universal sense
• Different strands of living systems theory through which I am interested to explore links between nature and organizations
• Positive Psychology as it is closely related with moments of vitality and growth as well as its organizational extensions which works with similar topics in the organizational setting
• Action Research will serve as a foundation for my research methodology

How will I ensure quality and validity of my research?

“One of the prime tenets of action research as a participatory approach is the acknowledgement that the researcher plays a key role within an inquiry (Reason and Bradbury 2001). How will I achieve the quality and validity of my research which will be mainly an outcome of my own experience? The quality in turning my experience into an inquiry is about avoiding bias through critical thinking and a deeper sense of awareness. It is about achieving "critical subjectivity" which will be one of the main pillars of the quality of my research.

“Critical subjectivity is a state of consciousness different from the naive subjectivity of "primary process" awareness, and the attempted objectivity of egoic "secondary process" awareness. Critical subjectivity means that we do not suppress our primary subjective experience, that we accept our knowing is from a perspective; it also means that we are aware of that perspective, and of its bias, and we articulate it in our communications. This notion of critical subjectivity means that there will be many versions of "reality" to which people may hold with a self-reflexive passion. It also means that the method is open to all the ways in which human beings fool themselves and each other in their perceptions of the world, through faulty epistemology, cultural bias, character defense, political partisanship, spiritual impoverishment, and so on.”(Reason and Rowan, 1981)

Action research is defined as “an emergent process of engagement with worthwhile practice purposes, through many ways of knowing, in participative and democratic relationships” (Reason, 2006). In this context, it is suggested to apply a research cycling process to ensure critical subjectivity (Heron and Reason, 1997). Research cycling is about a “democratic dialogue as co-researchers and as co-subjects which is called “co-operative inquiry”. In research cycling, “people collaborate to define the questions they wish to explore and the methodology for that exploration (propositional knowing); together or separately they apply this methodology in the world of their practice (practical knowing); which leads to new forms of encounter with their world (experiential knowing); and they find ways to represent this experience in significant patterns (presentational knowing) which feeds into a revised propositional understanding of the originating questions” (Reason and Heron, 1995). In this regard, critical subjectivity of my research will be ensured from the participative nature of the ADOC and our ongoing collaborative work. We will be able to “engage together in cycling several times through the four forms of knowing in order to enrich their congruence, that is, to refine the way they elevate and consummate each other, and to deepen the complementary way they are grounded in each other” (Heron and Reason, 1997). I have already enjoyed the outcome of this process in Module 1 which helped to improve the quality of my engagement with my inquiry.

Another focus for the quality of the research is about choice and transparency. “Quality in action research will rest internally on our ability to see the choices we are making and understand their consequences; and externally on whether we articulate our standpoint and the choices we have made transparently to a wider public” (Reason, 2006). This about me being aware of different choices and making these choices clear and transparent for myself, my ADOC group and community of practice.

My thinking leads me to the conclusion that asking right questions in every stage will strengthen my quality focus in every aspect. What should I expect as an outcome of my research? How will this outcome be life enhancing and human flourishing? (Heron and Reason 1997) How can I use multiple ways of knowing to in my quest for reality? (Torbert, 1991) How can I improve the quality of my interactions with my second-person and third-person contacts? (Heron and Reason, 2001). Finally how I can I bring meaning and purpose to make it even worthwhile?

What will be my inquiry method?

My inquiry will be through Action Research Methodology as “action research aims to develop theory which is not simply abstract and descriptive but is a guide to inquiry and action in present time. A good theory arises out of practical experience, articulates qualities of practice to which we aspire, and challenges us, moment to moment in our professional and personal lives, to discover ways realize these qualities in action.” (Reason, P. 2001)

In my inquiry design, I would like to use first-person, second-person and if possible third-person inquiry ideally integrated with each other.

First-person inquiry

“First person action research/practice skills and methods address the ability of the researcher to foster an inquiring approach to his or her own life, to act awarely and choicefully, and to assess effects in the outside world while acting. “ (Reason, 2001)

It is suggested to attend below questions for the interest of first person inquiry (Reason and Bradbury, 2001):

“Who am I? What is important to me? What is worthwhile engaging with?
What frameworks of thinking/feeling do I bring to my life and work? What creative and distorting perspectives do I bring? Am I stuck in one frame or able to appreciate and delight in alternative frames?
What is the quality of my behaviour? Do I have a range of behaviours appropriate to the situation? In particular, can I act in such a way as to increase the quality of the conversation? Am I flexible, diplomatic and outrageous, cunning and simple, wise and foolish? Is my behaviour congruent with my purposes?
Am I awake to what is happening within me and in the world around me?
How do I act now to increase the quality of dialogue and inquiry?”

As a part of first-person inquiry, I will continue my personal quest for what I call now connectedness. I will also consciously bring in experiences that will potentially create moments of connection. I will also increase "awareness is characterized by contact, by sensing, by excitement and by gestalt formation" (Perls, 1951) and advocate true presence in my life which is currently distracted with certain elements of modern life like mobile phones, email. I will notice what I feel and try to make sense of what I feel during these moments. I will try to make “the boundary between the observer and the observed” disappear. (Bohm, 1980)
I will continue self-reflective activities like meditation, physical activities involving flow and connectedness like ski and sailing. Torbert suggests to establish contact with four distinct territories to widen and deepen our awareness through such experiences (Torbert, 1991). These territories are:

• sound, touch, and color of the world outside
• breathing and other inner bodily sensations
• emergent thinking and feeling
• dynamics of one's very attention

Journaling is a very effective method for first-person research. For this purpose, I will use a weblog which will serve as a journal for me to make sense of what I notice and feel in writing. The journal activity will help me to capture the evolving meaning of connectedness throughout the inquiry. In the journal, I will also keep track of my continued experience of connectedness and try to relate them to my inquiry questions. In what way did I feel connected? What did I notice and feel? What is the sense that I make of what I notice? What did I learn as a part f this experience? Did it help me to grow? In which way did I achieve growth, if I did? The interactive nature of the blog will also give me the opportunity to integrate first, second, and third person inquiry.

Second-person inquiry
“Second person action research/practice addresses our ability to inquire face-to-face with others into issues of mutual concern—for example in the service of improving our personal and professional practice both individually and separately. Second person inquiry is also concerned with how to create communities of inquiry or learning organizations (Reason, 2001). It “starts with interpersonal dialogue and includes the development of communities of inquiry and learning organizations. “(Reason & Bradbury, 2001)

I will do second-person inquiry with colleagues in my own organization as well with representatives of one or two client organisations. I will also seek opportunities to extend this level of inquiry to the members of an organisation like Cirque Du Soleil as a potential representative of connectedness in organisations.

Second-person inquiry will be done in three ways: face-to-face interviews, group workshops and search conferences. Interviews will be especially useful with colleagues and key clients. Workshops and search conferences can be done with key clients or with a diverse audience selected from our Annual Human Resources Conference participants.

At this level of inquiry, I would try to identify situations where people had moments of connectedness. I would also look beneath these situations and try to see what enabled people to have these moments. I would also try to explore the conditions that make individuals live this experience of connectedness organizations.

I will establish personal contact with some of the thought leaders that I have known personally like Charles Handy, Richard Pascale and Peter Senge and bring in their insight with the help second-person inquiry. I am interested to learn their thinking about:
Their own experience of connectedness
Contexts that enable people to have episodes of connectedness in general and in organisations
Conditions which enable individuals to live this experience of connectedness in organisations
Affect of connectedness on growth and vitality in organisations
Impact of different organizational features like culture, design, strategy, leadership on connectedness
Value-added of connectedness for individuals and organisations

Third-person inquiry

“Third-person research/practice aims to create a wider community of inquiry involving persons who, because they cannot be known to each other face-to-face (say, in a large, geographically dispersed corporation), have an impersonal quality.” How is it possible to go “beyond the relatively contained and small-scale practices offirst- and second-person action research to stimulate inquiry in whole organizations and in the wider society?”

I also would like to use my weblog as a third-person research medium enabling me to reach a wider community in different locations. Our reach to 1000 people in the conference every year looks like a great opportunity to conduct a third person inquiry. We work regularly with several consultants and thought leaders around the world in different capacity and this network may serve for a good medium for third person inquiry.

I would probably use an electronic survey at this level. This survey would enable me to inquire further about:

• Demographics and their possible relation to connectedness
• Possible contexts that enable connectedness
• Certain conditions for connectedness
• Affect of connectedness on growth and vitality in organisations
• Relationship of different organizational features like culture, design, strategy, leadership with connectedness and their impact.
• Value-added of connectedness for individuals and organizations

Table 1: Summary Table for Inquiry Methods

What is my inquiry?

So what is the big question? What am I interested to know? I am interested to inquire connectedness in organizations in three dimensions:

IDENTIFICATION:

• What does connectedness look like in organisations?
• What are the contexts that enable people to have moments or episodes of connectedness which involves the experience of vitality and growth?

FOUNDATION:

• Under what conditions can organisations enable individuals to live this experience of "connectedness"?
• How do different organizational features (e.g., culture, design, strategy, leadership) affect "connectedness"?

VALUE-ADDED:

• What is the value-added of the construct of connectedness for me, for organisations and for the community of practice? How does it affect organisations?
• How can I, as a consultant, enable connectedness in organisations and individuals that I work with?

What attracts me to this topic?

I have 3 main reasons. First one is related to my past education. I was educated in science at a specialised high school with a curriculum concentrated in natural science and mathematics. Even though, I had started to be a scientist, I didn’t continue my science education after high school and chose to study engineering in university. My detachment from natural sciences somehow continued as I developed a career in organisational development and consulting which made me exposed to social sciences. While I was feeling a sense of detachment from my educational roots, I came across with Fritjof Capra who is a physicist dealing with implications of natural science and exploring links between physics, nature, life, mind and even spirituality. His approach and work gave me much inspiration that there was a strong possibility to bridge my educational past with my future professional development. He was against the current dominance of Cartesian thinking and “mechanistic paradigm for the past three hundred years” with an ambition to push for western society to abandon conventional linear thought and the mechanistic views of Descartes. Critiquing Descartes' reductionistic view that everything can be studied in parts to understand the whole, Capra was one of the first writers to encourage me to see the world through the lens of complexity theory. His approach and thinking was about changing “the way we relate to each other and to our living natural environment, the way we deal with our health, the way we perceive our business organizations, our educational systems, and many other social and political institutions” His fresh vision which “embodies the basic principles of organization of all living systems” was a paradigm shift for me. (Capra, 1997)
Capra helped me to understand the new conception of mind. Capra was also my first introduction to Gregory Bateson’s thinking who is somehow the originator of this conception and also to Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela who elaborated more extensively by in a theory known as the Santiago theory of cognition. The Santiago theory of cognition impressed me due to its unifying approach against Cartesian division of mind and matter. Capra’s unique contribution was his synthesis of the emerging theory of living systems with the integration of three criteria: Structure, pattern and process. “which are totally interdependent. In the history of science, the structure approach and the pattern approach had always been separate and competing”. He was very powerful in presenting that “the pattern of organization can only be recognized if it is embodied in a physical structure, and in living systems this embodiment is an ongoing process.” At the end these three so called separate criteria “- pattern, structure, and process - are three different but interconnected perspectives on the phenomenon of life.” (Capra, 1997)
I was simply awestruck by the subtext of most of Capra’s work: “Hidden connections between everything". (Capra, 1997) and the unique promise to link my educational past with my professional future.
Second reason is growth and learning where increasing my awareness about the moments of connectedness in my life which I see a strong element in my self-development.
“The more understanding you bring to your own experiences with flow, the more likely they can be repeated. Once experienced, flow becomes like a magnetic pole that pulls you toward it. Flow provides feelings that can be the most treasured of all our experiences. And often linked with this amazing feeling is superior performance. Flow experiences are often peak experiences. It is not surprising that when everything is optimal in your mind, the body produces outstanding performance. Flow is so special because everything comes together and feels perfect during it. We remember this feeling, and it becomes the standard of what life should always be. It can be the most tangible benefit of” these moments of flow. “It is the joy that brings” us back to doing it again and again.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)

Heron calls this as transpersonal inquiry and outlines reasons for the transpersonal inquiry as following:

It raises everyone’s consciousness about the range of options available as a focus for the inquiry.
It provides a provisional and shared vocabulary for discussing the options and for coming to agreement about the focus of the inquiry.
It presents the options in a dogma-free zone, and takes some of the negative charge off those items which some people associate with oppressive forms of religion or new age dogmatism.
It creates a shared attitude - a spirit of inquiry about the spiritual and subtle - and interrupts tendencies in some people to authoritarian pronouncements about their beliefs.
It offers a preparatory training in the sort of discriminating awareness and critical subjectivity needed in the subsequent inquiry.
It empowers people to have faith in themselves, in six ways which I describe below. (Heron, 2000)
Therefore I develop a deeper understanding of a construct which is very meaningful for my personal quest, I will also be able to reflect my learning as a contribution to the body of knowledge with such an inquiry.
Third reason is professional where I will be able to to add value to the community of practice by inquiring into an area aiming to help organisations to be places where people can achieve growth and vitality.

What does connectedness mean on the organisational side?

I am a great fan of Cirque du Soleil. I admire the way they revolutionized their show business and the image of circus. They are revolutionary because of their being a circus without animals but also because of their unique combination of aesthetics and acrobatics. They are a performance arts company. They give me a lot of inspiration. Watching Cirque du Soleil is my energiser trick especially at times when I am down. They remind me how fantastic it is to be a human being. They seem to have achieved the “organizations as brains” metaphor that Gareth Morgan describes in his book “Images of Organisations” (Morgan, 1997)

Gareth Morgan interprets Bohm’s holographic theory at the organisational level with the concept of “building the whole into all the parts”. Morgan suggests four ways to accomplish what I call connectedness in organisations. I took the liberty to label them as corporate imprint, corporate intellect, holographic structure and holistic teams in my own words.

Corporate Imprint
Firstly, Morgan introduces "the visions, values, and sense of purpose that bind an organization together can be used as a way of helping every individual understand and absorb the mission and challenge of the whole enterprise. To create brain-like capacities for self-organization, however, it is vital that the cultural codes uniting an organization foster an open and evolving approach to the future." This is one of the strongest aspects of Cirque du Soleil. When I watch the interviews with different members of Cirque du Soleil, the first thing that strikes me is that they are connected around a shared sense of purpose, identity, and meaning. They are consciously aware that this connectedness helps them to be more of themselves which keeps them more connected at the end.

Corporate Intellect

Technology has different level of impact in our businesses. It helps us to cut costs, increase efficiency etc. However it is revolutionizing the way companies operate and the way organizations exist as it gives the power of information to the frontline employee. Command and control was required in the past much more than today as more information was possessed by the higher level of organization. So you would need instructions from your superiors to do your job as they would know the bigger picture better. Technology today brings connectedness and therefore power of communication to the fingertips of employees regardless of their level of hierarchy. For the first time in corporate history, a frontline employee in a large organization is able to act as flexible and empowered as an employee of a small organization keeping all the advantages of a large organization. Also, corporate intellect in the organizations can be achieved with the help of technology and "information systems that can be accessed from multiple points of view create a potential for individuals throughout an enterprise to become full participants in an evolving system of organisational memory and intelligence." (Morgan, 1997)

Holographic Structure
“A third way of of building "the whole" into "the parts" rests in the design of organizational structures that can grow large while staying small which ... We have many examples of this. Consider, for example, the case of Gore Associates, one of the most innovative and revolutionary organisations in the world that has kept to grow at a rapid rate. Gore Associates’ philosophy is encoded in a simple set of business principles and the rule that operating factories must remain on a small scale to avoid becoming impersonal. Thus, once an enterprise reaches a size in the region of 120 people, the only way it can grow is by spinning off another unit or factory...The process has a "fractal" quality in that the same basic pattern reproduces itself over and over again."

Holistic Teams
According to Morgan, a fourth way of building "the whole" into "the parts" rests in how work tasks are designed. Under old mechanistic principles work processes were usually fragmented into narrow and highly specialized jobs, linked through some means of coordination...The holographic approach to job design moves in exactly the opposite direction by defining work holistically. The basic unit of design is a work team that is made responsible for a complete business process within the team. Roles or jobs are then broadly defined with individuals being trained in multiple skills so that they are interchangeable and can function in a flexible, organic way." This is again one of the distinct and revolutionary qualities of Cirque du Soleil.

Please click on the picture to start the video.


In any show business and performance arts specialization is required. If you are clown, you are only a clown. If you do trapeze, you only do trapeze. However, in Cirque Du Soleil, every body is required to have multiple skills and perform at different acts in different capacity staying as an organic, flexible part of the “whole”. One of my favorite shows is La Nouba. In La Nouba, there are 4 clowns which are called Les Cons who act as the heart of the whole performance and you see them dancing, doing serious acrobatics in addition to their classical role of being a clown. It is possible to do a 1 hour of fantastic performance with only 3-4 members of the cirque which would be a smaller scale version of a typical show which may have more than 50 people on the stage.

What strikes me about Cirque du Soleil, the constant feeling of “flow” they seem to have as well as their connectedness with each other, with the audience and with everything under the Grand Chapiteau. In certain resident shows, they are able to connect with each other and different audiences always with the same vigor, joy, and quality for 360 days a year.

Does Cirque du Soleil have special people who are able to experience this “connectedness” or can it be something that can be experienced at any organization? A good answer to this question comes from Cinematrix. Cinematrix, a unique audience interaction tool, developed by Lucas Laboratories’ Chief Scientist Loren Carpenter, acts as a simulator of connectedness and “flow” in organizations. It is an audience interaction technology that we sometimes use in our meetings for large groups where several thousands of people can fly an airplane together without direct communication with each other. Every time I watch a cinematrix session, I am intrigued with power of connectedness in the room. Kevin Kelly describes it as a “graceful” experience:

“In a darkened Las Vegas conference room, a cheering audience waves cardboard wands in the air. Each wand is red on one side, green on the other. Far in back of the huge auditorium, a camera scans the frantic attendees. The video camera links the color spots of the wands to a nest of computers set up by graphics wizard Loren Carpenter. Carpenter's custom software locates each red and each green wand in the auditorium. Tonight there are just shy of 5,000 wand wavers.”

Loren Carpenter launches an airplane flight simulator on the screen. His instructions are terse: "You guys on the left are controlling roll; you on the right, pitch. If you point the plane at anything interesting, I'll fire a rocket at it." The plane is airborne. The pilot is...5,000 novices. For once the auditorium is completely silent. Everyone studies the navigation instruments as the scene outside the windshield sinks in. The plane is headed for a landing in a pink valley among pink hills. The runway looks very tiny.



Please double click on the picture to start the video.

There is something both delicious and ludicrous about the notion of having the passengers of a plane collectively fly it. The brute democratic sense of it all is very appealing. As a passenger you get to vote for everything; not only where the group is headed, but when to trim the flaps.

But group mind seems to be a liability in the decisive moments of touchdown, where there is no room for averages. As the 5,000 conference participants begin to take down their plane for landing, the hush in the hall is ended by abrupt shouts and urgent commands. The auditorium becomes a gigantic cockpit in crisis. "Green, green, green!" one faction shouts. "More red!" a moment later from the crowd. "Red, red! REEEEED!" The plane is pitching to the left in a sickening way. It is obvious that it will miss the landing strip and arrive wing first. Unlike Pong, the flight simulator entails long delays in feedback from lever to effect, from the moment you tap the aileron to the moment it banks. The latent signals confuse the group mind. It is caught in oscillations of overcompensation. The plane is lurching wildly. Yet the mob somehow aborts the landing and pulls the plane up sensibly. They turn the plane around to try again.

How did they turn around? Nobody decided whether to turn left or right, or even to turn at all. Nobody was in charge. But as if of one mind, the plane banks and turns wide. It tries landing again. Again it approaches cockeyed. The mob decides in unison, without lateral communication, like a flock of birds taking off, to pull up once more. On the way up the plane rolls a bit. And then rolls a bit more. At some magical moment, the same strong thought simultaneously infects five thousand minds: "I wonder if we can do a 360?"

Without speaking a word, the collective keeps tilting the plane. There's no undoing it. As the horizon spins dizzily, 5,000 amateur pilots roll a jet on their first solo flight. It was actually quite graceful. They give themselves a standing ovation.

The conferees did what birds do: they flocked. But they flocked self- consciously. They responded to an overview of themselves as they co-formed a "5" or steered the jet. A bird on the fly, however, has no overarching concept of the shape of its flock. "Flockness" emerges from creatures completely oblivious of their collective shape, size, or alignment. A flocking bird is blind to the grace and cohesiveness of a flock in flight. “ (Kelly, 1994)

Stacey describes the similar process as a coherence emerging in interaction between people. He claims that ‘plans and actions, the emotional and rational impulses of individual people, constantly interweave in a friendly or hostile way. The basic tissue resulting from many single plans and actions of men can give rise to changes in patterns that no individual person has planned or created. From this interdependence of people arise an order which is more compelling and stronger than the will and reason of the individual people composing it. It is the order of interweaving human impulses and strivings which determines the course of the organisations.’

Cinematrix proves that connectedness can be achieved with any organization. “Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). How can we bring this notion of connectedness to the organizations?

Robert Quinn introduces a similar concept called “fundamental state of leadership” which he associates with “moments of greatness” (Quinn, 2005). In our “normal state”, we are comfort-centered, externally directed, self-focused and internally closed while in the “fundamental state” we are results centred, internally directed, other focused and externally open. “Fundamental state of leadership” is a state where we have work with a sense of purpose, focus on our being and evolving ourselves with a deep sense of unity and high awareness.

Further, he argues that “flow” concept (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991) lacks certain elements needed in the organizational context. ”First, flow is an individualistic concept. There is no requirement of human relationship. The fundamental state of leadership is focused on self-alteration or the repair or reintegration of self while operating in relationships. It is about transformational influence. Second, the state of flow is amoral. The flow experience may derive from an ethical or unethical act. The fundamental state of leadership is more ethically demanding. It requires increasing integrity on four dimensions including the integration of purpose and potential, values and behavior, self and others, knowledge and learning. Finally, the fundamental state of leadership integrates the state and the method for getting into the state. It is formulated around the four basic questions for transcending our normal hypocrisy and becoming a leader of transformational influence. It is, in this sense, simple and immediately applicable in any setting.”

Csikszentmihalyi’s “optimal experience” as well as Quinn’s “fundamental state of leadership” approach is closely associated with Positive Psychology movement started by Martin Seligman in 1998. Positive Psychology aims “to shift the mindset in psychology from mental illness to mental health with a focus on building stronger attributes as opposed to trying to fix weaknesses, creating good lives for healthy people as opposed to treating people who are psychologically distressed, and building the best in people as opposed to trying to develop the gaps” (Seligman, 1998). There is recent school of thought called Positive Organizational Scholarship. It is building a similar focus in the organizational context “by examining thriving and generative dynamics within organizations, and by emphasizing the role of embedded contexts (extra-organizational, organizational and intra-organizational) in explaining generative dynamics and positive states of individuals, groups and organizations”. (Dutton, Glynn, Spreitzer, 2005). “Thriving at work” concept (Spreitzer, Sutcliffe, Dutton, Sonenshein, Grant 2004) is especially interesting for three reasons.

First, definition of thriving is more related to the organisational context than flow where thriving at work is defined as “the psychological state in which individuals experience both a sense of vitality and a sense of learning at work. When people are thriving, they feel progress and momentum marked both by a sense of learning (greater understanding and knowledge) and a sense of vitality (aliveness)”

Secondly, the research inquires about behaviours that support thriving at work. Thriving starts when “people are active and purposeful with work” and following behaviours contribute to thriving: contribute to thriving at work are task focus, exploration and heedful relating. “Task focus means attention to getting one’s work done in a satisfactory manner. Exploration involves experimentation, risk-taking, discovery, and innovation behaviors that help people to stretch and grow in new directions. Finally, when individuals operate attentively to those around them, we say that they are heedfully relating”

Thirdly, the research looks into what enables thriving in the organisational context. According to the study, the impact of these behaviours outlined above is more “when work contexts feature decision making discretion, broad information sharing, and a climate of trust and respect.”

What do writers say about “connectedness”?

When I started to research about connectedness, I was pleasantly surprised to see it as one of the constructs attracting serious interest from various writers and thinkers as a part of a world-view which sees oneness in everything. This worldview tends to refer to the idea that all things are of a single underlying substance and reality, and that there is no true separation deeper than appearances. While some writers feel that 'connectedness' and similar terms are part of a contemporary lexicon of mysticism based on the same core idea of universal oneness, many scientists agree in different ways that everything in this universe is interconnected.

On the practical side, connectedness exists in our life in different capacity with family, friends, organization, community, nation, humanity and sacredness. We experience in different moments with nature, work, people and sometimes a sacred being larger than us. For the matters of simplicity, I would like to group them under two aspects which I will now call as personal and organisational connectedness. These levels somehow embody both the emerging world-view in science as well as above practical groupings above. They also resonate well with my own experience and promise a meaningful link to a potential value-added for the community of practice as a result of my inquiry.
I recently read “Presence” (Flowers, Jaworski, Scharmer, Senge, 2006) and thought that reading that book was a delightful experience. This book wonderfully presents an underlying theory called, Theory U originally developed by Otto Scharmer with contributions from Joseph Jaworski, Peter Senge and Betty Sue Flowers. Theory U talks about a process called Sensing-Presencing-Realizing. It is learning and change with reflective awareness. It is about being open, connecting, listening to the universe with all of our senses responding what our environment is telling us and going with the flow. Sensing is active awareness part where we listen and connect. Presencing is the moment where paradigm shift happens after the deep involvement process of Sensing. Realising is materialising the learning and change achieved with Sensing and Presencing.


Please click on the picture to start the video.
While I was reading the book, I had a flashback of unique experience that I had with my 6-year old daughter few weeks earlier during our trip to Sri Lanka. We were staying at the oceanfront which was devastated by the waves of tsunami a while ago. Even though we knew that all was back to normal, the size of the waves was still intimidating for us to swim in the ocean. We then went to visit a sea turtle hatchery. In the hatchery, we had the opportunity to let a few one week old baby turtles go into the ocean. These baby turtles had come out of their eggs kept at the hatchery and it was the first time they were seeing the ocean. It was a magical moment when we left them on the sand. The moment we left them on the sand they started to march towards the ocean swiftly and bravely. But they were not heading blindly. They were walking few steps and suspending then walking a bit more and then suspending again. Before reading Presence, I would call this process as sensing and responding which is called as Sensing by the authors. After the scary march towards waves, they would finally meet the edge of water which is a moment of Presencing and if they are able to survive and float which is Realizing, they start their journey in the ocean.
This experience was rather valuable for my thinking about connectedness. It made me feel that a good indication of connectedness is the feeling of a deeper awareness which is not only about sensing but also responding to the all happening around us. Fritz Perls, a pioneer in Gestalt Therapy similarly addresses that "awareness is characterised by contact, by sensing, by excitement and by gestalt formation" (Perls1951); "[It] is the spontaneous sensing of what arises in you of what you are doing, feeling, planning"
After our last meeting in September, I also had the opportunity to explore David Bohm further whose theory of the Implicate Order (Bohm, 1980) contains an holistic cosmic view; “it connects everything with everything else”. In principle, any individual element could reveal "detailed information about every other element in the universe." The central underlying theme of Bohm's theory is the "unbroken wholeness of the totality of existence as an undivided flowing movement without borders."
Connectedness, inspiring from Bohm’s thinking, grows in "a series of moments." Basically, "one moment gives rise to the next, in which context that was previously implicate is now explicate while the previous explicate content has become implicate." Connectedness can be seen as “an interchange, a feedback process that results in a growing accumulation of understanding and consciousness”.
That reminded me a story from few years ago. A friend of mine was visiting one of her good friends in Japan who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. During her visit, her friend takes her to a temple which is a place that he finds peaceful and inspiring. When they are walking in the picturesque gardens of the temple, my friend realises that she feels more depressed than her friend contradictory to their situation and asks her friend if she could talk to one of the monks. As the monks would not easily talk to visitors, he hesitates to try but finally they manage to ask to one of the monks nearby. Fortunately the monk speaks English and asks her what she would like to talk about when they sit in a private corner. She sincerely shares the strange feeling she has had for some time. Even though she seems to have a good marriage and successful professional career, she just cannot help a feeling of a vacuum and discontent. The monk listens to her with great patience and when she finishes he draws a straight line on the ground with the stick in his hand. Then he says: "This is your life in the west. You try to live your lives like a straight line. When you see something on your path you see it as an obstacle and spend much energy trying to overcome it or when you need to change your course, you become frustrated." He also adds that "westerners" live a life of "doing" through this straight line thinking. A life with to-do lists, fixed plans. "What happens is that when they reach at a certain age, they retire and their "to-do" lists cease and quite a few of them feel deprived and even depressed. Some cope with it by buying a dog, some try to relocate to a fishing village and some turn to alcohol.” "In the east," he further comments; "We look at life from a different angle" and draws a spiral below the straight line. He says that "This is how we see life. It is a life which is constantly changing, flowing, always evolving. I call this as a life of "being" It is not a finite straight line, in contrary it is an infinite path. You embrace anything on your path rather than fighting with it.” He concludes that “When you migrate from the life of “doing” to a life of “being” you will leave discontent behind and find peace and harmony.”


Listening to this story has been another transformative experience for me. Quest of being starts with knowing oneself. Having insight about oneself and achieving connectedness seems like two interwoven processes. When we are connected, we have more of moments of insight about ourselves. When we are more aware who we are, we are more open and able to connect. Then we grow more into ourselves.
According to Bohm, insight is pure perception. Because of the low-level of our ego development (manifested by our grandiosity, our emotional fears and pressures, our ignorant worldviews, and our gross extraversion), this insight is more than often deflected by a closed mind. The opposite of the closed mind is the openness to interiority. Human beings must look within in order to meet and scrutinise universal insight.
John Heron's Feeling and Personhood (Heron, 1992) offers a similar perspective on the human being which I believe resonates with my experience of connectedness and feeling of unity. For Heron the person is a "fundamental spiritual reality, a distinct presence in the world" (p. 52), with “material and social and psychological and spiritual dimensions.” (Reason, 1993)

Heron describes the feeling as “the capacity to participate in wider unities of being, to become at one with the differential content of the whole field of experience, to indwell what is present through attunement and resonance, and to know its own distinctness. I am in communion with what is manifest here and now, and while feeling at one with it, I am at the same time aware of my own distinctness” (Heron, 1992).

Peter Reason suggests to explore a concept called “participatory consciousness” in the context of his participatory worldview approach. According to Reason, participatory consciousness may be in the “form of a vision quest, or of wilderness experience” (Reason, 1993). Reason offers the following experiment adapted from Skolimowski for experiencing participatory consciousness:

“Go outside and find a tree. First of all decide what kind of tree it is, and then identify and name all the separate entities you can find: trunk, branches, twigs, bark, leaves, stems, ants, bugs, drops of water... and so on. Identify and name as many as you can in as much detail as you can. Make a list. When you have finished (if you do finish) begin to count the number of each entity you have identified.”

After fifteen minutes or so, sit back and notice the state of consciousness you are in.

Then approach the same tree in the following fashion. First, quieten your being with some gentle breathing and mind-clearing meditation. Then approach the tree with reverence and ask for permission to engage. If the permission is granted identify with the tree, enter into its being, experience its history and present state. Ask the tree if it will tell you its Name.

After fifteen minutes or so, thank the tree, disengage, and notice the state of consciousness you are in.” (Reason, 1993)

Similarly, Richard Tarnas has a wonderful metaphor about knowing about the cosmos and actually uniting with the cosmos.

“Imagine that you are the universe, a deep, beautiful, ensouled universe, and that you are being approached by two different epistemologies, two suitors who seek to know you. Would you open your deepest secrets to the suitor -- that is, to the methodology, the epistemology -- who would approach you as though you were unconscious, utterly lacking in intelligence or purpose, and inferior in being to him; who related to you as though you were ultimately there for his exploitation, his self-enhancement; and whose motivation for knowing you is driven essentially by a desire for prediction and control for his own self-betterment? Or would you open your deepest secrets to that suitor -- that epistemology, that methodology -- who viewed you as being at least as intelligent and powerful and full of mystery and soul as he is, and who sought to know you by uniting with you to create something new?” (Tarnas, 2006)

Reason’s concept of participatory consciousness as well as Tarnas’ suitor metaphor resonates wonderfully with my existing experiences in the nature as well as my quest for being interwoven with connectedness.

Cummings had wonderfully expressed such experiences in his unique poetic style:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

--e.e. cummings

How does “connectedness” feel?

These moments described in the previous section represent a feeling of unity, surrendering, letting go, being one, flow, calmness, and awe.

Unity is about having a deep sense of connectivity that everything is connected to one another. We voluntarily surrender to what is going on and let it all go in its own nature. Then it happens. We become one with everything around us and feel that we are going with an extraordinary flow. No matter how wild it may look from outside, it always has a feeling of calmness and awe.

It is the sense of acceptance, belonging, harmony, vanishing, and being home. It all starts with a sense of acceptance attenuated with a strong sense of belonging. Then a marvellous sense of harmony emerges and makes me vanish in all that’s happening. I am home.

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi describes such moments as “ecstasic” moments and calls the mental state as “being in the flow”:

• Completely involved, focused, concentrating - with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training
• Sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality
• Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going
• Knowing the activity is doable - that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored
• Sense of serenity - no worries about self, feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of ego - afterwards feeling of transcending ego in ways not thought possible
• Timeliness - thoroughly focused on present, don't notice time passing
• Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces "flow" becomes its own reward
  (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)
  
  I call this special feeling as connectedness and I am therefore interested to explore:

• What is it that we call connectedness? When do we feel connectedness?
• What is connectedness like? How do we feel or sense connectedness?
• Is it a momentary experience or can it be a constant state of being? How do we become aware that it exists?
• Does it exist in organisational context? If so, how does it take place in organizations?
  

Moments of Ecstasy

It is 3 am in the night. Wind is gusting to 40 knots and we have been cradled in big seas for past two weeks. Under a fanfare of shooting stars, the boat is surfing over the dark-blue water like a bullet. I am at the helm. The boat is in my hands, my hands are touching the wind, and my mind is skilfully surfing over the ocean. Ocean is my mind. I am the ocean, the wind and the boat. It is an extraordinary feeling of unity. As Bateson would describe, I am one with "pattern which connects the orchid to the primrose and the dolphin to the whale and all four to me."

Ocean is a tough teacher of life. She teaches fundamentals eloquently with persistence. When I am at the helm but not connected to her, she will do all kinds of to show that I am not connected. She will first flap the sails gently. If it doesn’t work, she will get ferocious. If I am still not with her, she will start swinging the boom. Depending on how detached I am, she may even smash it from one side to the other rather viciously. Am I still missing it? She will start rolling the boat. Am I insisting not to be there? She will splash water on my face first then wet me until I wake up. She wants me awake. She wants me to be fully aware, all senses open, listening to what she is telling me and then responding to her when needed.

I subscribed to a mobile news service last year. Few hours after my subscription, I had already received several news feeds on my mobile phone. I thought about it for a moment. If I receive 10 messages a day, it makes more than 3000 messages in a year. In 70-year, it would take 200,000 messages. I reflected on my experience with ocean and asked what if I am connected to some universal news feed service which continuously sends me messages that I need. What if I miss the fundamental fact that such a subscription exists. Years pass and I live without being aware of millions of unread messages delivered to me. Then I talk about coincidences, luck and sometimes misfortune. Does it all start with the acknowledgement that I am part of larger whole?

My memory takes me back 20 years to my exchange student year in Cincinnati. I am playing the alto saxophone at Wyoming High School Concert Band. We are at the Mid-States Band Championship in Chicago playing a compelling piece, probably “Sailing Beyond the Stars”. I am one with the band and have an unprecedented feeling of melting in music as I was going to melt in the ocean and stars 20 years later. It is a feeling of vanishing in harmony. It is a sublime experience.


I am not in the concert hall any more. I am walking in a mountain forest. I can sense trees whispering to me in the silence of snow. I can feel the curiosity of the weasel looking at me behind the bush. The snow covering the forest blankets my mind. I am feeling the calmness of the forest. I am welcome, feeling home, accepted. I am me.

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Mary Oliver


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Finally we are in Kackar Mountains, North-East of Turkey. Markus, our helicopter pilot drops us to the tip of 11,000 ft summit and takes off to fetch the next group. We start to ski down off the edge one by one. We are floating over the meters deep powder snow. I feel an extraordinary feeling of flowing down the slope like a river. Air is whistling past my face, and the snow-shrouded trees are running by. I stopped worrying about what to do next as my body is taking care of it all and I am finely tuned with the slope. The run is so perfect that I just want it to last forever.