Form Follows Function: The Design of This Book

For many years, I have needed to know what to do, how best to use my heart and mind and energy to meaningfully serve as things fall apart. This book mirrors my own process: using the lens of new science to understand where we are and how we got here, using the patterns of complex civilizations to deepen my historical awareness and then reflecting on what I’ve learned from working with leaders who did not lose their way but persevered in doing the best that was possible in difficult, even dire circumstances.

Here is a guide to the design of this book, how I’ve chosen to organize its many different elements. This is a complex work because it needs to be, and in the next essay I describe “Dwelling Mind” as the way to work with this material slowly and thoughtfully.

I set out to answer three questions, each of which embodies one of the subtitles:

1. Facing Reality: Where are we and how did we get here?

2. Claiming Leadership: What is the role of leaders now?

3. Restoring Sanity: How do we create islands of sanity that sustain our best human qualities?

In every section, these questions are explored in detail in short essays, grouped under these three headings.

I begin each section with What Science Teaches—explaining a specific dynamic common to all living systems. I describe how this dynamic is defined and used by scientists to explain observable phenomena in the known Universe. The six dynamics featured are The Arrow of Time; Identity; Information; Self-Organization; Perception; Interconnectedness. (These are very similar to the science I used in Leadership and the New Science. This is deliberate.)

Following the science are several essays under the heading Facing Reality. In these essays, I use the lens of science to describe the causes of many of our most troubling and disturbing personal and social behaviors, especially those of importance to leaders. These dynamics of living systems work powerfully and irrevocably in us; even if we ignore them, they are always operating. Adding to the lens of science, I use the pattern of collapse of complex civilizations to further understand where we are. Where do our behaviors and cultural phenomena place us on the timeline of collapse?

Here’s an example of how these two lenses weave together:

The most powerful organizing dynamic in life is identity. The first act of life is to define a self, whether a micro-organism or a human being. In humans, how we define ourselves determines our perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, values. Today, it is this primary dynamic of identity that drives social media and has led to its overbearing, distorting presence in our lives. Social media enables a culture of manufactured identities, where people create any self that ensures their popularity. In the Digital Age, identity has changed from a culturally transmitted sense of self within a group to an individual one, where you can be anything you want.

In this maelstrom of constantly changing selves, Ideas of objective truth and integrity disappear. Ethics and taking a stand don’t matter; popularity does.

This understanding of how identity has created our present-day culture can be easily plotted against Glubb’s Six Ages of Collapse. At first, in the Pioneer Age, identities form from a sense of honor and commitment to a cause. Sacrifice and service are the guiding values. Midway, all civilizations evolve into the Age of Commerce, where money and wealth become the organizing identities. Service gives way to getting rich. In the final stage, the Age of Decadence, celebrities—athletes, musicians, and actors—are revered and people lose themselves in wanton pleasures. (In November 2016, President Obama awarded Presidential Medals of Freedom primarily to athletes, musicians, and actors.)

This is one example of how the two lenses combine to sharpen our understanding of where we are, how we got to here, and how best to serve as we journey the well-trodden path of collapse.

Subsequent essays are organized under Claiming Leadership and Restoring Sanity. In these, I answer the questions, What are we to do as leaders, given this reality? What is sane leadership? I use a combination of commentary, actual practices, quotes, and story to bring into focus the qualities and actions that support good leadership on an island of sanity. The stories I tell are of leaders I worked with closely, who used living systems dynamics in healthy and life-affirming ways. These leaders are exceptionally diverse in who they led (from nuns to military commanders), but deeply unified in how they work with people and partner with life. They are all leaders that people admire for their achievements; I admire them for the depth of their intelligence, integrity, and great hearts and minds. It is an honor to bring them into these pages and into your awareness.

Each of these leaders is a Warrior for the Human Spirit and, in the concluding chapters, I bring in my current work, to train leaders to develop the qualities of compassion, discernment, and presence that are essential leadership skills these days. Starting in the late ’90s, I began teaching about spiritual warriorship, how to lead without using aggression or fear to accomplish our goals. I described them in a preliminary way in So Far from Home (2012). Since then, I have been actively training leaders globally in the skills of Warriors for the Human Spirit, work that I expect to continue for as long as I am able. Clearly the need for such leaders now grows exponentially.