Getting a focus on the future

By Larry Philbrook

What is today’s burning question for the world and for us? As a body dedicated to research, training and demonstration, the ICA is extremely interested in this. Over the past few years, we have seen uprisings and demonstrations of mainly young people and the disfranchised around the world – and at our doorstep. In our work with clients and communities of practice as well as in our personal lives we have experienced dysfunctional systems.

In a search for clarity, ICA Taiwan posed the following to a wide and diverse group of about 300 people:

• The fast-changing world:  Where do you experience the greatest need for transformation?
• Leading the change:  What is the new thing that you see is needed now in the arena of leadership, challenges and opportunities?
• Things that have already happened:  What is a recent event or change that you are pleased about?
• The world and your organization: If you were all-powerful, what are the first changes that you would make?
• Inventing from the future:  What do you sense is coming that demands change now?
• Not yet recognized:  What other questions should we be asking?

These questions were sent to members of ICA International, ICA’s list serve and the US ToP Network, as well as friends, colleagues and clients. Most of them answered these questions and added comments. We read their responses and reflected on what they revealed from four perspectives – how the context has shifted; the challenges before us; the opportunities for the ICA; and the shifts in our way of being. The following is a summary of our findings.

What the data reveals

Changes in context: The exercise raised questions for ICA Taiwan about authentic community, environment and ecology, and new forms of power. Our task is to constantly do an intuitive scan for possibility while reflecting on how that is different from what it was yesterday.

• Contradictions and challenges: Some people are changing or challenging the system, others are changing their way of being and their consciousness. The contradiction is that it cannot be either/or – it has to be transrational, an intuitive perception and embodiment of the new reality.

Opportunities for the ICA: Given our global interconnectedness, we do not know what is next. It is clear that it will be participative and that the ICA has an opportunity to anticipate the future and continually recreate itself.  The “not yet” just got here.

The shift needed: We must reintegrate and recreate ourselves using our insights on facilitation, imaginal learning, participative development and internal spirit discipline, and also all the emerging wisdom that we have access to.

The questions they raise

• How do we live and work with a sense of authentic community?  Consciousness and awareness of self have always been critical in development. Now the sense of Self and the Other has expanded to include a sense of We. How do we develop the discipline of reflection to the level that I and We are both revealed?  How do we move from Exclusive to Inclusive – an operating style that supports each of the three – I, You, We – as a valued contributor?

• What is the environmental framework that will enable more effective decisions? Otto Scharmer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calls this shifting from Ego to Eco. Or, using an ICA idiom, what does it mean to operate “On Behalf of All” when the context now has a more inclusive ecological focus?

• What are the new forms of power? What is needed when hierarchy cannot handle diversity in every working group? A power shift from hierarchical control to the global infusion of a myriad of voices calls for new ways of being inclusive, creative, participative and responsible.

If you would like to view the input and comments made by those who took part in the exercise, please visit https://sites.google.com/site/icataiw/home-page and go to the bottom of the page and click on the link “Representative Selection of Data Elicited From Respondents….”

This exercise is a continuing one and we welcome further dialogue! If you would like to contribute, please send an e-mail to icamail@icatw.com

Larry Philbrook is director of ICA Taiwan