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The Wisdom Meme Home

Leading from the Inner Self
The Story of a Wisdom Council Experience

London – 28th November 2003

It was a bright, mild November morning when a band of seekers met in a quiet gallery in wonderful parkland to explore the question of what it means to lead from the inner self.

As they sat in circle around a glyph of eight sections of a wheel with vase of beautiful roses and lilies at the centre and surrounded by vibrant modern art on bright white walls, they shared what had called them to this gathering, as a way of connecting their circle.

When this was complete, they were invited to put on the cloak of an elder and imagine that they had travelled to this place to look deeply into their roles as leaders and the needs of organisations and to be present in a way of evoking their wisdom and that of their fellow seekers so they would all gain from the harvesting of their collective wisdom.

They heard how, as the world of business becomes more complex, chaotic and competitive, the qualities needed of leaders is changing. Many of the current challenges cannot be resolved by intellect alone. They heard stories from the Harvard Business Review, from Chartered Institute of Management and from Peter Senge that supported this.

And then they shared their leadership challenges and questions with one another and saw that they were increasingly challenged to draw upon their inner qualities – courage, integrity, vision and caring for their teams and organisations to name but a few.

In the old ways, when the people faced challenges or important questions, they would meet in the round houses, long houses, tipis or around the fire. They would use an old design, a Wisdom Council, to inform their speaking to ensure that nothing was missed.

So this band of seekers were taught the beginning level of the Wisdom Council – the eight perspectives of the elders and how they form a design of wholeness and balance informed by the self-organising systems in nature.

Through a guided visualisation they used the Wisdom Council process to look into a personal challenge they were facing and gained new insights into that challenge that helped them understand the situation more deeply and how to take more effective action.

The process also helped deepen their understanding of the Wisdom Council process in preparation to use it to address their collective leadership challenge.

A question was offered to the group to take to Council, explore together and gather their wisdom. The question was ‘What are the inner qualities and behaviours needed of leaders to evoke the desired values and behaviours in an organisation?’

They gathered in their self selected Clans, each holding two directions of the Council Wheel, and began to explore the questions from their chosen perspective and with an ‘opening’ question to help inform their exploration. These questions were:

What are the inner qualities and behaviours of a leader that will:

• promote the expansion of the organisation’s creative potential?
• sharpen the awareness of the whole field of self and organisation?
• create a climate of trust, confidence and openness whilst at the same time honing readiness to respond?
• develop a focus on the purpose and alignment with the agreed direction?
• enhance sensitivity to a wide spectrum of needs for sustaining health?
• ensure mindfulness of the rhythms and cycles of life and the web of cause and effect that shapes the future?
• foster courage and decisiveness to draw upon the people’s resources to take the necessary clear action?
• ensure all the voices are heard and that the vitality and energy of the people is evoked?

People worked together in their groups, some in the gallery and others walking in the parkland in the bright sunshine, and from their deep looking into the question they crafted their recommendations to present to Council.

During a formal sitting of the Wisdom Council, each group in turn, starting with the East, spoke a little of what they had seen as they opened up the question and the recommendations they were bringing from their perspective. Here are the Recommendations of the Wisdom Council.

After the completion of the Wisdom Council, an energy game was played. The whole group stood in circle and passed a tennis ball around. Then a second tennis ball was introduced, and it became clear that passing two tennis balls around in a random fashion could not be sustained by the group.

However when a pattern was created and each person paid attention to who they were receiving the ball from and called the name of who they were passing to, it was possible to have six tennis balls circulating simultaneously.

Everyone had a lot of fun and learned that, with a pattern and a focus of attention, much could be achieved.

Sitting together again in circle the group began to work again with the design of the Wisdom Council energies and now to reflect on them in the context of leadership. Each of the eight energies was considered in turn and examples of leaders or people from the present day, history, films of books were brought to mind as examples of the energies being manifest in their fullness.

In the East, the energies of Freedom and Creativity were seen to be displayed by people like Da Vinci and Einstein.

In the South East, the energies of Present Condition and Appreciation by Jonny Wilkinson, by Nelson Mandela.

In the South, the energies of Power and Danger by the old explorers and Richard Branson.

In the South West, the energies of Purpose and Direction by Clive Woodward and by Moses.

In the West, the energies of Maintenance and Balance by Mother Teresa and by any mother with a large, or small, family.

In the North West, the energies of Interrelatedness and Timing by Nostradamus and Bill Gates

In the North, the energies of Clarity and Action by Hannibal and Margaret Thatcher.

In the North East, the energies of Integrity and Vitality by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

It was noted that our Western culture tends to focus on ‘pathology’ – what is wrong and what needs fixing. A more valuable approach is to create powerful images of what it is for a human to be operating at their full potential and using these as guides for our own development.

It is not expected that we will develop the same degree of creative capability as Da Vinci or the caring of Mother Teresa. But we have all of these energies within us and accessible to us. Using this design and by giving attention to our development, we have the opportunity to become more balanced and effective as leaders.

With this in mind, the people were invited to complete a Self Assessment Wheel to begin to explore where they saw their leadership strengths and where they could identify opportunities for development.

Informed by their self assessments, we used a question and answer session to address some of the important and urgent questions people had about the Council Wheel and their self assessments.

We completed with a sharing of the gems we had each received from the day.