leadership problems magically solved when you remember that every adult carries a helpless infant inside them there’s one experience that is shared by all people without exception: you were born a helpless infant totally dependent on other people to take care of you they had capabilities you lacked, and they had the power to give or withhold the care you needed to survive the state of being a dependant infant is completely universal. therefore, whenever we are in a complex social situation with multiple people, the “parent-child dynamic” is one of the stable patterns that we all know is available. it’s not the only schelling point but it is the most obvious one so. any discussion of leadership, group dynamics, authority, self-responsibility, agency, hierarchy, consent, power, community etc etc etc must take this into consideration as this relates to leadership, there are 2 main failure modes as a leader, you can lean into this dynamic and treat everyone as your inferior. continuously assert the specialness of your role, withhold information, limit other people’s agency, make choices on their behalf, keep making them small so you can enjoy the feeling of being big OR you can fail in the other direction. pretend this dynamic doesn’t exist. pretend that everyone has equal power to choose what’s right for them. pretend that you don’t have a unique capacity to influence everyone’s experience the balance point between these two poles is messy & nuanced for example. if I am hosting an event with a bunch of people meeting each other for the first time, I know that pretty soon some people are going to start feeling left out as a leader, I can pretend I don’t have a role to play in this. hey we’re all responsible for our own experience. you need to work with those feelings and build some courage. stop alienating yourself. stop alienating yourself or I can attempt to micro-manage and choreograph every interaction so nobody ever has any bad feelings, thereby squeezing all the life out of the event too much intervention from the leaders is cringe, too little intervention is neglect. and everyone has a different preference! how much should I intervene? it depends! ideally, we can learn to relate to each other as equal adults. but I don’t think we ever completely leave the parent-child dynamic behind. your “helpless infant” conditioning is imprinted right down in the lowest parts of your developmental stack as a leader, I think the best I can do is to stay awake, to notice when you’re parentifying me or when I’m treating you as a child, and call attention to it so we can side-step out of it. we can create systems that keep pulling us back up on to equal footing. we can create a culture where triggers are a source of mutual curiosity instead of alarm or withdrawal.

the last few months I’ve been working with @vividvoid, training habitual people-pleasers to be more confrontational. it’s been so fascinating to learn the logic of conflict-avoidant people and to find strategies that support them to stand up for themselves our Fight Wise program is a series of role-play exercises where people practice navigating heated interpersonal scenarios with skill. I observed one particular scene that I want to describe here in detail because it illustrates so much: Mark is rehearsing a difficult conversation he needs to have with his partner (roleplayed by Jess). he needs to let her know that something about their relationship needs to change. we want him to find that confidence where it feels natural for him to advocate for himself and communicate directly about his needs, boundaries and requests but all it took to throw him off his game was for Jess to change her body language slightly to show “I’m not receptive to you”. some part of Mark picks up on those nonverbal signals and completely loses track of himself. the confidence evaporates, the clarity is replaced by hedging and compromise Mark is operating on a logic something like “if I’m always accomodating, we can find a way to get along”. this strategy is certainly effective for maintaining a relationship (either at work or at home), but it comes with psychic damage, it undermines his self-respect, and generates resentment that comes out sideways, as passive aggression or pettiness I was shocked to see how much power Mark gave to Jess. all she had to do was squint her eyes slightly and scrunch up her forehead and that was enough for him to concede the fight before it had even really started in the course we go thru repeated cycles of roleplay + reflection: - before you go into a confrontation: settle yourself & clarify what’s most important for you to communicate - during: actively regulate your nervous system so you can communicate as directly as possible: “This is what I observed. This is why I can’t accept it. Would you be willing to do XYZ instead?” - after: settle yourself & reflect on what happened, so you can 1) understand how you habitually respond in moments of interpersonal stress, and 2) get the “update”: what do you want to remember, next time you’re in this situation? I think we saw the biggest change in Mark when he learned to keep his awareness on himself, not to get lost in his mental modelling and anxious anticipation of what the other person is thinking and feeling, but maintaining some curiosity about his own body, and mindfully maintaining deep breath, neutral voice, straight back, relaxed shoulders. that’s the somatic foundation for straightforward communication training these new habits of awareness, posture, and nervous system regulation opened up the space where he could practice a new repertoire and develop a new logic in relationships. he’s learning to be loyal to himself in the high-stakes moments, rather than abandoning himself if you wanna join us in the dojo and practice standing your ground and advocating for yourself, we’re running one more cohort this year, starting October 22nd. sign-up below

a short clip about the magical power of 🥁 RHYTHM 🥁 to forge a coherent collective identity from a loose collection of individuals from our online course about teamwork: thehum.org/courses-and-event…

this time next month I'm co-hosting a retreat for community organisers in Denver join us if you want to learn how to create spaces for belonging, growth, meaningful work & solidarity only 2 tickets remaining: thehum.org/microsolidarity-g… photo credit: @jputtt

we've got a new course opening June 7th 👀

2 good jobs going at @UlexProject. I love Ulex! they are activist trainer/facilitators who work at the sweet spot between personal, interpersonal and systemic change (keywords: teal, integral, intersectionality, sociocracy, meditation...) ulexproject.org/working-with…

in September I'm running a practical short course in community building: the Microsolidarity Practice Program this is the 7th iteration of the course, so I want to do this one a bit different - I want to fill the room with twitter friends 1/x

I gave a talk today on decentralised governance for village ventures. Here's my notes, starting with 2 cheat codes for all self-organising groups... thread 👇