Chris Corrigan, over at Parking Lot , is beginning a year-long inquiry into how hosts (group facilitators) can be forces of conscious evolution.

Nice term … conscious evolution.

From his post:

Conscious evolution is as simple as having the experience of becoming “bigger” in terms of consciousness of forces and systems and the impact we can have on those forces and systems.

I have my criticisms of how people approach change in organisations. Corrigan's work will be important in establishing an optimism in the way in which individuals, groups and organisations can deal with discontinuous change.

The leaf-in-the-wind-like position groups and organisations find themselves in reminds me of a Hasidic motif: A traveler loses his way in a forest: it is dark and he's afraid. Danger lurks behind ever tree. A storm shatters the silence. The fool looks at the lightning, the wise man at the road that lies – illuminated – before him.

As organisations deal with the "forces and sytems" they partake in, facilitators need to keep their heads up, to see what the lightning illuminates. It is an approach profoundly informed by invitational theory where optimism and intentionality are core to the process.

Instead of being reactive, the concept of conscious evolution opens up opportunites for organisations to an intentional step in creating their future. The concept of "change" is no longer useful – it is a term that does not speak of the opportunity lying ahead of us.

Stay ontop of what is happening in Corrigan's work at CoHo .

Image courtesy of ColinEdwards & Leeontheroad