Chris Breen

I seem to be on a mission this year! I want to use my EMBA session preparation as a time to find the courage to step even closer to the edge. I want to make sure that I say exactly what I think needs to be said on any topic. I also want to try to find the activities that will optimise student learning in my Personal Leadership Course.

This quest is currently driven by the concept of a 'canonical image' offered to me long ago by an outstanding mentor in mathematics education, Dick Tahta. For Dick, this canonical image was the mathematics teacher's lodestone that pointed out the path for learners to get to the heart of the geometric concept under investigation.

This particular blog has its roots in my preparation and delivery of my most recent session with the 2025 EMBA27 class. It also owes thanks to Craig, one of the students, whose sharing at the end of the session has grown wings and demands me to pay attention and let the ideas fly.

The major theme of this session was Wisdom.

One of my favourite theorists, Francisco Varela, draws on the work of Mencius who claims that the path to living with wisdom lies in Extension. This involves continually learning from incidents as they occur, so that we can develop a greater flexibility and menu for future situations. In an earlier video in the session, Brene Brown had spoken on the topic of The Anatomy of Trust. In her talk she introduced the concept of Sliding Door Moments, where the choice to move towards or away from the situation can either build or destroy Trust.

These concepts circle back to my own work on Hinge Moments, which started many years ago when I realised I had to do something to change my initial hostile and aggressive reaction when triggered.

I cover this Hinge Moment work in the first year of the EMBA course as well as in a Reflective Paper assignment, so the class is fairly familiar with the topic. By the end of that first year, we have understood the advantage of catching the hinge moment in time to STOP and taking a deep breath. This pause gives us time to choose to respond rather than react.

This Pause is almost impossible to achieve when really triggered, so it is helpful to examine the data to determine the type of situation or person that is likely to increase the probability of our reacting in an inappropriate way.

The last and most reliable way to handle Hinge Moments intelligently comes from an awareness of what happens in our bodies when we are triggered. The most common source of this trigger lies in a childhood wound, so the moment we are triggered will feel like a life-or-death situation - and our body shouts out its warning. If we can develop an awareness of and familiarity with this body warning, it can act as an early warning alarm system that allows us to STOP and take that breath.

Returning to my recent class on Wisdom, I told the class the story of two more serious hinge moment failures from the previous year. (I explored these moments of failure in some depth in a LinkedIn article). The article draws heavily on Varela’s concept of Micro-worlds and Micro-identities which posits that we each inhabit a range of micro-worlds that come from the different roles that we play in our lives (partner, parent, child, boss, employee, customer, etc.) and for each of them we have a particular and different micro-identity.

Hillman captures the result of arriving home from work and entering the house without changing micro-world extremely well in the short audio extract that follows:

I like Hillman's explicit focus on the door as the gateway between microworlds.

One of the awareness challenges I give students at the start of my course is to try to catch the moment they reach the doorway and are about to enter the lecture room. I invite them to consider that the doorway is the threshold they are about to cross in order to reach the learning micro-world of the lecture room. I ask them to stop and stand still for a moment. What work do they need to do to be ready for this change? What is the appropriate micro-identity that will aid their learning? I ask them to start by letting go of their many thoughts and consciously commit themselves to the session’s learning by saying aloud, ‘I’m in!’, before entering the room with presence and purpose.

I take time to share with them my own lack of success in seeing doorways and being aware that I am crossing into a new micro-world. It is usually when I put my things down on the lecturer's desk that I am aware of the need to ground myself and focus. This difficulty in seeing thresholds has its own consequences, as the story below shows.

In the LinkedIn article, both hinge moment failures happened at home with my partner, Louise. I have already mentioned my perfectionist side, which has served me well in achieving at work (and in athletics - when I was much younger!). Louise has a similar ability to focus right into the core of an issue (which allows her to excel in her word magician editing work!).

When the second event happened within a week of the first, we sat down to reflect. The first failure happened when Louise came to join me at the breakfast table after I had been cooking and she had been relaxing while reading in bed. The second happened when Louise came to join me on the couch after she had finished tidying the kitchen after supper while I had been relaxing in the lounge.

We smiled when we saw the way in which these two situations mirrored each other. In each situation one of us had invoked our perfectionist side while 'at work' in the kitchen at the same time as the other relaxed. Neither of us had paid attention to the shift in very different micro-worlds that was taking place as we came together.

Our discussion led us to realise that in both situations we had stepped across the threshold of different micro-worlds in blissful unawareness of the need to change micro-identities.

This was clearly not a trivial task, so for the next week we tried to help ourselves and each other become aware of this move between micro-worlds by saying ‘Transitioning’.

At the end of the EMBA lecture, Craig shared his growing experience of the way that many of his hinge moments at work seemed to have been scripted before any real interaction had taken place. The common feature seemed to be related to power and a resisted to perceived authority over others.

This resonates with possible dimensions of roles of 'worker' and 'relaxer' in my interactions with Louise.

I'm wondering if these awarenesses point to a need to slow down and recognise and mark the Transitioning moment between micro-worlds, so that one can adjust one's micro-identity as appropriate to the situation and one's knowledge of the other participants.

Does an awareness of Transitioning offer a new (and powerful?) way to catch hinge moments and respond intelligently each time? It certainly seems to be working for Louise and me - there have (touch wood) been no repeat missed hinge moments in the past nine months!

Wouldn't it be amazing if this awareness of Transitioning turned out to be the canonical concept that leads us to a freedom from inappropriate reactions to Hinge Moments?

Over the years, I have refined my teaching space as a simulated real life-real learning laboratory. My teaching methodology (Methodology - Chris Breen) aims to facilitate deep learning opportunities and draws on a crucial insight from Maturana and Varela’s Santiago Theory of Cognition. They claim that the job of the teacher is to perturbate the learner in a way that increases the likelihood of uncovering taken-for-granted assumptions and beliefs.

It is one of my highlights in teaching when I manage to recognise and act in the moment on the golden gift that arrives with a hinge moment that is pregnant with possibility (Hinge Moments - Chris Breen).

And, of course, it is one of my most frustrating experiences when I later realise (in retrospect!) that I missed what feels like a crucial opportunity for a possible life-changing piece of learning.

A fortnight ago, I was closing a challenging executive Personal Leadership and Working Together programme (Personal Leadership - Chris Breen) with an activity which aims to give participants a beautiful and inspiring embodied understanding of the magic that can occur when one's focus changes from above-the-line mind domination to below-the-line inclusion of heart and body and relationship - as per the diagram below.

The small group of participants had been divided in pairs using a silent game where they ended up standing next to (and hence partnering) their colleague birth day and month was closest to theirs. As the participants were an odd numbered group, I joined the activity.

The task required each pair of partners to face each other and for one person to lead through a series of movements (with music) while their partner acted as their mirror. They would swap roles halfway through the song.

This is a challenging exercise that takes participants out of their comfort zones so I leave it until late in the programme.

The group followed the normal pattern of focusing on themselves, their discomfort as well as the protection of their own safety and status. Initial giggles were replaced with self-applause (of relief at having survived?) when the activity ended.

The feedback at the end of this first song demonstrated this. Some leaders reported that they had immediately chosen to use difficult movements so that their partner would be the one to struggle. Nearly everyone reported being very self-conscious in the activity. Almost everyone preferred following to leading, because the music went on for a long time and they felt embarrassed that they could not create more interesting moves (self-inflicted KPI’s!).

All was going to plan so far. I pointed to the diagram and showed how they had responded to the task in a typical management above-the-line way with their egos in charge. They had in general paid little or no attention to the actual project challenge of aiming to ensure accurate mirroring.

I then explained and demonstrated how this mirroring project could only be successful if each participant let go of their focus on their own egos and discomfort, and instead made it their sole business to make it as easy as possible for their partner to be a perfect mirror. This meant that all moves needed to be slow and flow in continuous movement.

I then set them the challenge (with the same partner) to revisit the project to a different piece of music. This time their entire focus should be on easing the task of the follower as they tried to move towards a place where the movement just flowed between them and they became uncertain as to who was leading and who was following.

The change in the room was dramatic. The harmony and flow that accompanied each pair was obvious. The mirroring project was successful.

Feedback mentioned how the pressure to create and perform had been removed through collaborative participation. Each group claimed to have reached moments where they were so in flow that they were unaware of who was leading and who was following. They said they felt they had communicated deeply and, as a result, felt closer and more trusting with each other.

They were excited at this image of what might be possible at work if each personal showed up this way with foregrounded Trust and Care and backgrounded Ego.

Then came the first seemingly innocuous hinge moment when I had to decide how to bring the activity to a close as we were nearing the end of the session and the programme.

I decided to ask them to repeat the process but this time with a new partner. One person from each group raised their hand and then moved clockwise to a new partner.

I too had a new partner. I briefed them to let go of any assumed expertise they may feel they had through the successful completion of the task with their previous partner. This was a new partner, so it was a new project. A new partner brings a different life experience and new qualities of self-experience and preference. I told them that this new project would only work if each person took the time to start slowly and give themselves ample time to connect and get to know each other's abilities and preferences. Only by taking this time to connect could they hope to reach a space of flow and accurate mirroring.

With great anticipation I started the new song... and very soon it all fell apart!

As I focused on building rapport with my new partner, I could feel a break in harmony in the room. This distracted atmosphere spread in the room as the other groups started focusing on one team who were playing the fool. The giggling and laughter increased as each group got involved.

In retrospect this was clearly a crucial hinge moment – and it turned out that I did not handle it well.

For some reason, I chose not to intervene and continued to work with my partner.

In retrospect, I suppose I had some naïve hope that the disruptive moment would pass and that each pair would successfully let go of their laughter and awkwardness and return to the task. This did not happen.

So I waited until the music ended and then somewhat sternly (pompously?) emphasised that what had just happened demonstrated how easily our own discomfort and ego can sabotage projects.

And then we move to our chairs for the closing circle of the programme.

What a lost opportunity for learning!

The crucial missing piece of information at the hinge moment that I backgrounded was that the playful pair were the only two men in the group who had struggled throughout the programme to access the heart and body emphasis of below-the-line Leadership challenges. In general, the masculine preference has been for above-the-line management through rules and power.

Both of these men had been successful when partnered with a woman, but the task of repeating this with another man was proving to be a bridge too far, so they were retreating to humour and ridicule as a way of trying to hold on to power!

So I dream of stepping into my time machine and returning to the hinge moment.

This time I decide to stop the activity and pause the music.

I approach the two men and ask what has happened to throw them off balance and feel so threatened by the activity. Am I correct in thinking they felt at ease when they had a female partner? Do they always struggle when working with a male partner when relationship rather than KPI's are foregrounded? For me this is one of the huge disadvantages that men carry into the workplace - the difficulty of working closely with other men in heart-body tasks and conversations.

At the stage I give them a chance to respond individually.

I then shift my attention to the pairs that weren’t the initiators of the disturbance, but still colluded with the disruption of the mirroring project. Why did they respond? What happened to their focus on the task?

Before returning to the task, I remind them of the work we have done on archetypes and the challenge that we always face of showing up with full presence (Warrior - Chris Breen) through a grounded embrace of any awkwardness.

And only now, I ask each of the men if they are up for the challenge of showing up and working with full Warrior presence on the project with each other? Or is this too big a challenge for them so they need the safety of being partnered with a woman as we continue the exercise?

Who knows what they would have chosen to do? Of course, I want them to succeed and leave with a major breakthrough from this rich real-life real-time learning.

Ah well! Circular time says that I will face a similar challenge in the future and I will do my best to be ready to appreciate the guide from beyond who is giving me the chance to demonstrate a greater wisdom in handling the hinge moment this time!

I turned 75 on the 2nd of June this year.

By the evening of the 4th June, I was in my hotel room in Johannesburg at the Sanctuary Mandela (‘A Place of Reflection’) getting ready for my session the next day. I had been asked to facilitate the process of taking stock of the personal leadership journey that a corporate Africa Exco team had been through in their first year at the helm of the company.

The last two weeks of the same month found me deepening the awareness process of this year’s UCT EMBA students.

I must have been looking really old and fragile in June, because in both contexts the issue of it being my responsibility to find someone to take over from me at some stage in the future was raised by the clients!

And then, in my last June teaching session, two EMBA students approached me during the tea break and asked me what I was doing to pass on what they called ‘my unique teaching skills’ to others.

To cap it all, July arrived and I unexpectedly found myself with no corporate work for the rest of the year. (The EMBA Course 3 continues in October…).

Clearly I am being given the message to take the raised issues of legacy and succession seriously!

The picture that heads this blog shows my return from a 4-day Vision Quest I undertook ten years ago. On the last night, spent awake in a specially created Power Circle, I made a pledge to the gods that I would commit to pushing myself and others in service of growth and wisdom on our continent. I said that I would continue to do this work as long as I received invitations for deep and meaningful work.

I start this process this morning and find myself delineating a few initial brief competing thoughts and possible responses.

  1. I reject the responsibility of finding a replacement. My teaching strength is probably that I offer students the subjective experiences and learnings of a wounded and flawed human being. I choose content to fit in with my evolving sense of topic importance. My work journey has been very rewarding, but it arrived at a specific time and context. It is now nearing its end. It is not appropriate to nominate a new ‘Chris Breen.’ Needs and context will inevitably have shifted, and the client needs to assess their own requirements and step boldly in a new direction.
  2. I partly accept the responsibility of suggesting a replacement. I start making lists of outstanding teachers I have worked with or admired. I end up with six names. What now? Rank them? On what basis? Friendship? Then give the names cold to my clients so that they choose? Am I collaborating in allowing the process of reformulating needs to be sidestepped?
  3. I take responsibility for passing on my methodological insights and content choices. I spent many years researching my own teaching practice in a different field (mathematics education) and subsequently wrote articles and presented papers and workshops at conferences. I could draw attention to these articles and spend the next year sharing my ideas of methodology and content to anyone who showed some interest. Maybe I could even plan and run some ‘How I teach Personal Leadership’ workshops to open audiences. Or I could … ?
  4. …

I pause this list-making exercise, and hear a voice (remarkably like my own) asking, “Yes, that's a semi-interesting starter list, but what really lies at the core of this issue of legacy and succession?”

I circle back to an EMBA session where I highlight the importance of Seriti (the shadow or aura that we cast as we go through life, a shadow that grows through good deeds). This resonates with my inner and outer teaching journey over the years where I have tried to share the insights I have gained as a possible aid to my students on their own unique journeys. Charles Eisenstein speaks of the value of the way that this morphic resonance can have an impact on the world.

I find an initial resting place where the earth beneath my feet is no longer quicksand.

I like the idea that legacy is what others have found worthwhile in learning from my presence in their lives, rather than artefacts or carefully constructed pathways I have forced on them.

And it starts to feel as if a succession plan is actually an obstacle to growth because it smooths over the gift that its absence allows the necessary perturbation for everyone to STOP and take the time to reevaluate current and future needs – looking forward and not gazing backwards?

My response to my clients (and to myself) is becoming clearer. I may be happy to continue teaching where appropriate while it is their task (and not mine) to find a suitable person - not to replace me but to offer them the new learnings that are necessary for this time.

In the meantime, I intend to make my life learnings accessible through:

I would love to get your further thoughts on these and other possibilities as direct comments or addressed privately to me at chris.breen@uct.ac.za

About 14 years ago, I joined my first Biodanza class and my world changed in so many ways. Biodanza is essentially the Dance of Life and Love, and was the creation of a Chilean, Rolando Toro. The core experience of Biodanza usually centres around a vivencia (a set of experiences and movement to music that are carefully designed by the facilitator). The intention is to allow participants to enter into a deep inner space of engagement with their own essence and with their fellow dancers. As they do this, they create synaptic networks that awaken a set of new potential where differences and old obstacles disappear.

I saw the enormous potential of this approach both for myself and for my teaching via the concept of biocentric education. I spent as much time as I could over the next six years attending conferences and workshops around the world while studying to become a facilitator myself (those interested in finding out more about my journey into the links between Biodanza and Education can access it here).

The aspect that I want to focus on in this blog is a peripheral comment from our Biodanza teacher that both disturbed and challenged me enormously at the time. By the end of a Biodanza session, all the participants have moved into a different world. Part of the closing routine for the session was to end with a livelier exercise to bring us back into the outside world. We were also routinely advised to be careful before getting behind the wheel of a car (very useful warning!), and were often told to remember that we should not take what we had learned into the real world and start behaving in this way in everyday life. This was often accompanied by the comment that bothered me: “You can’t get into vivencia in Pick n Pay [a local supermarket].”

This jarred with me. What was the point of opening up and getting access to new potential if its main purpose was restricted to my personal growth and could only really be enjoyed in action with fellow initiates? Having met Rolando, I understood that his grand vision was to change the world. This echoed the views of the psychologist, James Hillman, who wrote that the purpose of therapy should be to create more revolutionaries.

I set myself the task of trying to explore ways of living with vivencia in my daily life. And, of course, the gods played along with me and a wonderful opportunity opened up one day.

While shopping in the local Pick n Pay supermarket, I commented to the cashier that she looked as if she had the troubles of the world on her shoulders. She sighed deeply and explained that she was struggling with an enormous amount of different challenges and was feeling quite discouraged. I saw my chance and offered to come around to her side of the till and give her a hug (pre-Covid days, I assure you). To my delighted surprise, she accepted, and there we were hugging in full view of the customers and staff. When she broke away, she said, “Dankie vir die drukkie, maar dit raak nou te lekker”. [“Thanks for the hug, but it's getting too nice!”]. With a deep chuckle and smile on her face, she returned to her position behind the till and we continued with my purchase. Now I could relax - I had shown the benefits of going into vivencia at Pick n Pay!

I remembered this Pick n Pay story after the Open Mic session I ran last week with my EMBA class. We met to share stories of hinge moments, which are those moments when our natural flow through life is suddenly interrupted. They're called 'hinge moments' because a door of opportunity opens for us to choose how we want to respond. In most cases, we don’t see it coming, so are triggered into leaving the reaction to the little child in us, who under- or over-reacts. My teaching focuses on learning to catch the hinge moment as it happens and then, instead of just reacting, stopping and taking a deep breath before finding a suitable response that allows for respectful curiosity, hopefully resulting in a win-win situation. We had covered the theory of hinge moments in official lectures and these fortnightly Open Mic sessions were being offered to help turn this theory into an automatic way of being in the world.

During the Open Mic session, Michael told us that his 69-year-old father, who had been diagnosed with Covid, had been admitted to hospital when his health had deteriorated. He was desperately ill and needed to be on a ventilator, but all available ventilators were already in use. Michael had been told that his father’s age meant that he would be lower on the priority list than a younger person should a ventilator become available. He told us how his sadness and anxiety with the situation had moved to enormous anger at the lack of ventilator support at the hospital as well as the inadequacy of government procurement processes.

In the midst of this painful situation, Michael found himself looking into the eyes of the doctor who was giving him the news about the ventilator. He could really see her exhaustion. In that moment, he had a glimpse into her life and the challenges she faced in passing on heart-breaking news to families day after day. He did amazingly well in catching this hinge moment. He was able to let go of his anger and told the doctor how much he appreciated the work that she and the nurses were doing. He noticed that her eyes became filled with tears ...

Later in the session, Simmy spoke of her frustration with the situation in which she found herself, a 'foreigner' married to a South African, trying to get the correct residency documents from Home Affairs. She had met with innumerable obstacles that had still not been resolved. She was feeling especially frustrated because the absence of these papers meant that she was making no progress at all with getting the driving licence she needs to transport her children legally. She told us that her most recent visit had seen her frustration boil over when, after an extended wait in a long queue, she was still not successful, and her frustration had bubbled over into exchanging sharp and angry words with the assistant.

Different members of the class offered their thoughts, support and appreciation to Michael and Simmy, and shared their own experiences of similar situations. Where appropriate, they offered suggestions for alternative future strategies.

A few days after the class, both Michael and Simmy updated me via emails.

Simmy had returned to Home Affairs with a different strategy. She went on a Friday, 15 minutes before the office closed, and found there were no queues! She had prepared herself to accept whatever happened and to work with rather than against whoever assisted her. She found herself talking to a very helpful man who went the extra mile for her. He found her application on the system and saw that it was stuck. He undertook to email head office to find out what was happening. He told her that she should come back in two weeks and he would give her feedback. It was her most successful Home Affairs visit ever!

Michael had received news the following day that his father, who had shown signs of improvement, was still sedated, but was now on a ventilator.

Looking back, I see that Michael and Simmy have, in effect, taken (biocentric) approaches that have allowed them to look beyond the immediacy of the highly charged situations and have been able to remain connected with their own humanity and with the humanity of the other - in a sense, they were in vivencia. In doing so, they opened spaces of possibility.

A few days later, I realised that the Open Mic session had taken place on the same momentous day in South African history on which former South African President Jacob Zuma reported to police in compliance with an order issued by the Constitutional Court.

In the week since then, the country has witnessed horrifying and violent protest action that rapidly morphed into wholescale looting, and it has been hard not to descend into despair.

I found myself seeking out and finding comfort in the writing of Margaret Wheatley. I sent two extracts (No Hope No Fear and Leading an Island of Sanity) from one of her books to my students, and also posted them on social media.

I’d attended a Schumacher College course run by Meg in the early 2000s during which I’d been forced to consider her position that the world had gone beyond its tipping point and could not be saved. She argued that the only way to act in the world was to operate beyond hope and fear. At first, this seemed an extremely negative approach, but I came to realise that this view offered some very useful guidelines for coping with the world. This was not a position of despair or inertia. The absence of fear or hope freed one to look directly into the face of reality, to go inwards to feel it, and then to decide what action was appropriate. This is the crucial consequence – one is freed to recognise and take the right action. She also argues that it is the responsibility of us all to create islands of sanity (and safety and compassion) around us while the world around us is in turmoil.

Several of the past EMBA students to whom I had mailed the extracts wrote to me on receiving my email and said how much the readings had helped them find ground on which to stand in these troubled times.

One of these past students, Siham, shared her story with me. She has been working with community-based networks for a while. She spoke of the significantly negative impact that Covid has had on the situation, adding that they have never had to turn away as many people from soup kitchens as they do now. During one of her recent shifts at a soup kitchen, they had had to turn away 72 adults and 12 children for whom they didn’t have food. She asked the ‘kitchen champion’, as they are called, how she copes with the endless heartbreak and what keeps her motivated. The response was, “Ek is ook hartseer, ek huil baie, maar ek kan nie mismoeding raak oor die mense wat ek omdraai nie, ek hou aan vir elke mond wat ek kan voed. Jy kan huil, my kind, maar moenie so mismoedig raak dat jy ophou met die werk nie.” [“I am also heartsore and I cry a lot, but I can't get discouraged by the people I turn away, I keep going for every mouth that I can feed. You can cry, my child, but don't get so discouraged that you stop the work.”]

There it is! Doing the work, because it is the right thing to do. True wisdom about leadership and resilience straight from the mouth of a seemingly ordinary person from the community who is doing extraordinary things.

I ended the day breathing more slowly and deeply from a more grounded and connected place, ready to continue my work. The stories that Simmy, Michael and Siham shared with me have fleshed out my understanding of possible ways of moving forward after catching hinge moments. They also offer real-life possibilities and examples that complement Margaret Wheatley’s writings.

What new learning have I derived from their stories that helps me deal with the frightening reality around me at the moment? I need to make sure that I stop and step back from despair, and look the reality straight in the face. I need to take responsibility for my own actions, and not get involved in the peaks of fear and hope that are exaggerated on social media. I need to find stable ground on which to stand so that I can act from an adult place where my outer actions are aligned with my inner knowing. And above all, I need to treat my fellow travelers with compassion and respect. I have to be able to automatically go into vivencia at a hinge moment as I did that day at Pick n Pay …

My deep appreciation goes to Simmy, Michael and Siham for sharing your wisdom with me. I also send love and strength to Michael on the passing of his father.