The Layers: Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
It is much easier to describe the interlinking threads that have brought me to this post mathematics education work than it is to answer this question.
Over the past 20+ years I have played with a range of titles such as: Intelligence-in-Action, Diversity and Inclusion, Working Together, Thinking with your Gut, Personal Mastery, ...
I tried to involve my students in the process of selecting an appropriate title, but the common (unhelpful!) response was that the title didn’t matter – I was basically teaching ‘Chris Breen’. I later learnt that they had coined their own phrase to celebrate a learning moment for one of their EMBA classmates: ‘Congratulations, you just been ‘Chris Breened’!
I have recently settled on Personal Leadership as the most appropriate descriptor. In meeting the academy’s need for a course outline I now offer the following:
Personal Leadership is about taking leadership of our selves—of our own experiences, of our own cultural programming and habituation as we interact with others in both our personal and professional lives.
Personal Leadership asks us to:
Personal Leadership programmes that I have designed and run in the corporate world generally consist of three carefully sequenced modules offered over six months.
It is not a journey for the faint-hearted and asks each participant to step into honest vulnerability as they start what will probably end up as a lifelong exploration.
No matter how good our intentions are, the truth is that no-one can make us change unless we really want to. Most of us are heavily invested in keeping life safe and predictable so change does not seem attractive. Even if we really want to change, the path ahead is inevitably long and arduous. Jung stresses that this work is going to ask us to show insight, courage, and endurance. Malcolm Gladwell echoes this when he says that the key to achieving true expertise in any skill so that it moves from a concept to an action is a matter of practising it for at least 10 000 hours.
However, there is an upside! Many of my students give feedback at the end of our journey together that this has been the most worthwhile learning experience of their lives.
What follows below is my attempt to give the reader some insights into the basic building blocks and flow of a typical Personal Leadership course. I have not tried to give a lot of detail and resources. My intention is to sketch an outline of my priorities of content and methodology and include a few activities and other resources that may be of interest. I have also tried to honour the complex threads at work by mentioning methodological decisions and also by referring the reader to appropriate blogs which use my own lived experience as a base for exploration.
Please click on the topic links below if one (or more) of them captures your attention and desire for further exploration.
My starting point is a full-on attempt to use perturbation as a means to disrupt each participant’s comfort with their own assumptions and actions. Through the introduction of the concept of an Outer Witness, individuals are invited to become curious about their actions – particularly when stressed and under pressure. It is an extremely vulnerable and personally exposing process as I offer different activities and experiences with the specific intention of creating that pressure. The awareness and acceptance of the need to take care of oneself that begins to emerge from this reflective space is crucial for beginning the process of taking responsibility for intelligent and intentional future choices and responses.
The focus of this module shifts to the development of the necessary plasticity to adapt one’s behaviour appropriately for changing context and participants. Too many of us have shrunk our interactions in the world to quick, unconscious, and long-established set reactions. The challenge presented in this module is to notice these reactions and then to explore ways of increasing one’s personal menu of healthy possibilities for action. I have found a powerful way into this work is provided by exploring the Healthy and Shadow aspects of the four main archetypes of Warrior, Lover, Magician and Sovereign. The methodology employed changes slightly as participants start to interact on a deeper level with each other as they share their personal insights in pairs or threes. They are also asked to note similarities and differences in observations and begin to nourish an ever-present willingness to be surprised and disturbed.
The gaze in the final module moves away from the inner to the outer world and the communal responsibility and challenge to use this personal growth for transformative action in the world. The paradox here is that the ending of the programme also marks the beginning of this lifetime work. It is a demanding training ground as unconscious old patterns of behaviour generally leap out in ambush at the most inappropriate times and risk disrupting newly formed bonds of co-operation and trust. The methodology changes gear again with an increase in group conversations that respond to different stimuli. The actual content for this module depends on the challenges that have emerged for the specific client group.