Space to Think: reflections on a pop-up conversation with Mark Cole

We had a brilliant pop-up featuring the thinking, practice and scholarship of Mark Cole. His session explored the many impediments that organisational life presents to stillness and space.

Mark has very generously crafted an article to go along with the recording of his session – so I’m not going to summarise it here. It’s a rigorous and well-grounded piece of work, full of references and useful ideas for further inquiry. I recommend taking time to read what Mark has written.  You can read it by clicking the icon below.

For my part I was struck by the link between Mark’s work and some recent experiences I have seen in client work. I’ve been working in three organisations this year, each undergoing challenging transformations. In each case, leaders are overwhelmed and can barely find time in the diaries to meet, never mind find the time and space for stillness and reflection.

Where we have taken the time, wonderful learning has come about in each case, and in each of the cases there has been a painful aspect of the “release” that’s come from having that space.

Often the conversation releases emotions that simply get crushed, silenced and delegitimised in the day to day “machine world” of organisational life. Allowing the space also allows the emotions to come to the fore. It’s an important part of truth-telling, but it is often difficult for the people involved, who may be quite vested in their controlled and contained “professional selves”.

I’ve also seen these spaces allow deeper truths to be surfaced. Truths about differences, about power and politics, about “in” and “out” grouping in teams. Sometimes, even often, revealing these is painful work for those involved.  The stillness and space don’t cause the difficulties – they exist – but it does reveal them and diminishes the degree of comfortable delusion.

I can understand why speeding on provides a form of efficiency and even comfort. But it rarely serves a deeper humanity, a deeper connection, a deeper truth. If we aspire to more human organisations with more connected and trustful relations, investing in the space and time to meet and let our differences and difficulties be what they are is an essential part of the work we do.

You can view the recording of the session below:

I am grateful to Mark Cole for bringing his work to this community. Please do connect to him (his website is here with all his contact details across multiple platforms) and follow up the links he has generously shared.

Our next pop-up event will be on the 31st October from 8.30am-10.00am. Save the date and we will send out the session information and sign-up soon.