It takes a village to raise a talk

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to give a talk on complexity and Daoism and the light they shed on how to engage with what feels like our ever-more precarious future. I sat on the train and sorted out my plan. It turned into a fairly standard structure: what is complexity, what is daoism, how do they help us to understand what is emerging, what should we do? I was uninspired.

Before the event, I met with Juliet, a friend and colleague, in the bookshop near the venue (and yes, we did go and see if they stocked The Dao of Complexity and they did!). I was sharing with her that I wanted to approach the talk in a more dynamic way that reflected the messages embedded in the book – that we co-create the future, and that our right-brained processes – heart and body wisdom, instinct and intuition – are as important as our reason. She suggested that I began by telling the story of how I got from complexity to daoism and why I ended the book with such a resounding focus on the growing metacrisis. When I started out to write the book, I hadn’t a firm structure and what seemed salient emerged on the way.

Well, her suggestion turned into a question in my mind – how did I progress from complexity into daoism and how did that lead to a passionate discourse on the metacrisis? It  was as if this question suddenly unlocked a whole stream of words in response, and I immediately felt both more energised and more relaxed. I could hear the talk forming in my mind.

The room was set up in the way of a fireside chat with perhaps 40 participants. It felt cosy and inviting. I started by answering the question Juliet had triggered. I spoke for about 15 minutes. I didn’t lose the pulse, I didn’t feel disembodied, and I sensed that people were engaged and present. It was as if the question allowed my “right” brain integrative processes to respond, rather than losing out to my “left” brain’s preference for structure.

The next thing I did (also pre-considered) was to ask what sort of topics were of interest to people in the room, what they were hoping I would cover. It was helpful to do this after the introduction, as that had already established some sense of who I was and what I had to offer. Four or five people responded.

What then happened almost magically was that I was able to dialogue, in effect, between that talk constructed on the train and the questions raised in the room. I covered much the same ground but not necessarily in the order I had intended – and that all happened naturally without planning. It was energising and also allowed me, without predetermination, to expand and weave in broader themes. Not once did I feel I retreated into my head, or lost touch with those in the room.

Often, in retrospect, I am dis-satisfied with how I give talks, but not this time. I felt coherent yet responsive, relational, able to allow the words and ideas to flow and emerge. As someone said at the time, it did seem like the talk was co-created with those in the room, that, in true Daoist fashion, ‘the path was made through walking’.

The final aspect of what made this engagement so enjoyable and connecting was that, although it was I doing the talking, the approach was co-created with Juliet. It was much more of a team effort than would have been apparent to others. As I was speaking, I could feel her presence and commitment to making it a success, and this made me relax. It is so easy to imagine that a talk is just a talk, whereas a talk that has the potential to inspire is embedded in connection, is dialogic and responsive, includes heart as well as analytical mind, and is best when approached as a team effort. Skilled facilitators like Juliet may seem invisible but the impact on outcomes even when apparently doing nothing, is not incidental.

What do I take from this? That the medium really is the message. I can’t convincingly share ideas of flow, emergence and relationality without embodying those ideas. That questions (in this case, ‘how did you get from complexity to the metacrisis?’) unlock different responses than statements  (I had told myself merely to give a talk about the book). That I will do well to start every talk with a question, even if I have to pose it to myself. That I need to feel in connection, in dialogue with people there and aim to create a sense of safety and belonging for myself in order to relax into less structured, right brained, more heartfelt more engaged responses. That it takes a village for a talk to become meaningful just like, as I describe in the introduction to The Dao of Complexity,  it takes a village to raise a book!