Edgewalkers in Denmark

Peter and Kirsten Mikkelsen Pruzan, together with Debra and William Miller, wrote a wonderful book titled "Leading With Wisdom: Spiritual-based Leadership in Business" (Greenleaf 2007). Peter is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, and his wife Kirsten is an eminent journalist and former newspaper editor at Berlingske Tidende, a major daily newspaper in Denmark. Along with Debra and William Miller, Peter and Kirsten are devotees of Sai Baba, and deeply committed to their personal spiritual paths, as well as to helping organizations become more enlightened.

I have been blessed to know all four of these very special people and to spend time with them at conferences and on their occasional visits to the U.S. Someday I hope to be able to go with them to Sai Baba's ashram because of the wonderful stories they tell me about their guru and about the community.

Peter, Kirsten, William and Debra are all Edgewalkers in every sense of the word. They have all spent considerable time in India, and William and Debra now live there fulltime. They have had meaningful experiences in more than one culture, and see themselves as global spiritual citizens. They have all had successful mainstream professional careers, and while deeply committed to their spiritual paths, feel very strongly called to be in the world and to make a difference in business.

I want to share with you something that Peter wrote in response to my last post on this blog:

With the term "Edgewalker," Judi Neal has captured the essence of the challenge that many people I know (including myself!) regularly face: how best to straddle the realms of our spiritual and more mundane worlds? To mention just one such group of Edgewalkers, I have had the privilege over the years of knowing highly respected business leaders who seek "success" both in their organizational-leadership role, where they are responsible for the performance of a corporation, and in their self-leadership role, where they are solely responsible to their true selves. Many such leaders have shared with me the excitement that results from balancing success in both of these worlds - the so-called ‘real world’ we live in, and that world which transcends this world of people and companies and cities and mountains and artifacts and ..., but which they know from their own experience is their ‘really real’ world.

A more nuanced picture is provided by referring to two types of Edgewalkers I know: those who know they are Edgewalkers, and those who do not know they are - or who are not willing to or are afraid to accept that they are Edgewalkers. This latter group includes a number of my wife Kirsten's and my dear friends from Denmark, where the culture does not promote a spiritual approach to life.

Personally, no matter where I am, whom I am with and what I do, I am highly aware that I am straddling these two worlds, the world within and the world without. However, the moments of greatest joy are those when this awareness vanishes and is replaced by a state where I simply am - when the 'edge' vanishes, when there is no separation, and all there is is love and peace. My own experience, as well as that of others I know, indicates that while this state of ‘edge-erasing’ is a gift that cannot be ordered, it is somehow a result of conscientiously ‘edge-walking’.

I love the distinction that Peter makes about the "real world" and the "really real" world. If you are interested in learning more about corporate leaders who straddle the "real world" and the "really real" world, I highly recommend their book "Leading With Wisdom." This book is based on interviews with leaders all over the world who, in their own words, share how they integrate their inner life and outer life.

And Peter makes a very important distinction about people who know they are Edgewalkers and those who don't know, or are afraid to own that part of themselves. While society desperately needs Edgewalkers - those who look towards the future, who are visionaries, who want to make a positive difference in the world - society tends to insulate itself from ideas and approaches that are considered too radical. Yet these difficult times call for radical solutions, not business as usual. There is a price to pay for being an Edgewalker, and one can get easily marginalized, so it is understandable that people may be afraid of being on the leading edge. The tribe might reject you, and we all need our tribes to survive. And in fact, Edgewalkers are trying to improve the life of the tribe. Or in some cases, are trying to save the tribe.

Several months ago I had asked Peter and Kirsten if they knew of any enlightened organizations in Denmark that might qualify for the International Spirit at Work Award. Peter responded that while many leaders have a deeply spiritual approach to the way they run their organizations (see for example the interviews with Lars Koling, former CEO of Oticon and Niels Due Jensen, Group Chairman of Grundfos Management A/S in their book), a more open and public approach to spirituality is still not acceptable in Denmark. This is true in many cultures around the world, including most of Europe and China.

At the same time, just because a culture does not support a spiritual approach to life doesn't mean that people in that culture don't hunger for a greater sense of purpose, meaning, and connection to something higher than themselves. I spent a week in Denmark taking a meditation course with a Danish friend of mine who is part of a spiritual community near Arhus. I met people from several countries at that meditation course, and continue to be in touch with some of them. My friend, Anne Nygaard, who invited me to the course, has taught meditation in corporate settings such as the world headquarters of LEGO. Walking between worlds may not be mainstream yet, but it is just below the radar.

Finally, I want to respond to Peter's last paragraph about when the edge between the two worlds vanishes. All spiritual and religious traditions provide paths to this non-dual, oneness experience. It is an experience available to everyone and it can come from years of spiritual discipline, from a life-threatening experience, or from a moment of grace unbidden. Wherever it comes from, or however it comes, once you have experienced this at-one-ment and allness, you never quite see "reality" the same way. You have seen what is "really real."

Click here for more about Leading With Wisdom.

Click here for more about the Global Dharma Center.

I wonder what organizations would be like if more of our leaders spent time not only Edgewalking, but going beyond where there are edges, and operating from the wisdom that flows from that place of Oneness.

Edgewalkers International

The concept of Edgewalkers truly seems to be one that is embraced internationally. And this makes sense given the way we are increasingly becoming a global society.

A few weeks ago, I was in beautiful Mallorca, Spain running a 3 day Edgewalker workshop with my partner Kimberly Hunn. 14 incredible Edgewalkers from California, Washington D.C., the U.K., Switzerland, German, and Spain joined us on a journey of exploring leading edges and what it takes to live to the edge of all your possibilities. We began with a cross-cultural experience where participants walked through a local Mallorquin village called Andratx (pronounced "An-dratch"). They were instructed to interact and connect with people in the village and to observe themselves as they were "walking between worlds." As you can see from this photo at an outdoor cafe, it was a very positive experience.

One of the most important things for Edgewalkers to do in order to keep their edge is to take time for silence and reflection. In each "Walking the Leading Edge" workship, participants are given the opportunity to walk the bridge between the everyday material reality into a non-material reality. I often talk about walking between the two worlds, but Tami Simon, CEO of Sounds True, told me in an interview that her experience is that there are not two worlds but one reality, with the invisible or spiritual world integrally interconnected. The bottom line is that it is important to take time to see and experience this interconnection between seeing only the physical or material aspects of reality and a form of seeing that allows you to know both the physical and non-physical aspects at the same time.

In Mallorca, we had the privilege as a group to go to the top of a mountain outside of Port Andratx where each participant could spend time in nature contemplating their own Edgewalker journey. This is something any of us can do, and should do, on a regular basis, but often in our busy lives we don't take the time to listen to what is calling us from the future.

Nature is a powerful teacher, and I encourage you to take time by yourself on a regular basis to be in someplace that nurtures your soul and allows that inner monkeymind to settle down. When you let go, for a short while, of the daily to do list, and the thoughts about what you should do, and what you wished you had done, a deeper wisdom has room to rise up and be recognized.

This is Stefan, a German engineer living in Switzerland, who rode his motorcycle to the workshop. He has a deep spiritual life, and found that sitting on the mountain gazing over the Meditteranean created the space for a powerful, uplifting experience that will guide him in his journey in profound ways.

In our workshops, we are not always able to provide people the opportunity to be in nature, but we always provide time for one form or another or a short Edgewalker Quest. In London we will be offering a 2 day workshop on November 1-2. (See details on the Edgewalker website.) In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to walk through the city while holding a questions in their hearts and minds about their own leading edge. They will be asked to look for signs and metaphors as they walk through the city, basically becoming urban shamans.

A new kind of human is emerging on the planet today; one that would prefer to build bridges rather than walls. One that sees all the people on Earth as brothers and sisters. One that wants to live by deeper values and create sustainability for organizations, cultures, and all sentient beings. These Edgewalkers do not think of themselves as Spanish or Chinese or American, they think of themselves as Global Spiritual Citizens.

There is so much strife and conflict and need in the world, and we need Edgewalkers to serve as global leaders of positive change. Often an Edgewalker feels alone and not valued, frequently marginalized by mainstream organizations. But times are beginning to change and people are beginning to understand that we need totally new ways of thinking and being if we are going to be able to solve the personal, organizational and planetary issues that we are facing.

Each year the International Center for Spirit at Work holds an annual conference to honor organizations that have learned to bridge the worlds of bottom-line success and spirituality in the workplace. The leaders of these organizations are pioneers in Edgewalking. In the past 6 years, we have identified 42 organizations representing over 30 countries, that have an explicit commitment to nurturing the human spirit.

These international organizations and their leaders provide evidence of early signs of a new more sustainable and holistic way of doing business.

Business is the most powerful institution on the planet. Therefore business has a huge responsibility in helping to solve the myriad of complex problems that we face in the world today. We have created an organization called Edgewalkers Group International to provide training, coaching, and consulting services to organizations that want to be on the leading edge of this new paradigm shift. Please contact us if you want to be involved.

I invite you to make comments below. What signs or examples do you see that provide evidence that Edgewalkers are emerging in many different countries? Why do you think this is?

Passion

It takes courage to be an Edgewalker and to walk your own unique path. The pressures from society and from organizations to conform are tremendous. What helps people to resist these pressures and to stay true to themselves? Passion. Edgewalkers are passionate about something greater than themselves. They have some sense of purpose or mission that pulls them toward their own future. Edgewalkers have a calling, and they have the courage to answer that call.

My friend Martha Finney co-wrote a book called Find Your Calling: Love Your Life. She defines calling as that thing, that dream, that calls you, and no matter how much you ignore it - it won't go away.

My personal passion is music. When I was a little girl, I remember sitting in a vaudeville audience with my beloved grandfather. I was four years old. When the singers came on stage, I jumped from my seat to run up there to sing and dance with them. My grandfather had to hold me back.

I just got back from a week of guitar camp in New Hampshire, where I took classes on guitar playing and songwriting. In Greg Greenway's songwriting class one of our assignments was to think about the moments in our lives that were the happiest. One of my happiest moments is when I am playing with my band, the J.J.Diamond Band. Greg asked us to write a descriptive paragraph about this happiest moment. Here's what I wrote:

The basement smells damp on this hot sunny afternoon. Like little ants we scurry around setting up our microphones and plugging in our guitars. Underneath the chaos is the steady thump, thump, thump of the drummer warming up. We always begin rehearsals with a song that we know well as a way of getting in resonance with each other. The groove begins and I look around at the guys in the band. I love each one of them so much. As the chorus comes and our harmonies rise and blend, I feel like I am rising out of my body, and I just disappear into the bliss.

Passion is fairly easy to understand when we think about the arts. Humans are driven to creative self-expression. It is our nature. It's less common to think of the workplace as a place where people can express their passion, but it does happen, and I think it is happening more and more as organizations come to understand the value of employee engagement.

Questions:

What are you passionate about? What can you not not do? Do you think passion and creativity are connected? If so, how? And what is the shadow side of being passionate about something?

Edgewalker Consciousness

When I wrote Edgewalkers, I believed that people who were Edgewalkers were a small percentage of the population. Most people are content to attend to the present day-to-day business of living, and some prefer to cling to an idealized past. Edgewalkers, I wrote, are more focused on the future. They want to know what trends are emerging. What lies just beyond the horizon? What's the next new thing?

Several people have challenged me about this stand in my presentations and discussions. They tell me that people who do not see themselves as Edgewalkers feel devalued, and they may disconnect from the material that is being presented because it's not relevant to them. They might feel that I am holding up Edgewalkers as the perfect type of leader. Concern was expressed that I might be that only Edgewalkers contribute anything meaningful to the organization.

At first I stood my ground and said that in my experience, most people are not Edgewalkers, and we don't need that many Edgewalkers in the world. In fact, too many Edgewalkers in an organization can create chaos. However, it's hard to think of an organization that has too many Edgewalkers. Most organizations try to rein in the people who are out on the leading edge, and tend to stifle their creativity and curiosity. My mission has been to help organizational leaders to see the value of their Edgewalkers and to learn how to utilize their unique skills and perspective.

In the book I wrote about five different organizational orientations: Edgewalkers, Flamekeepers, Hearthtenders, Placeholders, and Doomsayers. I was thinking of each of these orientations as a pretty fixed personality type. This changed recently when I was discussing these five "types" with Lance Giroux who was interviewing me for his blog (see May 16, 2007). Lance asked me if I was an Edgewalker in my organization, and I realized that I am very much an Edgewalker in my consulting business most of the time, but I play the role of Flamekeeper in my role as President and CEO of the Association for Spirit at Work (ASAW).

As founder of ASAW, it is important to me to keep to the founding vision and to keep the organization stable and fiscally sound. In my consulting business, I can be very entrepreneurial and creative, but in ASAW I tend to resist change that others propose, unless I see that it helps to carry out the core mission. At times, I have even taken on the role of Doomsayer, making statements such as, "If we cancel this event, we'll lose credibility with our members, and it will be the death of the organization!"

I'm in an acoustic rock band called The J.J. Diamond Band. In this group, I am very much the Hearthtender. I make up the set lists for the band's gigs. I keep up the calendar on our music website, and I set up and maintain the band's MySpace.com page


The more I thought about it, the more I realized that each of us has all these orientations within us, and that we may find ourselves playing different roles in the different systems of which we are a part, and we may also find ourselves sometimes taking on Edgewalker consciousness in one organization and at another time perhaps moving into Placeholder consciousness in that same organization.

So now, at least in this moment, I am seeing these orientations as much more mutable and fluid. The challenge for each of us to is notice which form of consciousness we are in at any moment, and in different organizations. Then we can assess whether or not this is the most effective form of consciousness for that particular situation.

The two key questions you can ask yourself in order to get a sense of your form of consciousness at that moment are:

1. What is my time orientation? Past, present, future?
2. What is my orientation to change? Closed, open?

Then ask yourself, what is needed here?

To learn more about the five orientations and the Five Square Model, click here.

Tell me, what do you think? Are some people just born Edgewalkers and show up as Edgewalkers wherever they are? Or do all of us have the potential for Edgewalker consciousness and just need the right circumstances for it to arise?

Self-Awareness

One of the central qualities of Edgewalkers is self-awareness. People who are Edgewalkers are committed to some kind of personal practice that allows them to listen to that inner voice that guides them. In the midst of all the chaos, competing demands, and short time frames that we find in so much of modern life, it is essential to take time for silence and reflection.

Dr. J.-Robert Ouimet is Chairman of the Board of O.C.B. Holding, one of the most successful food processing companies in Canada. He begins every meeting, including his board meetings, with a moment of silence. He travels around the world giving talks on human and economic well-being to students in universities, and he begins each talk with a shared moment of silence. He also takes time out in his life to go to sacred sites to spend a day or two in reflection. You can read his story in Edgewalkers but you really need to be with him to actually experience his moment-by-moment tuning into God for direction and support.

At each of his companies, employees have created a Silence Room where people can go to sit and be self-reflective. He says at first that people were suspicious of these rooms and were afraid to be seen in them, but now they say that having a place for silence is one of the most valued benefits of working for the organization.

In the Edgewalker Coaching that I do, we begin the coaching process by exploring what the client currently does to nurture their own self-awareness. It's amazing that most people have had some kind of self-reflective practice in the past, but most seem to have let it go these days. In Zen practice the master says simply, "begin again." Jesus invited us to be "as little children." I encourage my clients -- and I encourage you --to think about some practice you have had in the past that worked for you. Can you "begin again," perhaps taking it in small steps? Is there some new practice that you have thought about taking on that you could get into with child-like joy and innocence? Journaling? Walking in the woods? Ta'i chi? Sitting for five minutes in a church or temple?

Edgewalkers need the time for self-reflection because they are called to do important work in the world. They need that time to discern their true calling, and to be sure that they are taking care of body, mind, and spirit in a balanced way as they do this work.

Let me know what you do for self-reflection, and what challenges you face in your practice.

Welcome to my Edgewalker Blog

Dear Reader,

My book Edgewalkers: People and Organizations that Take Risks, Build Bridges, and Break New Ground, came out last November and immediately was listed as number 5 on the Barnesandnoble.com list of Best New Business Books.


Why the excitement?


Perhaps because more and more people are recognizing that the old systems and the old ways of thinking are not working for us.


This blog is a place where we can explore this "Edgewalker" concept that seems to be showing up in many places at once. I invite you to dialogue with me about why Edgewalkers seem to be emerging right now, why we need them, and what organizations can do to attract and retain them.


If you would like to learn about upcoming Walking on the Leading Edge workshops, please visit the Edgewalker Website.