I’ve been working closely with the Radiant IRIS team for some months now, and most recently, I took on stewardship of the Collaboratorium, an online creative laboratory where artists, technologists, storytellers, and community builders are creating an experience of peace together..
It’s put me right into the fires of creation and I’m gonna be honest:
We’re a hot mess.
Our team stretches across multiple timezones from the Pacific US to Saint Petersburgh, Russia, and our partners are in Japan. We’re all working remotely without proper communication and organizational systems.
We’re building something none of us has built before, experimenting with new ways of working together and inventing the systems as we go.
Long story short, we have a plethora of miscommunications, misunderstandings and disconnection.
Sometimes, it feels like an utter clusterfuck.
But beautiful has happened in the midst of this madness.
Ideas are coming to me. One by one, week by week, we’re getting clearer on what the team needs and creating it.
Visibility systems. Protocols. A dashboard.
Most recently, a simple facilitation tool I’ve been developing to help translate one person’s big vision into something the whole team can understand and contribute to.
I’ve been testing it on myself first, then on the team, and it’s working.
I’m tickled pink and dancing with my dragons in delight over this.
But the biggest surprise wasn’t the tool.
Our team has experienced the feeling of misalignment and not being on the same page.
Well, as I was sorting through the feedback from the team, I noticed something.
The shared meaning was already there.
It wasn’t missing. It was just hidden and confused between different perspectives and ways of communicating.
Once those layers fell away, we weren’t creating alignment. We were discovering it.
Suddenly the team can see what we’re up to and why it’s important. What we need to do next becomes clear and obvious.
How often do we do the same thing in our own lives?
We assume the answer is in a new strategy, solution or template. A new job, career or relationship.
Meanwhile, what we’re actually looking for is already present, waiting to be noticed.
It’s revealed, not obtained.
This is the counter-intuitive truth that keeps revealing itself to me.
Look within. Follow the nudges. Notice what’s already moving you.
The flow of creation is always moving through us. It’s enough to stop the friction of over-thinking and the path reveals itself.
Just a note from the trenches of working as a remote team flying by the seat of our pants to create something no one has done before.
Yours in love and play,
Steph 🐲❤️
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