AvHD 002 — A Step Into a Mindset

For our second episode of Agile via HD with Triptue. I’m Ayham Kader, your Holistic Dialogue facilitator and that’s it really.

Today… it’s been really kind of an, I don’t know if I’m going to call it a weird day or not, but I woke up not in the best mood and there was a bit of resistance to get out of bed, to wake up properly.

But of course I had a meeting at 9: 45, woke up at 8: 30, so I was bound to get up and that did take place. I felt rushed, didn’t feel really nice. I was stressed,

However, this is not the kind of content that you are here to listen to, is it?

It’s about business and agility and what is agility and what is holistic dialogue related to. What kind of topic, what kind of mutual topic between Agile and HD that can be introduced through this or maybe broken down through it.

I don’t even know if I feel like writing this thing down, but I’m doing it so we better have some value out of it.

I am yet to understand fully the capacity of holistic dialogue and the capacity of that particular mindset, it’s a particular capacity maybe, and whether it’s able to be introduced into the corporate world, into a working environment. Eventually, every time you reach a particular point, it becomes more important to establish what is necessary and what is not.

No need to go into meaningless stuff or stuff that will waste our resources and stuff that will, maybe, confuse us even more with regards to the tasks we have at hand and the tasks that might come ahead.

So we’re starting with a sense of clarity or with a believed sense of clarity.

So still target oriented. Yes, it is an agile mindset and that’s what we want, but there is an assumption that you are agile and that you have that particular mindset, whoever is having that particular conversation.

In a sense, a conversation about my day has nothing to do with agility. Is that true? Is observing myself and the way I behave in my daily life not at all the same as observing my mind in the workplace and the value system I work with in the first place?

Does it mean that I do have a value system that applies, that is applicable or that is activated at a workplace and I have a different value that gets activated or is valid or relevant only off working hours? If that’s the case, that’s one thing, but if that is what we are being asked to do or to be, isn’t that what it is all about?

Many of us say that we are applying a lot of what we learned from work in my personal life, but what do we mean by applying? See, that’s a sense of separation present. Is it making this whole thing heavier than it should be, than it really is? I understand that we humans, the way we were bred and nurtured, you know, kind of category based, knowledge based, goal-based, all that. So of course agility might be a thing that I would apply under so many methods and so much of my huge pools of information about it.

But it really doesn’t seem at all necessary, any of those things. Is it just that one can observe yourself and can we discuss that? Not discuss it and dissect it, but to go into those observations or the observation of my life and in my workplace and in my relationships, in and out of work, so-called work.

So all of a sudden I feel relevant, whatever I’ve been saying, what I’m saying right in my day, my morning, it’s been tough. Maybe I don’t have a structure, maybe that will come out, right? Maybe, I’m not taking care of my health or whatever the reason might be. Or maybe that all is actually all okay, I just need to wake up earlier because my body starts functioning in an hour or so.

But that’s all simple, simple stuff that we didn’t even go into. Maybe that was not even the case that I wanted to talk about, but that’s how I started.

I guess when we go into such conversations, basically in a dialogue like this with the mindset that this has to relate to work, has to relate to my situation, or to the situation on which I expect to discuss here. Right away, we are going in the wrong direction. I am not in the right place and this is not the place for me because regardless of the content, regardless of the topic, no matter what topic and what kind of thing that we’re going into or talking about, all that is in my mind, and it is selective!

Is the brain thinking, reacting, going into observing whatever is liking or disliking, whatever is listening or not, what’s judging. I’m judging you as stupid. Why am I listening to you? Why am I wasting my time?

So there is the voice of these things. You know, the kind of the articulation in my head, which I might dismiss or not, accept, reject, and all the rest of it while I’m in the meeting. But then, one is missing the point. It’s still comparing how I usually spend my day and how I’m spending my day now. How usually I’m spending my time and how I’m spending my time now. Right? What is taking me away from or away in general?

Yeah. What is taking me away from, and what is happening to that which I want to be doing now. So all of these kinds of instances and attitude and mindset is present at all times, regardless of what we are being immersed into, which entails listening, not listening for.

And not even listening to someone or to myself or to a particular idea, but apparently listening by itself. Because there’s so much, there’s so much happening, so many things are happening and are interconnected. So listening wise, the delicacy that comes with this.

Listening to, listening for, listening from, even from a position.

So just listen. Attention, observation and all that, you know, which entails mindful meditation.

But see, this is it yet again; concepts are populating in my mind, and now I’m instantly going to my bank of knowledge and now I know what to do.

Have I been lost? Irrelevant? Confused and now I’m not? So I’m going to do that. So now I know what I’m listening to. Let’s listen to this then. Or let’s participate. And I know how to participate now because I know what’s being talked about and I have some stuff that I can talk or engage others with because I know the topic.

It is about the mindset because now I’m locked in, I’m narrow minded. I am literally being narrow minded. I’m not whole. Even if I think I’m the most accurate person or whatever, the whole attitude is narrow minded. And what if the topic or whatever is happening in my head changes how I’m going to respond? Because I entered into this setup of a conversation, whatever it is, from a position.

So it’s like changing from one position to another when the topic changes, because I don’t know if we agreed on everything you had in your mind. Meditation is a topic now, yet not for everyone. So you think I’m talking about this? I’m talking about that. But then that shift in my mind will be exposed at some point in a holistic dialogue.

And then what are you going to do now? Resistance? Like, oh, so we’re not talking about meditation. So am I always searching for an anchor that I can position myself with in order to be secure in order for security to come about?

What is security in conversation? Or what is security in relationship?

According to what we’ve been saying or what’s been said, the only form of safety in a relationship is control. There are direct, indirect, aggressive, passive, flexible, all kinds and forms of control.

We usually perceive it as something else. Probably because we don’t like the word control that much. So we like other things that I can relate to you, right? Listen to you, and then I relate to you, and then maybe we navigate together because we’re talking about the same thing. I might not be controlling you, but I’m controlling myself or I’m controlling the environment.

There is always an element of control because I always need an element of safety.

But does any of that address the mindset? Look at the mindset? Such a mindset of security through control does not observe.

Yes.

If I am seeking security in general, that by itself creates control, because I’m seeking it actively and control is also active then and there, in a sense, conscious.

So yeah, control and security seeking.

Maybe my date is not really impressed with me. I want to impress them one way or another. I’m going to navigate the conversation to an area where I know a lot about. I mean, this could come spontaneously and it could come through an act of control. Now do I know? How do I know the difference?

That first instance hints at observation, and then we talk about what is observation, attention, listening and leading to meditation, right?

Now, these questions: What am I doing? What am I doing this for? etc. When I ask such a question it is focused, isn’t it? Because in the beginning we said control, control is narrow. Now isn’t this also another question that narrows down what is happening?

Isn’t this also the same thing?

Yes, but we have to maybe examine even closer. So is this question related to something or is this question interesting in and out of itself?

Basically. Can I look now, regardless of the agenda that brought me here or brought the conversation to where it is now.

First of all, I probably need to see if I have an agenda right now and so I go: Everything that we’re doing now is going into how, not how we’re going into the how. This is the how in action. The how of what I need to do in order to get that. Now we’re doing it in real-time because I don’t know if I am seeing my mindset correctly, or I’m just fabricating it. Am I building up a mindset of a certain terminology or am I really being freed from whatever existing mindset there is as I go into it, into myself, into the group, into the conversation.

Do I see what I’m saying? Whenever I go and I see something or I say something, by something I mean that there is identification there. Now, am I identifying because that’s my manner or this identification just comes about as a natural result? And what am I doing? What am I to do when these instances do take place?

When these happenings take place, am I going to close up? And how does that feel, or how is that like in real-time with another? which leads to observing, observing from head to toe.

Meditation from head to toe. Now, does that mean that I’m not going to be able to talk? Or does that mean that I’m not gonna be able to think? Or, you know, all these kinds of fantasies that demonstrate our inheritance of a particular kind of culture. This word is spirituality and the inheritance it comes with!

I’m not really sure how to tackle it now because it could take us to a whole different topic, but this totality of observing together, what is the potential of collective observation? Collective attentiveness. Collective interest and curiosity in the here and now, right?

Now! Not now as a goal of yesterday, a goal of a point. Just now! I’m with people looking at ourselves together and to see exactly what’s going on. Talking to each other. Listening to each other and all that because it takes a lot of energy, definitely. Our day-to-day thinking, overthinking already consumes a lot of energy. I do not know if you’re seeing it with me now. So it comes from so many directions, yet it’s always the same point, which is an unidentifiable point.

Maybe you call it space, let us call it space, or whatever. Whatever includes everything.

What about you? Are you still listening?

Let’s see then for the next episode. I will go directly, deep down to it myself and see if this would be useful.

~ Ayham Kader (Holistic Dialogue Facilitator)

Holistic Dialogue (HD) is an approach that can pave the way for Agile transformation as well as expose the existing blind spots for a supposedly agile-ready environment. HD allows individuals and groups to understand how to perceive things holistically, without any expertise.

HD is a space for inquiry and exploration that can help individuals and groups function more effectively and efficiently. Meeting each other where we actually are, understanding, together, what might be standing in the way which often is, if not always, our individual separative thinking. Ultimately, listening ends up being a necessity rather than a mere requirement in an HD. Then and there, each participant discovers for themselves the magnitude of collective action.

HD is brought to you by Tripute, a non-profit holistic collective for a life not led by consciousness. And now let us get right into it.

Check out Tripute’s corporate venture, which aims to reverse the huge agile transformation failure rate through Holistic Dialogue with this link.

Check out Tripute’s corporate venture, Agile via HD, which aims to reverse the huge agile transformation failure rate through Holistic Dialogue with this link.

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