Preface

Like any good story, this story should speak to your essence.
What is the essence language of a good story? The Hero's Journey.

When you hear of a hero, what do you think of? Is it some spandex-covered, muscled individual? A perfect being who breezes through to success? Someone who creates a goal and then effortlessly achieves it? Nope.

Our Hero's Journey from Above:

Our Heroes Journey from the side:

We feel it in our bones when a real hero speaks to the essence we share with all humans. This happens through their actions and their story. Real heroes speak by demonstrating a journey that resonates with our own archetypal experience:

• Of being a whole human with shadows, demons, genius and all the in-betweens.
• Of growing and learning.
• Of contributing in a way which has deep meaning and which connects us to life itself.

When another takes the journey and comes back with the elixir of new wisdom and skill, we all benefit. This is regeneration in action on the human level.

Reflect on this in a wider sense. It is possible to see that the scale-able, viral patterns that touch this archetype in people and organisations lead to real transformation. All have something of the hero's journey in them. This is just some of the DNA we need to pattern into a new generation of organisations, in order to create greater coherence and alignment in our individual and co-creative behaviour.

The Real Hero's in this Story:

We think that you joining us, and the quiet, everyday, heroic acts leading to a world that thrives are the real Hero's in this story. The regenerative patterns, the viral ideas and the 'coherence creators'  in practical and ethereal form are the real gold here. The beauty that emerges in each person as they step over the threshold and play a heroic role for a while are the characters to look out for, fall in love with and talk about with your friends and family. 

So what is different here at the leading edge? We believe it is a new wave of decentralised organisation driven by massive, transformational purpose. Technology now allows radical transparency and honesty, as well as realistic organisation decentralisation as an architecture. DHO's are an audacious propositions,  mixing the benefits and challenges of:

• Intentional communities and
• Sociocratic and holocratic organisation
• The business growth and stabilisation challenges of a start-up.  

In your typical Hollywood blockbuster, the hero goes through all the stages of the Hero's Journey, but breezes through without ever taking a full-spectrum journey. This is a bit like our traditional way of organising: trying to control complex interactions from the external third-person viewpoint and largely ignoring all other dimensions. 

We seek to foster, attract and usher in a new generation of Trans-Personal hero-ship: Decentralised Hero's! (Individual D-Hero, Organisational D-HERO) 

Decentralise Hero's are the anti-hero. They are 'D-HERO-De-world-needs' to tackle complex and wicked problems glocally! Oh dear.. the abbreviations, acronyms and terms have started. A terrible habit in any group that builds specialist insight. Why don't we make both the necessary and less necessary terms a bit more fun?

No organisational document would be complete without a glossary of terms, and this feels like just the right moment for one. Think of it as your Avatar's first tool pack:

Glossary of terms:

D-HERO - Decentralized, Human, Endlessly Regenerative Organization. There are DHO's and there are D-HERO's. DHO's become D-HERO's by becoming Equipped and Emboldened to actually do and be what it takes to Save the World and brew magic potions of Regeneration.

Unlike old-world heroes, a D-HERO is not about being the one and only, the star. This holds true when we are talking about the people or the group/s that make a D-HERO. It's about becoming a being-who-belongs-in-complexity. A being who's body stays connected and co-creative. D-HERO's must stick with it, learn from worthy Mentors and elders, and then boldly go where the SHE-ROW's do (*See below): Over the threshold, through the cave, through the death of change and out again. Again and again.

D-Hero - An individual equipped with a truly holistic mindset and integral lenses which they can use to see this brave new world clearly. Someone who understands and appreciates the reasons behind sociocracy and holocracy and with an intention to distribute authority and find and be faithful to the place where their purpose meets, grows in and contributes to Samara's Purpose. Someone who knows the real hero's journey and wants to learn and embody the D-HERO's journey to build successful decentralised organisations that change the world. 

sHE-ROw - Our very own Roz Savage in her rowing journey, which was a quintessential hero's journey driven by a Massive Transformative Purpose.  See her personal story chapter in this book to hear how she links the journey in Samara with the lessons of that monumental and heroic effort. What if we could all contribute fuelled by a massive transformative purpose moment-to-moment, day-to-day? How do we transfer that DNA to the new D-HERO's attracted to this movement in droves?

Organization - The patterning of a group into a coherent or 'organized' entity. This implies synchronization and co-ordination between the inner orientation of a group and the dynamic outer cycle stages which travel the hero's journey around a central organising principle. Traditionally this inner commitment happened mostly by meeting the living cost needs of individuals and then by applying top-down 'organizing' through control. 

Samara is an incipient D-HERO with a heart of gold and a lot to learn. We see that modelling and equipping the D-HERO's Journey is a large part of our mission.

We want to equip, up-level and facilitate D-HERO's travelling to many worlds:

• The sky palaces of new realms of synchronicity
• The engineer's caves of new systems and technology
• The far flung regions of local villages, open fields and bustling markets.

We are here to birth a new Generation of individual and collective D-HERO's who can:

• Anticipate and map the journey
• Pick up the right clothes and tools for the terrain
• Accept the hard knocks inherent in any worthwhile journey before emerging stronger and wiser in the end. 
• Embody key cyclic principles of effectiveness to know what to do at each stage:
  • Constant tracking and sensing of tensions through cultural values and human metrics.
  • Conscious processes and cultural norms aimed at facing fear and being willing to change before a direction or solution is apparent let alone clear.
  • Proactive ongoing creation of network of aligned organizations and individuals and the genius, strengths and natural talents of members to be able to pick the right input immediately after each commitment to change. 
  • Facilitation, consultancy and socially activated processes to mark the crossing of threshold into any new endeavour, aligning internal commitment with the work that needs to be done. 
  • Clear and helpful models to run experiments and tests and requirement gathering for smart contracts and decentralised tech which can automate the most effective parameters for each situation. 
  • Explicit processes and structural triggers and buffering protocols to help all dimensions of a DHO persevere through the ordeals and the death of old forms and personal opinions.
  • Explicit cultural values which support radical honesty and the cultural willingness to face autophagy (cellular death necessary for renewal) and sense-check tools to facilitate the renewal process. 
  • Reinforcement of lessons and higher wisdom perspectives, as well as key patterns that led to success at the point of reward. 
  • Cultural values and review processes that allow rapid movement forward, learning and celebration over failed attempts. 
  • Re-dedication ceremonies, habits and organisation norms triggered immediately after emergence from major deadlines, heightened tensions and failures to facilitate renewal and alignment between pivot points/systems adjustments and inner commitment and coherence.
  • Cultural anticipation and process strategies to meet last minute changes and project completion blockers. 
  • Explicit processes for review of completion and technological and cultural triggers for spreading newly gained insight, wisdom and tools to create maximum impact in the ecosystem and wider environments towards regeneration. 

Along with the tools that set them off on the adventure, we must also, perhaps primarily, face new DHERO's with the kind of radical honesty, wisdom and context which will call to the Commitment, the Heart and the Perspective they need to never settle, never give up, adapt and overcome. Every DHO is a DHERO if they learn to do these things and commit to the journey while recognizing each stage is a part of the cycle. 

A D-HERO's journey is a journey into complexity, which is fundamentally different from an old-world engineering project based in predict and control. 

So how did Samara's D-HERO's journey begin and what can we learn which can up-level new DHO's into D-HERO's in the Regenerative Renaissance World?

This book itself is a template for this Journey. In fact, the very idea for this book started with a gentle stroll through a forest, a virtual forest that is.. 

(click on the image to enter the forest and contact a Samarian if you want some company!)

As stewards of this forest we are seeking, (just like you are seeking in your stewardship in many areas) to nurture and learn in a way which supports a diverse and dynamic environment. May this environment serve multiple needs on multiple levels, but particularly the regenerative needs for growth and contribution, so that we can manifest the purpose that holds us together. 

Like any good book (story, journey, cycle, creation), this is one that speaks of the heroes journey in each of us. It's about a beginning which calls us to act, the finding of a tribe, the meeting with a mentor, the inspiration to climb and the willingness to commit to going through the cave together to emerge into something new. 

This journey is very new for Samara (ns), but already this universal pattern is playing out and the journey has fundamentally changed each individual who has stepped into it. The something new is emerging and we want you to walk through and out of the cave beside us into another dawn, familiar, but alive and new. 

Inevitably diversity implies a greater variety of different points of view and this is a fundamental dynamic in any group, let alone those that seek to decentralise control, decisions and power and distribute authority. No story would be complete without seeing all the stages in a cycle and no D-HERO can realise their gifts and identity without every feature of a complete journey. 

We hope that like all good stories, this one captures you enough that the words fall away, the characters disappear and you find it speaking to your own hero, your own mentor, your own cave and the threads that have meaning to YOU when you look out towards the phenomena of organizations, DHO's, Movements and the Regenerative Renaissance. May this story live on in you and birth the quiet dreaming of the soil of the Regenerative Renaissance into something Real.