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Example emergent DNA

* Draft. to be polished and simplified for Thursday Trunk call. 

How does regenerative life or 'essence' move through humans? Well, it's a mysterious process, but part of it is through stories just like this. The best stories should speak to your essence. 

So the question becomes: What is the essential code of all good stories?
Our answer: 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, never stumbling while facing insurmountable odds? Someone who creates a goal and then effortlessly achieves it? Nope.

Cross-section of this pattern from above:
DHerO's Journey.png*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.


Our Dynamic Hero DNA from the side:

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We feel it in our bones when a real hero speaks to essence. A real hero does this 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. This is what organisations traditionally suppress or have huge difficulty managing.
  • Of growing and learning by facing cyclic journeys of challenge, death and rebirth. These cycles are seen as impediments in many standard organizations today. The project plan runs the org. What doesn't fit in is disciplines, designed out or discarded.
  • Of contributing in a way which has deep meaning and which connects us to life itself. This is what all massively successful organisations do in one way or another, unless they rely on industry or financial monopoly /advantage. To have this anchor travel and connect to the journey cycles that are inherently occurring is a potent innovation.

Reflect on this in a wider sense. It is possible to see that the scale-able, viral patterns that touch this level of people and organisations lead to real transformation. It's a kind of social DNA, all around us. It just needs to be revealed and understood with the right lens. This is one example of 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.

All have something of the hero's journey in them.  The beauty of using this as a tool is that the growth-needs of each stage are clear and the methods, tools, insights and support needed can be tailored uniquely to facilitate the current evolution cycle.

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 decentralised architecture. DHO's are an audacious proposition,  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 really going through doubt or a true cave. 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) Oh dear.. cue the abbreviations, acronyms and terms. A terrible and sometimes necessary habit in any organisation. Why don't we make both the necessary, and less necessary, a bit more fun?!

Decentralise Hero's are the anti-hero. They are 'D-HERO-De-world-needs' to tackle complex and wicked problems glocally! 

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 an integral viewpoint, which they can use to see and navigate the levels of this new world. Someone who understands and appreciates the reasons behind sociocracy and holocracy. Someone with the intention to distribute authority. Someone who can find and stay faithful to the place where their purpose resonates and contributes to the organisations Purpose. Someone who knows the real hero's journey and wants to learn and embody a new form of hero-ship, in order 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 'organization' 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 and flow, in work-play-pray and in group
  • The engineer's caves of new systems and technology
  • The far flung regions of local villages, open fields and bustling markets.

Take a few minutes to study this DNA structure cross-section again, and then reference the list below:


DHerO's Journey.png

So how can this be used to co-ordinate the tools we offer to a New Generation of individual and collective heroes? Used strategically and explicitly, this DNA structure helps individuals and DHO's to:

  • Anticipate and map the journey
  • Pick up the right clothes and tools to navigate the terrain
  • Accept the hard knocks inherent in any worthwhile journey before emerging stronger and wiser in the end. Receiving the most value from every challenge.
  • Embody key cyclic principles of effectiveness to know what to do at each predictable stage:
    • 1. Periodic review processes to find where the now 'ordinary' is blocking the way to the extraordinary purpose fulfilment.
    • 2. Constant tracking and sensing of tensions through cultural norms and org scans.
    • 3. Conscious processes and cultural norms aimed at explicitly facing fear and being willing to change before a direction or solution is even apparent, let alone clear.
    • 4. Proactive networking with aligned organizations and individuals and the genius, strengths and natural talents of our members, in order to identify and bring in the right support/input at the start of every initiative ('Pre-advice' process). 
    • 5. Facilitation, consultancy and socially activated processes to mark the crossing of the threshold into any new endeavour, aligning internal commitment with the work that needs to be done. Encouraging the holonic establishment of a form of these that resonate and create ownership and meaning for all in the group. 
    • 6. Governance processes explicitly framed to run experiments and tests and gather requirements for smart contracts and decentralised tech which can automate the most effective parameters for each situation. 
    • 7. Explicit processes, structural triggers and 'buffering protocols' triggered at the most challenging times to help all dimensions of a DHO persevere through the ordeals and the death of old forms and personal opinions towards a new orientation around their a regenerated approach.
    • 8. Explicit cultural values which support radical honesty and the cultural willingness to face autophagy (cellular death necessary for renewal). Sense-check tools to facilitate this renewal process. 
    • 9. Framework to reinforce self-discovered lessons and higher wisdom perspectives, as well as key patterns that led to success at the point of reward. Evolving the transpersonal higher wisdom and linking success with learning.
    • 10. Cultural values and review processes that celebrate failed attempts, facilitate rapid recovery and direct attention to purpose immediately. 
    • 11. Re-dedication ceremonies, habits and organisation norms triggered immediately after:
      • Emergence from major deadlines
      • Heightened tensions identified by org scans
      • Failure to align systems adjustments + inner commitment + coherence.
    • Cultural anticipation and process strategies to meet last minute changes and blocks to project completion. 
    • 12. Explicit processes for review of completion. Technological and cultural triggers to spread newly gained insight, wisdom and tools for maximum impact.

Along with the tools that set them off on the adventure, DHERO's need to be met with the kind of radical honesty, wisdom and context which will call to the Commitment, the Heart and the Perspective they need to adhere to their purpose, 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 using a structured form of sense and respond at every level, which is fundamentally different from an old-world engineering approach based in rigid model application and predict and control.