The biggest challenge we face in business, politics, education, humanity overall, is change. What is change really?
CHANGE: requires working to make things better, faster, cheaper… The past is the fundamental reference point; the desire to improve the past directs what we want to change. I think we need more than improving the past, we need, more than ever, something totally NEW. We need TRANSFORMATION.
“Change fixes the past. Transformation creates the future.”
When we seek transformation, the future directs our actions. It causes new systems to emerge. It’s much more unpredictable, iterative, and experimental. Transformation is a process of discovery and experimentation not execution. To create a NEW reality we need not only to experiment but also to use a new language to be able to talk and describe it to others. Poetry is the language of transformation!
Poetry explores the potential of the future. It experiments and expresses both fears and hopes, providing a way to clearly navigate (feel and experience) emotions during such overwhelming and burdensome periods of transformation.
Our development as individuals and the development of business, society, education, politics… Are tight together in the need for developing a new language.
We have to re-imagine the role of poetry (an the arts in general) in our society to create active awareness and healing of our communities that are starving for transformation. More than ever, in the overwhelming obsession for data, stats and, over-reasoning, there is an urgency to tap into the power of imagination, creativity, and expression. Imagine a world in which poetry is considered part of your professional work, an essential aspect of your contribution, a world where poetry enhances your professional reputation instead of calling into question your devotion to “objectivity.”
Akito Arima, a nuclear physicist and Haiku poet, writes about how moving between physics and poetry helps him think creatively and, look at a problem in physics again, “with different eyes”.
Dare to listen to your own poetry and look with different eyes to the world. Do not flee from it, listen deeply within. We cannot know where it will lead us but we can imagine it by responding to its poetic call.
I did follow the poetic call and embarked on a transformative journey on the path of reclaiming the integrity of my identity as the whole rainbow and not just one colour of it. The work I have been called to do is figuring out ways in which the whole of our humanity can work harmoniously with all those seemingly paradoxes, complexities and tension out there and re-imagining the future.
I am inviting you on this journey with the poem "Leader" from The Whisper - as presented at TEDx Lugano.
You will never know till you stand up
There is enough space within you
Space to contain the multitudes
Stand up
Speak up
Say no
No to fragmentation
No to moving faster
Slow down
Know your multitudes
Learn what moves inside and outside them
Turn towards the truth
Stand up
Speak up
The Whisper said
I want to talk business in rhyme.
May this be the beginning of a poetic exploration into transformation of who we are and what we do.
If you’re interested to learn more about our knowledge and experience and discuss how we could help through our consultancy, workshops, and talks, drop us a line at fateme@rnewb.com.