Rewilding Using the Lens of Kairotic Flow

Jose Leal (00:06):

Welcome to rHatchery live. My name is Jose Leal and I'm with Matt Perez. My pilot and co-pilot on the rHatchery live journey, as well as the radical world space. And today we have Kylie Stedman-Gomes, I can't believe I misspoke that. Kylie Stedman-Gomes. And it is Gomes with an S. She's married to a Portuguese and she's living in Portugal and originally from Australia. Welcome, Kylie.

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (00:41):

Hi. Great to be here.

Jose Leal (00:43):

Nice to have you. So we typically start with a little bit of a question about you. What makes you even be considered to be asked to come and talk to us about radical and the radical world when typically it means somebody's doing something different. So what led you to do something different and and how did you get to this stage in your life where that's something different is attracting you to having this conversation?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (01:21):

Well, I had a career up until 2017, which I really, really didn't love. Right. So I sort of fell into it, and then I kind of stayed into it going in just from one job to another in project management and and in business analysis because it was the thing that was there and because it was needed by others and I wasn't really looking at what it was that sort of made me feel good, if that makes sense. Yeah. and then in 2017 sort of as a final straw kind of thing, my stepfather who I was quite close to actually passed away. And I took stock, let's say, of my life. And yeah. And I left, I stepped off the treadmill and I started looking around at the world and I thought, wow, I'm not the only one who is doing this compromising myself in, in order to sort of make a living. And so I, I just started going, okay, well what is, what is there that feels right to me? And what is it that makes things feel right to everybody? And I think what I, what I see with radical is that same kind of, that same kind of focus, you know, the, the not being forced to do things that you know just to, you know, eke out survival but instead to do things that you know, bring us alive.

Jose Leal (02:58):

And that journey that you've just described, I mean, thank you for being succinct, but, but I wonder if you can give us a little bit of, of a details, some details in that, because that world of the tech, the, the business and analyst and so forth that that's changed a lot from, you know, the seventies, eighties to recently. And it seems to me that it's become more of a cog in the wheel. Maybe that's my perception. How do you see that? Because it seems that people are getting hired, you know, and just be put in that place to fill that hole, to do that task. And, and I don't think that that was the role that was originally in that space from a business analyst perspective. It was a very important role.

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (03:56):

So are you, are you asking how did I end up in that business analyst role?

Jose Leal (04:01):

I'm asking did you see it transform from when you first joined to, you know, later in your career? What was happening as far as the respect for that role, the respect for that type of work in the organizations you were doing?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (04:18):

Okay, so, well, what pulled me into it in the, in the first place was that I was working for a, a nonprofit organization. And so it was a, it was the service arms of you know, sort of a, a regional center that had you know, nursing homes and disability employment and you know, like a, a crisis telephone hotline, that sort of thing. And the technology was not really supporting what it was that the people who were working, and it's usually a passion sort of driven thing. It wasn't really supporting them. And I'd come from a background prior to that of doing data entry and, and business administration across a whole heap of different industries. So when I, when I first stepped into it, it was really this sense of finding what was, what was needed, and then working out how to, how to meet those needs. So I, I really quite enjoyed it when I got in there. cause There was a real feeling of, you know, of making a difference, right? Not only for those, for the other people that were employed in the, in the organization, but also for the people that they were serving in the community. And then over time, I suppose I ended up seeing it move away from person centered perspective to something that was almost technology centered. So it was about what would make the, make the application work, or, you know, like how could you streamline the process and sort of, instead of really focusing on what people needed instead, just on how could you do it more cheaply or, you know, how could you make the, the process itself more efficient? And that, yeah. I'm not sure if that's still the case now. cause You know, I'm, I'm six years out of it, but I didn't enjoy that particular direction myself.

Jose Leal (06:23):

Yeah. I often think that we've built systems to control people rather than to help people. And that, that often is kind of the role. So tell us a little bit about what you've started to explore over these six years and, and where you've landed on the kind of work that you want to do and, and how that's sticking shape.

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (06:48):

Yeah. So when I, when I stepped out the first stepped off the treadmill, let's say the first thing that sort of caught my attention was what's going on in the world at large. And I noticed that it wasn't just business analysis, obviously that was, or, or project management, which I'd done a lot of that sort of seemed to be more focused on processes rather than people. And on I'd say concepts rather than underlying reality and humanness and needs and living. It seemed to be pretty much everything. So, you know bureaucracy was much the same way and the markets were much the same way. And so I, I'd always had, I'd had an interest in the Commons for quite some time and I kept seeing how that was being extracted from, and anyway, so, you know, I've always had an interest as well in in models and in different ways of looking at things, just sort of regard as lenses, you know. So pick up a lens, have a look through it, pick up another lens, have a look through that one. And I was looking at a particular one of these that was very, very business focused which was Simon Wardley, pioneer settlers and town planets. And I saw that there was something in that that was really useful for thinking about the things that people might actually be attracted to. As well as noticing that that if you look at things sort of by activity, it sort of becomes quite easy actually to find out what it is that you're interested in. And yeah. And that's when I had the tic flow come up, which is what's the, you know, the little tag that we've put on this session.

Jose Leal (08:42):

And so I want to know what Rewilding means in a minute, but, but tell us a little bit about Tic Flow and, and how it came about. You've just said sort of what, what sparked it? How long have you been working on it and what, what is it, what does it mean to you, and how do you think it can help us?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (09:04):

Yeah, so, so in the format that it is now, which is sort of a diagram that's got, you know, six archetypes around it the right hand side of the diagram is is colored in orange because it's the, the obvious stuff that we look at all the time. And that was based on Simon Woodley's, pioneer settlers and town planners. And the other side, I've colored in purple. And it's the, it's the side that I've added that, because what I realized when I was when I was looking at the pioneer settlers in town planners, it's, is that it was only looking at one side of the kinds of tensions that we're always holding. You know, you might think yin and yang, or you might think internal and external, or you might think you know, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation right hemisphere, left hemisphere, like at all of those. And I just realized that it wasn't being it wasn't being looked at as the, as the full cycle and the balancing that it is continuously. So I added in to the cycle, another three archetypes, which are steward, curator, and scout. And they do actually kind of go in that, in that order. So I've got it shown as clockwise, so pioneer, settler, town planner, steward, curator scout, and there's dynamics in between each of the opposites which is like a tension that sort of gets held. And these patterns seem to play out at every, every level of life. So cells seem to go through that in their life cycle. Plants go through it, you know, humans go through it, teams go through it, organizations go through it. And it just sort of struck me as a pattern that just kind of keeps occurring over and over. And one of the other things that occurs over and over, especially at the human level, is not seeing that purple side very well. And that's where, you know, that's sort of an internal focus in a lot of ways. So our purpose and the, the, why are we doing something in the first place and, you know, what are the needs and what are the possibilities for meeting those needs and that kind of thing. So yeah. So I've ended up using tic flow quite a bit to help people focus in on those things. You know, like, what is your purpose or, you know, for an organization as well, like, what is the purpose of the organization and how do you express that and keep coming back to it, rather than getting caught up in the, you know, in the processes or the technologies or the the, the focusing things that we use on the, on the orange side of the cycle.

Matt Perez (11:41):

Can you tell us a little bit about the origin of [inaudible]

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (11:49):

The origin of [inaudible]

Matt Perez (11:50):

Yeah. The word itself?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (11:53):

Yeah. so it comes from Kairo. I

Matt Perez (11:55):

Gotta open the door, but I can still hear you

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (12:01):

Yeah. It comes from the Greek word Kairos, which is one of I think there are three all up. There may be another one I don't know about, but at least three concepts that the ancient Greeks had for time. One of them was is Aon, which is sort of, we use as eon now, which is like the really long cycles of time. And then there's Kronos, which we use all the time. It's dividing things up into a, you know equal segments. So, you know, like our calendars and the number of hours in a day, and, you know, all of that kind of thing. You know, think chronological

Jose Leal (12:42):

Or linear movement of time.

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (12:44):

Yep. Yep. And, and then there's Kairos, which is which is living cycles. So you can think of it in terms of like, of seasons, for example. It's like trees for instance, will flower at the time that is right in terms of their internal and external conditions. So they don't, they don't particularly care what day of the week or month or year it is. They just, they do it when the conditions are right. And, you know, we can see that for ourselves as well, you know, so if you know, like a pregnancy will last as long as it needs to last and it's around about nine months, but, you know, it's certainly not, you know, it's certainly not on the clock kind of thing.

Jose Leal (13:26):

Yeah. It's not chronological in nature. It's [inaudible] in nature is what you're saying.

Matt Perez (13:34):

So [inaudible] is more about life and living beings than, than processes and technologies and stuff like that. I got, I got it. Okay.

Jose Leal (13:47):

And, and you said something that Kylie, that I, I lost the train of thought, but you, you were talking about the fact that you helping organizations see the organization's purpose and so on and so forth. Can you tell me what, what you think about purpose as an organizational purpose? How, how does that, how does an organization hold a purpose? What, what's your definition of that? Because I, I want to be clear about my question. We see purpose as something that emerges from living beings. And the idea that an a legal entity has a purpose that it holds by itself that's unique to it seems to us to be a little bit of a, of a, of a misconception. So, so can you tell us a little bit about what you mean by that and, and how that we can square that circle?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (14:52):

Yeah. So the legal side of things I would actually just refer to as the, the town planner archetypes way of standardizing things so that, you know, so that we can see what it is that we're actually relating to. But that's from the outside, you know, so whenever, whenever people come together to do something, you know, whatever it is that they're actually doing that has a, that has a archetypal flavor, and whatever legal entity you wrap around that is kind of, it's different from the name for the, from the thing itself. So, and you could say the same about human beings, you know, it's like, we are born, we don't have a name, we don't have citizenship. We don't have, like, any of those things that, that doesn't take away from our essential nature as, as, you know, living, living creatures. So organizations like, yes, we could look at them as you know, as the legal entity that we define as an organization. Or we could take a more living approach to it and say, well, what is, what is this organism that sort of emerged? And what purpose does it play in? Its in its ecosystem or in the community, if you like, that it is that it's sort of emerged to serve.

Jose Leal (16:17):

So this organism, the company, let's say is made up of us who participate in it. And do you see that we then emerge a new purpose collectively a new purpose emerges for us as a collective within this and this company,

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (16:39):

Essentially, yeah.

Jose Leal (16:42):

And how do you go about the process with, with Car Flow? How do you go about the process of, of identifying a purpose for such emergent organization?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (16:55):

Yeah. Well, so it's, it's, it's essentially a question of, well, what is it that you're, you know, that what is the need that you're looking to meet? What is the, the nature of what it is that you're looking to do? So for instance, if it's something like you know cordial World is, is one of the one of the organizations, or I should say nascent organizations at this stage that that I'm consulting to at the moment and cordial world is, is looking to bring community back into the decision making process. So we've, we've gotten to the point culturally of feeling that we can only be steered by the political parties, which is sort of like a, you know, it's, it's almost like a menu of options, and you have to select what's on the menu. And if, if the option's not there, you can't choose it, but what a community actually needs, for instance, or, and what it feels that it needs and what it, you know, or even what its desires are is not necessarily going to appear on that menu. So cordial World is sort of seeking to find how can we get a sense of what the community needs and then have that go through to the, you know, to the market so that, you know, so that they, the market can figure out what it offers. And also through to government as well to make it more responsive to actually meeting what the community needs instead of just what is going to get them into, into power. So, you know, rather than the you know, what are you going to vote for, kind of surveys that we get. Instead, you know here's how we are going to do what it is that you actually genuinely want us to do.

Jose Leal (18:58):

Or a top down, here's the plan we've made the strategic plan, you've got to execute on it. Good luck. Let's, let's execute on that. So you're saying this, this approach of community, this approach of collaborating brings about a different way of defining what role that organization has, that company has how, how does the, the IC flow view of it change the outcome of that conversation? cause from a, from a radical perspective, we talk about doing a radical agreement or a radical exploration with one another. Kylie, are you there? Looks like Kylie froze. Oops, we just lost Kylie. So Matt, what are you thinking about? Oh, there she is. She's back.

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (20:03):

Sorry about that. My Wi-Fi decided it was going to switch on me.

Jose Leal (20:10):

Well, I'm glad that it kept switching to a point where it worked. Did you hear my question?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (20:16):

No, I, I think I heard probably about half of it. So if you would repeat.

Jose Leal (20:20):

Now, if I can remember what I said, let, let, let's just hope my old brain works. How does the TIC model help change that conversation? Because it's a conversation that many people have in many different ways. In, in radical, we, we talk about collaborative agreements and the ability to, to have these conversations that bring about a different way of seeing each other and, and we struggle with it. Is it an agreement? Is it an agreement, it's a process and so forth. So tell us a little bit about what the [inaudible] flow process of attaining that kind of understanding of what our purpose is as a, as a group.

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (21:07):

Okay. So I, I probably can't, I probably don't know quite enough about radical to, to apply it to what you are doing, and I think you're probably well on track with what you need to do, but I'll just I'll talk about Cordial Weld again for a second. So one of the, maybe the first thing is sort of finding out, okay, well what is the nature of this organization? And what we've looked at for Cordial World is that it's, it's almost, it's in bet it's passing the power, if you like, between Steward and Curator in the TIC flow model. So that's the nature of it. It's, you know, it's got some steward characteristics and it's got some curator characteristics. And then knowing that when you go to set up governance and when you go to set up the processes and when you go to find you know, what kind of legal structure it needs, all of that information becomes the, all of those activities become very obvious. And the sequence of what you do also becomes very obvious. So it, what Tic Flow does really is it just, it allows you to focus in on, on the appropriate scope and then easily see what comes next. 'cause We end up getting caught up a lot in our, you know, in our own minds and our concepts and our, you know, like the, the checklists that you have to go through to do things. And we lose sight of what the purpose was in the first place. So it's, it's almost like you, you, you kind of follow down a checklist and then it's like, oh, okay, now we need to reorient where, you know, where was I actually supposed to be? And it's just, it's a very quick way to reorient again and go, oh, okay, well, we've just done our our legal setup, so, you know, that's the town planner part of this cycle taken care of. Now let's move into, into Steward, which is the one that follows after town planner, and make sure that we've got the what's needed in place in order to maintain it and to, to keep it going and to keep the whole organization in mind going forward. And then onto curator, what, what else is needed and so on. And you just kind of keep going around the cycle.

Jose Leal (23:20):

So it's a, is it fair to say, maybe I'm misunderstanding here, but it feels like what you're describing is that it's a cycle of things that happen when the time is right for them to happen, but that the cycle has that patterning of going from a certain place to the next place, to the next place, all six of these and that, and in your view, those patterns are, are linear in a sense, and that, that they go one after the other, but they cycle through to different layers of, of things that are happening in the organization. Is that a fair way to, to describe that?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (24:06):

Yes. I would just, I'll probably add a bit more sort of in the sense that the outputs of one archetype or of one type of, or one sort of phase of activity has the outputs that then become the inputs to the next archetype. And then it does what, you know, you do the activity there and then it's output, so the inputs for the next archetype. So it's, it's kind of like each one naturally feeds naturally feeds the next. So yes, it certainly does go around the, it does go around the cycle in a, in a sequential kind of manner, but it's not in a chronological manner, so you don't spend the same amount of time in each one. So sometimes, you know, it will basically skip very fast through one part of the cycle and then, you know, spend a long time in, you know, particularly in wherever the purpose of the organization is. So if it's a stewarding kind of organization, like health tends to be then a lot of the attention will be there. So, you know, it'll kind of flip fairly fast through the next couple. Sometimes it'll go slowly and then it'll stop and just sort of keep going around in steward for a long time until something fails, and then it sort of, it goes through the cycle again and, you know, and then it sort of, it's almost like a gravitational pull to wherever the, to wherever the purpose is.

Jose Leal (25:34):

I, I see Matt's referring his, I'm wondering what, what he's struggling with conceptually here.

Matt Perez (25:40):

No, I just realized that [inaudible] rhymes with erotic, and I don't know what that means, but that's why I was furring my whatever. And one of the things that we do here, we let you talk for 10, 15 minutes about your business and what it does, and then we try to couple it with the, the radical pattern, if you will, the radical foundation, see where, where it fits. And I'm having a hard time fitting those two, except on the meaning and purpose side. I, I see a relationship there, but the, the, the planners and this and that and the other, I don't I'm not feeling it or I don't know what it is. I'm, I'm just not getting it. So what do you expect to, when you go through all this in the ideal company, whether it's cordial world or, or some other world what would they do different?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (27:01):

Okay, so if I go back to what I was saying about the, you know, business analysis and ending up focusing on process more than on, on people, this is, this is probably a good part to think about. So because there are a certain number of activities that need to be done, right? What, where I think we end up, you know, with this perspective thing of forcing people to do something that they don't want to do, we are not looking for the, for the match, if you like, in between, you know, what people are enthused by or naturally drawn towards, and what the activity is that needs to be done. So, you know, it's like, it's, instead of trying to turn people into cogs, if you like, it's sort of, it's by making it clear what the, you know, what the activity is that needs doing, then it is po it's far more possible, I think for people to kind of go, oh, that is something that I like doing, or it's not something that I like doing. So, you know, for me, for instance you know, my preferred activities are in the scout archetype. So the further I get away from there and you know, too, too away is it's almost like a blind spot or it's something that's really hard to do. So it makes it easy for me personally, if, you know, like I'm asked to step in to do an activity that is you know, the two away each way. So if it's a settler kind of activity, which is focusing on optimizing processes, then I can very easily kind of go, no, I'm not. I don't really want to do that. That's, that's not the thing that I want. And to be able to sort of draw my own boundaries much more quickly than I would otherwise. And the sanction, yeah.

Matt Perez (28:51):

Who determines, who determines the tasks that need to be done? I mean, somebody body comes up with that, right?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (29:01):

The what, sorry?

Matt Perez (29:03):

Somebody human being or a dog, it doesn't matter. comes up with, oh, we have to X and Y and Z and Z, sorry. And who, who does that?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (29:20):

This doesn't have anything to say about who does or doesn't do that. Ideally with the, you know, with the chiropractic flow approach, it is something that actually just does need to be done and people are going to be able to see it and then go towards it, or not as they wish to. Now an organization can still you know, if, if they want to choose that thing of going, okay, we're just going to have one person who's going to take an authoritarian approach, then it's, it's not going to stop them from doing that, but it won't work very well, especially if the activity itself is not conducive to those kind of conditions. Okay. Yeah. So for you know, for, for I'll, I'll go for straight for town planner again in town planner, it's like the conditions that are needed are a great degree of transparency and stability and things being, you know, done in a certain way. So if you think about things like the infrastructure of roads or you know, utilities and that kind of thing, then, you know, <laugh> sort of reality says that you have to do this, and then you do that, and then you do that. And that appeals to some people and it doesn't appeal to us. But if you take that same approach and you try to make it so that you know, that, that people who are trying to do something really creative are going to do it according to that, you know, really structured, ordered way of doing things, then it's just going to completely, you know, squash whatever creativity.

Jose Leal (30:53):

Let, let me try to see if I, I understand this, cause I, I, I think I'm getting it Kylie, so forgive me for being so slow but, but what I'm, what I think I'm hearing is the work you've done is to say that and I forget the gentleman whose original model you, you started with, but there's a model here that sees that things happen in a certain way that you need to do this, and then that generally creates this and that generally creates that and so on. And you've added that other side of that, that that is about the, not just about the doing, but the curating of, of this, but the, the, the process of of going around to, to generate all of that. And you're saying in organizations and in people, I, I'm wondering if this is true, but this is what I'm hearing in organizations and in people, this process is very similar, but people in an organizational setting, they play a role typically in some of these, but not all of these aspects of, of this new way of seeing time within a flow of what we do. And that in that new way of seeing time, that what we can do is we can actually identify for ourselves where I fit in in this cycle and where others might fit in in this cycle, so as to help find a balance between us as a team, but also to look at it at this meta level, which is to see what's this cycle for the organization as a whole am I, am I understanding this? What, what did I miss?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (32:46):

Yes, no, you are, you are understanding it. There's a, there's a relatively simple example that I like to use to sort of show that we do all go through these cycles, like in many different ways every day. In fact, you could think of the entire cycle as representing 24 hours as well with, you know, like the, the orange sides that have been very much daytime. So at the top being dawn going through the day and then over on the purple side sort of being like night, right? So there are certain things that we do like when we're asleep that we don't do when we're awake, and it's that similar kind of feeling, or you could think of it as seasons as well. So, you know, the over on the, on the light side is kind of like spring and summer, and then you go in towards autumn, and then winter is, is kind of like the, the nighttime or the, the sleeping time. And we all have times that we prefer you know, it's, it's, some people are morning people and some people are, you know, they, they might prefer summer or something like that. And it's not, you know, it's not a direct match, but it does sort of give the idea that, you know, if if someone prefers to work you know, like in cool conditions, then maybe they're, you know, maybe asking them to go to to Thailand to work in the middle of, you know, the hot season is not going to be especially appealing to them. So it's, it's that kind of a feel I suppose. And in fact, the seasons is a good way to think about the sequential nature of things as well. That we don't expect that when it's, that when it's winter, that after that we're going to have summer straightaway without spring sort of coming in between.

Jose Leal (34:30):

So let me try to encapsulate that even a little bit tighter from a radical perspective that what it does is it provides us with an understanding of that there are things that people do that some of us are, are more innately adept at, and it fits us better. And that understanding those things can help us see where people sit in, in the flow of things. But that also that same flow at an organizational level can see be an alignment tool for us to be able to see what's the next thing that as an organization we need to do, so that we can all sort of look at that and say, who fits in this new role? Who, who could, might be the leader in this new season of the organization? Does that also apply?

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (35:35):

Yes. Yep. And you can look at it also as in, you know, you, you know what the organization is actually requiring, and then you can put out the invitation if you like, so that it's so that people know what they're going to be stepping into and they can move towards it. It's appealing or not if it's not, you know so.

Jose Leal (35:57):

It's a lens with which to look at ourselves and the organization we're working on that helps us understand that it's not a fixed view of an organization or ourselves, but one that is in motion and flows from one season to the next, from one time to the next. And that we are all party to that process.

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (36:22):

Yeah. Yep. That's a good way of putting it. It's a, it gives an insight as to when to do what in a way. And if it's a good win for you and if it's a good what for you as well.

Jose Leal (36:34):

So from a radical perspective, I would say, okay, a assuming I wrap my head around this, cause as I've said, I, I haven't had the chance to do that. But it, it's a tool that helps us bring alignment to what we understand we're doing, bring alignment to what, understand what I'm doing, and to help the conversation between us and the planning that we might do, the organizing that we might do collectively. And so it's, it's sort of this centerpiece of being able to look at, say things together without imposing something my lens or your lens or somebody else's lens. Here's this lens that might be more broad and natural in view that provides us with that.

Kylie Stedman-Gomes (37:34):

Yes, yes. I mean, I would think of it as like an orienting or navigational tool.

Matt Perez (37:42):

Okay. I again, we can keep, keep talking for a while here is, has been very educational, although I'm more confused than educated at this point, but, but that's good . So what I want to do now is announce next week's guest and it is going to be Dawna Jones supporting human adaptability, restoring humanity in workplaces, the key to fulfilling great mission. Dawna has been a friend for a long time and she, she's, she's a good person to know and a good person to listen to. So looking forward to that one. And and that's, that, that's, that's for next week. Kylie I guess that it is been very educational for me. Yeah, do you want to say anything?

Jose Leal (38:41):

Yeah, no, I just want to thank Kylie for joining us for being patient with us as we're learning this. Yeah. and taking the time to, to talk about, cause I think ultimately all the work that people are doing in this new space is helping us understand how we do collaboration. And if, if we don't understand how to do collaboration, whether it's radical or any other way of seeing the world than we will fail. So any tools, any perspectives that help us figure out how to do collaboration better and my book is a beneficial idea. And we won't know until we try and we won't know until we experiment. And that is our biggest thing, is experiment with as many things as you can, figure out how those experiments work out, adjust, adapt, and, and move forward. So I look forward to hearing more about the experiments you make and, and how they work out and if we can, you know, apply them in, in future experiments ourselves. So thank you. Thank you very much.