Life helps sharpen the focus
26 years ago this month I lost my sister Jude to melanoma. She had just celebrated her 50th birthday the week before. I had the great privilege of helping nurse her for the last 7 weeks of her life at Mt Sinai hospital in Toronto, where Jude had lived for about 25 years.
It was a terrible way to die. The tumour had developed on her hip pressing down on the sciatic nerve. It took some time to manage the pain and some weeks were worse than others.
The doctors told me melanoma can be highly heritable and when I got back to NZ, I booked in with a dermatologist to get scanned. For the next 25 years I have had an annual check up with this specialist. Last year she told me she was retiring, and due to my skin getting better with age (as I was no longer farming) I did not need a dermatologist any more. My paranoia was strong enough to push back and say I wanted a referral to another dermatologist which was set up and I was booked in for my annual check up in July this year.
However, in March I developed a wee scab near my ear. Nothing sinister, but it just wouldn’t go away. It felt like dry skin. Hmmmm. I contacted my new dermatologist and talked to the admin person, who said take a photo and text it to me. After 10 attempts I got the photo (try it sometime - it’s tricky) and duly sent it in.
I was in front of the dermatologist within 24 hours, who said yes it’s cancer and booked me in the following week to cut it out. Boom - the wheels were turning and out it came, sent off to be tested at the lab.
Now some of you will know I’m married to a forensic pathologist, and so I asked Kate what's the possible outcome to this situation. She calmly said it could be nothing or it could kill me. Such a softy.
The results came back 3 weeks later and yes it was a bad cancer. However, the dermatologist got it out in time within .8mm to spare. I was promptly referred to radiology who came back and said no further treatment was needed. At this time!
There are few times of my life I have felt so fortunate, while reflecting that being assertive is an important trait to develop.
I got the news of the initial results 1 minute before an Advisory Board meeting in June. What surprised me most was how calm I felt. What will be will be. That’s a new thing.
Seven years ago I had both of my hips replaced. Back in the day before this surgery was available I would have fallen, broken my pelvis, and died by now. Modern science is wicked, however there is a message in all this. My time is running out.
The subsequent effect of this realisation has been a lightning rod of getting on with my succession plan for Collective Intelligence, and also focussing on what I need to be doing at any moment.
The first hurdle has been an emotional block. What right do I have to even think that anyone would want to take Collective Intelligence forward. Was that an ego thing? Maybe Collective Intelligence just dies with me?
I’ve had some great conversations around this subject and the one that stands out most came from Nik Coupe. She said it’s the opposite of ego. People are engaged with my baby and it’s time for me to make space for others to grow this fledgling. It was also pointed out that others will see things I don’t see in this youngster.
Deep breath - onwards.
What I am noticing is more and more members and alumni stepping forward and I’ve realised they are acting as Kaitiaki (it’s that beautiful word again). I believe our Advisory Board is acting more and more in this way.
I'm learning that our style of leadership within the organisation that is emerging has a name, coined by Mary Parker Follett around 100 years ago. It’s called The Law of the Situation. At its core Follett was saying no one person should be ‘in charge’ of another, instead, we are all in service to what the situation requires. That's exactly what I’m witnessing right now, and it feels great.
I believe The Law of the Situation is a core attribute of Collective Intelligence in action.
We have a Writers Group working on a raft of initiatives right now behind the scenes. One major piece of work is the writing of our Charter which will be modified over time as it requires. It fills me with pride that people are contributing to this with such care.
There’s the work Andrew Melville is doing on interconnecting other organizations with similar values to ours, which he has instigated himself. Martin Vere Jones recently showed me how we can create a new WhatsApp channel to all our teams increasing the ease of keeping everyone up to date. These are just a sample of what is happening right now.
All of these initiatives are self-started and I’m very appreciative that these are deepening our kaupapa.
We will be looking more towards Te ao Māori for guidance as there is so much wisdom to be gained from this world view.
So what time I have left in my productive life will be focussed more and more on succession and how we can strengthen the culture, to enable the Law of the Situation.
Onwards.
Photo Credits:
Photo by Anna Gonçalves on Unsplash
Photo by Hubert Buratynski on Unsplash
Photo by Elliot Blyth on Unsplash
