Practitioner Angst
OD in uncertain times
Presented by Lucille Greeff
August 2013
Turn sideways into the light as they say
the old ones did and disappear
into the originality of it all.
Be impatient with easy explanations
and teach that part of the mind
that wants to know everything
not to begin questions it cannot answer
David Whyte – from Tobar Phadraic
Flow of the session
• Field
• Connect
• Learning
Angst describes a profound and deep-seated condition
in human beings.
Where animals are guided solely by instinct, said
Kierkegaard, human beings enjoy a freedom of choice
that we find both appealing and terrifying.
Angst is defined as a feeling of deep anxiety or dread,
typically an unfocused one about the human condition
or the state of the world in general
• Motivations, fears,
subconscious , meaning
• Existential
• Beingness
• Enneagram
• Cultural manifestations
of angst
• Spiral Dynamics
• Generations
Individual
Interior
Self &
Consciousness
Individual
Exterior
Brain &
Behaviour
Collective
Interior
Culture &
Worldview
Collective
Exterior
Social System
& Environment
• What do I do with
angst?
• What do I do
because of angst?
• What don’t I do?
• Social Angst
• Angst of OD
profession
• Organisational Angst
Kierkegaard
People understand me so little that they do not
even understand when I complain of being
misunderstood
Kierkegaard wanted his tombstone to read:
"Søren Kierkegaard (1813-...), That Individual."
Heidegger
Not by means of conceptual analysis, but through the emotional
experience of angst that we can learn what we basically are as human
beings
“All things, and we with them, sink into indifference. But not in the
sense that everything simply disappears. Rather, in the very drawing
away from us as such, things turn toward us. This drawing away of
everything in its totality, which in angst is happening all around us,
haunts us. There is nothing to hold on to. The only thing that remains
and comes over us--in this drawing away of everything--is this
"nothingness”.” – Heidegger (1931)
Heidegger connects angst with feeling uncanny. The German word for
uncanny is "unheimlich," the literal meaning of which is "not-athome."
The Enneagram
Have to keep the
balance, be settled
Have to be in control
Have to experience it all,
be free from constraint
Have to belong &
be safe
Have to understand
Have to do the right /
good thing
Have to help those in
need
Have to outshine the
rest
Have to be unique
Type
Boundary
Pattern
1
Fluid
No matter what I do, I will never get it right / will never be good.
2
Fluid
No matter how much I give, I will never be deserving of love.
3
Closed
No matter what I achieve/do, I am still empty.
4
Open
There is nothing special about me, no matter how authentic I
am, I am a fraud. Life has no meaning.
5
Open
Understanding and knowledge means nothing. The world is
unknowable and does not make sense.
6
Fluid
The world is unsafe. I cannot trust anything or anyone.
7
Closed
No matter how much I experience, life is painful. I am trapped.
Freedom is an illusion
8
Closed
I cannot control the world. Things are out of my grasp. Exposure.
9
Open
No matter how much I compromise, the world is unsettling.
There is no harmony to be found
Reflective space
1. How are you experiencing this feeling of “not
at home” or “nothingness”:
– In your life
– In relation to your OD work
2. What are you doing with your angst?
3. What is happening as a result of your angst?
• Motivations, fears,
subconscious , meaning
• Existential
• Beingness
• Enneagram
• Cultural manifestations
of angst
• Spiral Dynamics
• Generations
Individual
Interior
Self &
Consciousness
Individual
Exterior
Brain &
Behaviour
Collective
Interior
Culture &
Worldview
Collective
Exterior
Social System
& Environment
• What do I do with
angst?
• What do I do
because of angst?
• What don’t I do?
• Social Angst
• Angst of OD
profession
• Organisational Angst
Spiral Dynamics
• Where is OD on
the spiral?
• Where is South
Africa?
• Where am I?
• What generational
influence?
Practising OD in South Africa
• How does the spiral help me make sense of
angst that I may be experiencing as a result of
the psycho-cultural archaeology of our times?
Angst in the world
• Social Angst in first world
– Depressive success
– Deficit of meaning
– Historically, the convergence of a technological boom with exponential
economic growth and integration tends to lead to a flattening and
reordering of social hierarchies
• Social Angst post 2008
– The socio-political and economic systems of the world are failing us
– Organisations are failing us
• Angst of our profession
– OD in crisis?
– Where do we fit in the organisation?
– Executives & the business don’t take us as seriously as...
Angst in our client organisations
• What is the angst of the CEO?
• What is the angst permeating the business
about?
• What is the impact of this angst in the system
on our work as OD practitioners?
Angst is a bad thing?
• The encounter with nothingness, according to Heidegger, puts me
into a position where I can choose an authentic existence, or where
otherwise I can allow myself to fall back into a sort of life where
most things are decided by others, or by circumstances of a more or
less impersonal nature. Angst, in other words, reveals to me my
fundamental freedom.
• Angst is thus not necessarily a negative experience; it can be
understood and seized as a precondition for waking up, for a
personal liberation. Angst relieves us, as it were, from our herd
instinct and enables us to make our own personal decisions.
• Angst can be the means to become our own selves. By prompting
us to become genuine individuals, it can make our lives authentic.
• Angst freedom to conceive and re-conceive the world in many
ways, and to change one's relation to it accordingly
Work Session
Identify a current project / OD engagement
where you are experiencing angst.
– What is my angst about?
– What angst may my key stakeholders be
experiencing?
– What angst is floating in the system?
– How do I work with this consciously, using myself
as instrument?
When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes
to recognise its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.
You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.
- David Whyte, Sweet Darkness