Riding waves that have come up from the deep oceans of theory

The famous wave at Nazare, Portugal on a light day. The wave is generated from the complex motion of water travelling up a very deep underwater canyon nearly to shore where it rises and meets strong currents coming in many directions. It produces some of the biggest waves in the world. Not easy to surf. It’s not my title. It’s the title of a book/treatise by Mark Downham, who publishes very long treatises on issues of philosophy, organization, and complexity. This one looks at hosting containers as seen against ideas embedded in Classical Chinese philosophy and it’s going to occupy a big piece of my attention over the next little while. This has been a spring of considering some of the deeper philosophical issues that meet in the intersection of complexity, hosting, and leadership. I’ve been beavering away a digesting a number of very, very long posts principally by Downham and Snowden in order to clarify my own thinking and practice as a process host, and a teacher of participatory…