the integrity spiral

This morning I stumbled on a personal journey entry from June 23rd last year in which I coined a term that seemed to describe some patterns in my life.

I left home in January 1981 as a 17 year old, spending a year as an exchange student in Japan before moving to Hobart to go to Uni. My journal entries over the next years captured annual goals and commitments that at the time reflected what felt like significant changes year to year. But looking back, I can see that the entire decade of the 80s was spent in deep inner world formation. I had left the security and unconditional love of my parents’ home and was trying to figure out who I was in the world without them. Much of my sense of self was contained within the faith communities that were increasingly where I felt at home and provided a platform for me to make a contribution in society. But a burgeoning unease with religious institutions and (from my point of view) the unconscious hypocrisy of those that represented them, drew me away from traditional church.

During the 90s my career and lifestyle gave expression to this peculiar pathway - a faith-driven life outside traditional religious institutions. At the time, I (and those with whom I was working in Australia and around the world) understood what we were doing as experimenting with emerging forms of Christianity that were culturally appropriate for the postmodern word. This pathway offered significant leadership opportunities locally, nationally and internationally.

And then in 2000 I jumped ship, from the not-for-profit world of faith based organisations into commercial consulting. I had no idea what I was doing, but sometimes naivety is an asset. From the vantage point of my previous life, business had been the ‘enemy’, at least big corporate had been. From within the story of which I had been a part, the unequal distribution of wealth, our addiction to consumerism, the destruction of the planet etc etc were all driven by maximising shareholder returns in businesses. But as I transitioned away from the not-for-profit sector, I reasoned corollarily that if business had the capacity for ‘bad’, it must also have the capacity for ‘good’.

And so I became obsessed with learning about businesses that were committed to social and environmental good, not as a bolt-on corporate social responsibility, but as core in their business model. I immersed myself in a world that I hadn’t known had existed - the world of ethically and morally motivated business. My world expanded rapidly and my view of people and the world changed dramatically. I sought out business leaders locally and internationally who were doing things differently, radically differently. I read voraciously and attended conferences and seminars to understand more, and meet people who were similarly motivated. I helped start businesses and other initiatives that did two things; firstly they were expressions of the idea that business could be motivated by serving all stakeholders (not just shareholders) including their staff, the community, and the environment, and secondly, they offered me a platform to ‘do my thing’.

The first five years of this new career were an apprenticeship of sorts. I learned the basics of the business world, and started to find my feet in boardrooms and commercial workplaces. My confidence grew and over the subsequent 10 years I found myself leading a consulting firm and chairing boards. But the most substantial transformation was happening in my inner world as I began to reimagine my contribution.

From 2015 onwards, the opportunity to express that contribution authentically emerged through what we called the Make it Better community and network. I remember saying on more than one occasion that it felt like everything I had done up until that point was in preparation for the contribution via Make it Better.

Back to the pattern. What I had observed in my journaling was an oscillation between inner work and the outer world expression of it. In the paragraphs above, the period of that oscillation is roughly a decade. Inner formation that formed an identity - followed by an outer world expression of that. Repeat. So far, 20 year cycles.

The oscillation between inner formation and outer world expression is what I’ve called the integrity spiral. Of course there are spirals within spirals, so the formation and expression, the reflection and action, the mindfulness and the parallel practice loops happen over much shorter periods too. Some people have a daily practice, and it is commonplace for an annual re-assessment of our lifestyles and contributions in the form of new year resolutions.

But as I wrote and pondered, I realised the power of this spiral as an alternative to the dominant social narratives which, in my world is typically one of two. Firstly, the most ubiquitous, to the point of being unconscious and unquestioned, is status upgrading. It’s the ‘more and better’ story that is inculcated into our beings; it’s the story that as life goes on it is normal, and even our right, to get better things, a more expensive car, a bigger house, more toys, more access to exclusive loyalty clubs, and essentially accumulate social status points. We tell ourselves along the way that ‘we deserve it’ or our increasingly ‘important’ status have these things as essential garnish. The dominant question is where I sit on the social pyramid.

In the world of social change of which I’ve been a part, there is another common story. It is about what I’ve done; how much change I’ve facilitated; how much impact I’ve had. It rejects the narrative about social status, as in ‘I’ve forfeited income by working in the NFP sector’, but it buys into the performance narrative and its overarching question, “What have I achieved?” It tends to mirror corporate behaviour via ridiculous work hours and performance anxiety, justified by the worthiness of the ‘cause’.

I am captive to both of these narratives. To suggest otherwise would be delusionary.

But my primary motivation and my lifelong commitment is to answer a different question. Instead of “How can I climb the social status pyramid?” or “How can I maximise my impact?” the question that keeps me awake at night is “Who do I choose to be?”

It is a not a question about doing or achievement. Neither is it a question that is answered based on someone else’s opinion (as is the case for social status). It is a question answered with reference to the values I hold most deeply. Who is the person I want to be? How do I need to be now so that in 10 years time I won’t have any regrets. Who do I choose to be today?

The most significant work I can do is, therefore, the work to narrow the gap between who I aspire to be, and how I actually think and how I actually behave. The wider the gap, the less integrity. The smaller the gap, the greater the integrity.

But it is not a linear path. It is not a series of steps with tick boxes along the way. When I observe my own journey, the pattern is one of loops. Deep, and often slow and difficult inner work to peel back the layers of my own self-talk-propaganda, followed by outer world behavioural commitments of those insights.

And hence the integrity spiral. The spiral annexes the idea that there is a direction. A trajectory toward greater integrity and with it, wholeness.

I do not pretend that rejecting the dominant stories of status mobility and greater impact is easy or simple. But I am suggesting there is an alternative. Despite my captivity to both of the dominant stories, in my heart of hearts, I know that what will matter in the long run is not my social status badges or changemaker achievements, but who I’ve been. How I have loved. The depth of connectedness I’ve experienced. The extent to which I’ve known, and been, my true self.