The Mayvin Podcast
The Mayvin Podcast
Whose Anger Is This? — Repression, rage and the discipline of metabolising emotion in work
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What do organisations do with anger? Mostly, they manage it away. It's inconvenient, it's dangerous, it belongs in therapy or the exit interview, not the team meeting. We think that's a mistake.
In this conversation, Sophie and James sit with rage, the grief that usually sits beneath it, and the discipline of metabolising strong feeling rather than suppressing or spilling it. They talk about the reassuring patriarch and the girl boss, two roles that keep everyone else comfortable but at what cost? They reach for the warrior who can hold a clear boundary without going to war, and the hearth fire that needs both containment and air. Prometheus, Joanna Macy's "time of astonishing loss," and the quiet revolutions that don't make the news all find their way in. Two practitioners thinking aloud about how we might build organisations with more room for what we actually feel.
Referenced in this episode: Anthea Lawson, How Not to Save the World (Oneworld, 2025), on activism that doesn't recreate what it opposes. Also drawn on: Joanna Macy on astonishing loss, Silvia Federici on joyful activism, Donna Haraway on staying with the trouble and letting each other be "unforgivably wrong," Hannah Arendt on labour as relational, William Blake on righteous anger, and Erin Manning on the minor gesture.
Thanks so much for listening! Keep in touch:
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[00:00:00]
Sophie: Hello, and welcome to the Mayvin Podcast. This one's a follow-on from our last episode, No More Heroes, on hyper-masculinity in leadership, which seemed to hit a bit of a nerve. James and I kick off exploring anger at work, which is a thing most organizations would rather we didn't have, or at least had quietly somewhere else, ideally in our own time.
We talk about what happens to all that feeling when there's nowhere for it to go. We get into rage and the grief hiding under it, the reassuring dad, and the girl boss who both knacker themselves out keeping everyone else comfortable. And we also talk about how we might build organizations with a bit more room for what we actually feel.
Enjoy.
James: There's a fly in here
Sophie: Is that gonna just [00:01:00] destroy it for you?
James: No, it's not You can't work in these conditions It's not gonna get picked up by the microphones or anything if it sits on my nose How big is he? he's quite, he's quite big
Sophie: Has this come up
James: before? Nah, it's
Sophie: only
James: a little gnat. He'll be fine He's not a gnat All right He's a bluebottle
Sophie: All right
James: It's all right. That's fine. I can cope
Sophie: Have you got into diva mode? 'Cause you're in a studio now
James: I have a diva mode setting Turn down your diva mode setting
Sophie: all right. So you've already started it?
James: So
Sophie: we've got all
James: of that conversation as well ... I'm glad that you've got us- That's brilliant ... at the gold. That's the preamble. That's gonna be the good bit. The
Sophie: preamble is often the good bit. It's like the bit between con- conference sessions.
James: Yes.
Sophie: So I was listening to the last podcast you and Carolyn did- Yeah
on, hypermasculinity.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And there was a bit in that where Carolyn said something like, "I understand that there's a loneliness epidemic and men feel very lonely- Yeah ... and, I understand why, and I actually feel quite a lot of compassion for [00:02:00] it-
James: Mm ...
Sophie: but I just don't think it should be women or me, it should be our job to do anything about that."
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And that sort of really struck me and hooked me, and I sort of heard some anger in it.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And I didn't know actually whether that was my anger or Carolyn's, or maybe a little bit of both.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: Or universal ...
James: response to that.
Sophie: Well, yeah. And, on the topic of universal, what I've been noticing in the past year- Mm
is a lot of anger for me has come up. And then starting to notice that also in client systems, where I feel like, oh, there's... I think maybe there's a bit of repressed anger here, but-
it's not being acknowledged and-
James: Yeah ...
Sophie: it feels like a dangerous thing potentially to start acknowledging.
How do we handle this?
So that's where the idea for this conversation came from.
James: Mm. And, and it's an age of rage, isn't it? And obviously, organizations have to find a way of managing that or dealing with that or- Mm ... supporting that, containing that, in a healthy way. Mm. And of course, [00:03:00] actually, anger and rage, which is a quality of anger, I suppose, can also be very creative.
It drives creativity as well. It's part of, you know, part of life and, Mm ... a lot of artists are driven by, a kind of rage. Yeah. And, you know, that's, it, it, it's a, it can be a useful commodity if it's used well. It can drive action.
Sophie: Yes, absolutely. But it doesn't seem to have much place given in organizations.
Like it's dangerous or, inconvenient and managed away- a lot of the time. Yeah. I feel like it's a bit similar to grief in that way, and often quite related.
James: Another strong emotion, which in some ways needs to have support, containment, can be useful- can help process.
I think organizations are, are, not great at managing anger. I think they're even worse at managing grief.
Sophie: Mm ...
James: so, you know, you see that in the inability of some organizations to move on, to do [00:04:00] change, 'cause there's always a bit of grief involved in change.
Sophie: Yeah.
James: Because there's something that has to be let go of. And, and there's a, I remember a famous example of a- of, a chief executive being shown the grief curve, you know- Mm. -the famous Kubler-Ross grief curve- Mm ... that has this, you know, valley of despond in it, and him saying, "Okay, so how do we get from here to there-" "-without going through that?"
Literally- Can we just bypass that? ... a straight line. You know, we can j- how can we get people just to go to the other end without having to go through the valley? And it was sort of like, yeah, well, that's your problem then. You know, it's the, inability for, organizations and leaders in big organizations to be able to cope with-
the experience of strong feelings. And to tie it to the conversation we were just having about, a patriarchal response to that, so you were talking about, old white men responding to, strong feelings in a particular way.
Do [00:05:00] you want to say some more about that?
Sophie: Well, just, also picking up your last point, I remember doing a similar, transitions workshop, with some senior leaders and talking about grief and transition and kinda letting go of the old before we can start to even think about the new.
And, the response from the most senior person in the room
was such a strong pushback.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And it was really interesting. And I, and at the time, I thought that was jolly unfair and quite bullying behavior, actually. I thought about it sometime later, and I realized that week, my father-in-law had passed away.
James: Mm.
Sophie: And I hadn't grieved at all for it.
James: Right.
Sophie: So I don't know what was going on there, but it's something about kind of being in touch with your own grief and anger, these really strong emotions, that can help you be there with other people and talk just more authentically about these things.
James: And I think that's the inside/outside piece, isn't it?
There's, in dealing with strong emotions like anger or grief or rage, there's something about the work that one has to do, a person has to do- Mm ... for [00:06:00] themselves to understand their own responses to things so that they're not just triggered unhelpfully.
But there's also the wider system because I think organizations act into the idea that actually strong feelings are an individual's problem, and they could go and get therapy and, you know, deal with it.
There's nothing we can do about that.
Sophie: Yeah.
James: And actually, I don't think that's true.
Sophie: No, it's a collective issue. We live in a, as you said, age of rage. There's very good reasons to feel grief and rage right now- Yeah ... in the world. There are.
These are legitimate feelings, and they can be transformed and unlock something if they're allowed to.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And also, they can be incredibly disruptive if they're not given space and containment. It's like, we were talking about this in the mythic kind of lens. It's the old story about Prometheus bringing fire to humans to help them- Yeah
and to support them and, and the idea of Prometheus as a bringer of progress, and yet humans used it to, yes, live better, but also hurt each other.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And Prometheus was punished as a result. But it's that kind of [00:07:00] fire. We need that fire. We need that fire , for creativity- Mm-hmm
James: Yeah ...
Sophie: for, to tackle injustice.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: But if it's not held well, if it's not contained-
James: Yeah ...
Sophie: then it is incredibly dangerous. There are some individual spaces, right? But more than ever, we need collective spaces where people can feel safe- Yeah ... and, and some kind of sense of belonging to acknowledge, express-
James: Yeah
Sophie: metabolize- those emotions.
James: I think that's a really good expression, the, the idea of metabolizing, usefully metabolizing strong feelings- is a role that a system, an organization, a family, a, a, you know, any kind of human system can play- Mm ... for individuals, is to help them. That, that's the role of rituals sometimes.
It's the role of, you know, when I was working for a large, global brewery, and, we were doing leadership development work, and they were closing a brewery, one of their sites in a city where that brewery had been a [00:08:00] central part of the community for a long time, for over 100 years.
And, they did quite a lot of work, and we did quite a lot of work with them about enabling that community to grieve- for the closing of that building. And it was difficult, but it was good of them to create that space, and there was a lot of storytelling involved and a lot of kind of processing of what it meant to, close that central kind of, institution-
Sophie: Mm
James: of that community.
Sophie: Yeah.
James: It was a rare thing to actually face that grief. I, I mean, I can't honestly say whether it changed anything for the better because, you know, capitalism dictated the fact that that brewery was going to be closed. But there is a way in which I think that community were at least honored in that process- Yes
recognized.
Sophie: Mm.
James: So people who'd worked there came and told stories about their experience and it was difficult. It was brave of them to do that, I think.
Sophie: Mm.
James: And what did it [00:09:00] change? Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it?
Sophie: Well, we can move very quickly on to what impact did it have?
And sometimes it's... We can just be human about this.
James: We don't know. We don't know. And- Who knows anything about life ... often the relational, the impact of relational-
Sophie: Mm ...
James: practice is quite hard to track, isn't it?
Sophie: Mm. Yeah.
James: That's a classic example. You know, how do you know what it changed and how it changed and how it affected their brand or, you know, we... It's difficult to tell.
Sophie: Yes. Well, we did a whole podcast on monitoring and evaluation, and- Yeah ... I sort of stand by that, and I also go, and I also think- In these times actually, maybe all we can do is hold onto our intention and our integrity.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And, and kind of just have faith in the relational and the ripples that, that come.
James: Yeah.
So, and we were talking about that response to strong feelings that is different for men and women, which links back to the podcast on-
Sophie: you were trying to get me to talk about middle-aged white men.
James: Well, I have an interest in that. But
Sophie: I'm not sure why. That's just not, not risky at all for a podcast, is [00:10:00] it? I- Uh, um, yeah, so I noticed the last year, I was kept on getting quite triggered.
James: Mm.
Sophie: And it was generally by men-
James: Mm ...
Sophie: of a certain age.
And, it was often,
It felt like complacency. It felt like I've, I've got answers. It felt quite intellectualized,
James: What, their response
Sophie: to you? Their, their, yeah, their response to me or, or in a context I was in. Mm. And definitely a feeling of being told, "Oh, no, it's okay." Yeah. When I, I ra- you know, I was raising valid points about, about specific challenges- Yeah
and specific challenges my clients were having, for example, and to be told, "Oh, that's okay."
James: Mm.
Sophie: And- It's- ... and sort of my response was, my, in my anger, was, "I don't think the world needs any more privileged white men telling everybody else it's okay."
James: Yeah. "
Sophie: Have you seen the news?"
James: Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Sophie: Like, that's, I didn't ask for that. Yeah. I'm perfectly fine with things actually not being okay. I'm okay in that. So don't assume that I'm not okay.
I'm okay with my difficult- Yeah ... feelings. Are you okay with your difficult feelings? [00:11:00] Yeah, yeah. Was really, you know, are you allowing them in?
Yeah. Or are you trying to smooth everything over, which is actually just eradicating difference.
James: Yeah. Well, the, the f- the famous quote that, actually a, a, a feminist rabbi, Shila Shulman, God bless her, used to say, you know, "If you're not angry, then you're not paying attention." Mm. But, so there's the other side to that- Mm-hmm
As a, middle-aged white man, that actually I think there is a hook in me that can work towards smoothing things over, and making it okay. And it is something that I have to watch in my own practice.
So as a facilitator, I think that sometimes I'm rewarded in my practice by being reassuring, and, making sense of things for people. And, to push against that, sometimes it's better for me not to do that, but to sit with the discomfort of people expressing strong feelings.
Sophie: Mm.
James: And that's the [00:12:00] learning for me.
Sophie: And not me tying it up nicely- And
James: not making
Sophie: it- ... having a resolution ...
James: nice and neat for people and, and being reassuring.
Sophie: Yeah.
James: You know, as a dad, that was kind of, like, my role. Yeah.
Sophie: , Yes, sometimes I, you know, that role is needed.
It's just, it, it's the overuse of it, I guess, in current times.
James: And that's the what's sometimes called the structural coupling in- Yeah ... an emotional dynamic. You know, your response, which is, "I want to express my feelings, and I don't need to be reassured," and my response, which is, you know, my kind of learned response, which is to reassure.
That's where we get the dynamic from, and how we both have to push back against that in different ways.
So how did you manage that? How did you contain that or not contain it or...
Sophie: I mean, I expressed it to people.
And then a friend sort of said, like, "Yeah, I mean, I've experienced that before, but it's not triggering me the way it's triggering you right now, so what's that about?"
James: Could that also have been to do with the grief you were experiencing?
Sophie: I think [00:13:00] a lot of the time anger is , it has, it has roots in grief.
Yeah. So, it's always very interesting to me when I or others say I'm annoyed or frustrated.
Those are quite surface- level emotions, and I'm always like, "Well, what's underneath that?"
James: Yes. Yeah. '
Sophie: Cause it's usually anger or sadness, and then usually when it's anger maybe there's actually some sadness-
underneath that and...
James: if you say to someone you're angry, they go, "No, I'm not angry, I'm just frustrated." Actually, that's saying, "I am angry." It's the same thing. It's just a,
Sophie: minimization ... minimizing
James: your experience.
Sophie: Absolutely. And usually there's something deeper under that.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: So you know, I think there's a lot of grief around the world being as it is right now. The devastation in a lot of places. Extinction.
James: Well, it's Joanna Macy's expression, the famous ecologist woman, practitioner, feminist- Buddhist ... Buddhist.
. But she used to talk about the notion of being alive and in a time of astonishing loss.
And we live in a time of astonishing loss, so grief is a very prevalent emotion that we're not probably running under the surface for most people-
that we're, [00:14:00] or everybody, that we're not even aware of.
And even in the more-than-human world, there might even be, a sense of astonishing loss in the more-than-human world.
Sophie: Mm. Yeah
James: um, and, so that could be a very prevailing emotion.
Sophie: And it's sort of terrifying to start allowing yourself and other people to feel that.
James: And in organizations, it's very taboo.
Sophie: Yes, because we feel like you're gonna be sucked under and never come out. But actually-
It feels so stuck at the moment.
And the response of, "Well, let's go faster, we'll do more change," to generally doing more change to people.
What energy could be released- if this was actually metabolized?
James: Yeah, I'm interested in that expression, metabolized, because-
one of the challenges that you were raising was about wanting to express your feelings and not being reassured or not being, in a sense, contained. [00:15:00] So how does m- metabolizing fit alongside that for you?
Sophie: We were talking about responses to anger, weren't we? Well, I'm from-- I come from a family that expresses anger quite easily, which I think is quite rare-
in our culture. So I've never really been, had a problem with- Mm ... expressing frustration-
or annoyance. But it hit me actually when I was feeling so triggered, in the past year, that that was quite superficial, what I was expressing. And actually, there was a deeper anger about how the world is, and what's allowed and what's not allowed, and whose voice is heard and whose isn't.
That actually I needed to be with and let myself stand in that. So, for me, that's transforming an anger that's a bit of a finger up to the authority figures- Mm ... which is, that tips over into me quite easily, which is why I can't work in a hierarchical organization. Mm.
It's just impossible for me. Mm. I have issues with authority, right? Mm. And that's, that's an anger.
James: Mm.
Sophie: And actually turning that into transforming that into something that's more about, [00:16:00] standing in a sense of what's really important to me.
James: Mm.
Sophie: This kind of, "Yes, I actually feel this injustice." And i'm, it's not right, but I'm also at peace with it. This is where we are. , It's the difference between, this warrior figure, sometimes talk about archetypes.
James: Yes.
Sophie: So people are very scared about the warrior.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: Like, ooh, don't wanna let that in. That's just gonna be really confrontational.
James: Mm.
Sophie: Interesting when you talk to organizations sometimes about conflict, and they talk about confrontation- Yes ... and aggression. Yeah. They immediately go into the negative rather than this is assertion about what's important.
James: Yes.
Sophie: So as expressed to me, it's like the warrior who just stands where they are and says a very clear no.
James: Yes.
Sophie: And the warrior that's really in touch with what's in archetypal terms, the sovereign.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: What are you, what do you really stand for here? And I don't need to take my energy in getting angry- and fighting against things, and responding to things that maybe don't need a response-
maybe aren't worthy of a response, and actually just standing my ground- quietly but incredibly firmly. Yeah. [00:17:00] So that's, I think that's the transformation for me.
James: Yeah, I can feel that as you tell the story of it. I can feel that sense of the sovereign in the warrior and- Mm ... you know, together, and that's that idea that ri- righteous anger.
I think the famous William Blake quote is, "Righteous anger is the voice of God." There's something very powerful and solid about someone expressing anger without a need for someone to kind of fight back, but just to hear it, just to witness it- you know, to be present to it.
And then it will do its thing in the system. I think that's where, the culture of debate that doesn't really exist- as such anymore, where people can very clearly state quite strongly their view and have it heard-
and have counter views expressed and heard-
in order that some kind of synthesis can emerge.
Sophie: Mm-hmm.
James: We're just not able to [00:18:00] do that in this age of rage bait- we just- ... get into, "Well, I'm right, you're wrong," and screaming. You know? And that's not contained. That's not metabolized. That's just- spiraling, and that's what I think we do, is we just spiral.
Yeah.
Sophie: Well, it's quite a period of transformation, isn't it? And quite fluid. Yeah. Feels quite chaotic.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And what you need in response to that is anchors. Yeah. Different anchors that actually we can trust.
James: Yeah. '
Sophie: Cause a lot of anchors we thought we could trust, we can't trust anymore. Yeah. A lot of institutions- Yeah
a lot of power dynamics. And archetypes like the warrior do represent an anchor- Mm ... because they, that's a way of tuning into your boundaries.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: So often I, and this was me finding my really, my true boundaries-
James: Yeah ...
Sophie: not just my- Angry white woman
James: Yeah
Sophie: Have a bit of a rage, have a bit of a rant, which is obviously satisfying, but wasn't really serving me- ultimately. So, you know, the nurturer, well, often a role we're called to play [00:19:00] on- Mm ... creates some boundaries and containment for people. Yeah. But the warrior is really necessary for saying, "Actually, no. We're not standing for this."
And I wonder what would happen if there was a quiet revolution- where people in organizations, citizens, actually stood up around their boundaries- a bit more clearly.
James: And maybe there is.
Sophie: Maybe there is.
James: I mean, I think, you know, behind the hyperbole of everyday media conversation, which tunes into the rage very easily, and kind of creates this sense that actually that's all that's going on, you know, I work in communities, I work as well as in organizations, and I think there's an awful lot of people standing for something in a quiet but determined way- Mm
that we don't notice, that we don't see. I mean, you know, recent example for me is, a woman who I know a bit. I don't know her well, who was a rabbi who was involved in one of the synagogues that was attacked. And, you [00:20:00] know, amidst all the hyperbole that was around that, one of the things she said was, which was totally missed really as a message, is we're not gonna play into the fight. We're going to continue our solid and clear work of building multicultural understanding and acceptance. Which goes beyond and above that conversation that's all about the rage.
Sophie: Mm.
James: Nobody really tuned into that.
But that work- Yeah ... is going on, and continues to go on-
Sophie: Mm ...
James: in communities that I'm in touch with, including hers.
And so I think there is a quiet revolution -
Sophie: Well, and the micro practices of that, so you know, something I did for the past years, I just don't really listen to the news anymore. Right. Because I, I studied politics. I was brought up listening to Radio 4.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And it just didn't ring true anymore to me. Right. It just didn't seem real, and people started replacing it with their idea of reality, and this idea of participation is that [00:21:00] you listen to the news or you're aware of current affairs. But actually,
what are you staying unaware of because you're tuning into the news- Yeah ... because that's where you're putting your energy. Yeah. So being incredibly discerning about where you're putting your energy. So another kind of micro action I was thinking about was- a while ago I was in a group, and we were working on group dynamics, and, there were in the minority of men in the room, as there often is in this kind of profession in OD.
James: Mm.
Sophie: Um, and there, there was a bit of dadding going on, trying to reassure, kind of trying to, "Oh, hello," the conversation's maybe not being so smooth, so I'll make an entry into the conversation and get everyone, you know- Make it safe ... frame it, make it okay for everyone.
James: I, I can relate to that, but-
Sophie: Yeah.
James: Nothing wrong with that, my lad. Yeah. Yeah, no. I know.
Sophie: Well, it was interesting because it, people didn't really respond.
James: Mm.
Sophie: And then I pointed this out, that w- I didn't really need somebody to save us.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And then we spent the rest of the discussion talking about whether it was okay for the men in the room, and, and [00:22:00] whether, like, do they feel okay?
Do they feel welcomed? And I'm like, I don't think... I think they're fine.
James: Mm.
Sophie: But we as women have taken the decision to focus on the men. Yeah. Why are we doing that?
James: Yeah.
Sophie: Why aren't- Yeah ... so just a micro practice of asking somebody who doesn't normally talk-
James: Yeah ...
Sophie: to speak. Yeah. Just getting for a different perspective.
All the time in organizations, people are, like, listening to the loudest voice in the room.
And it's really quite a boring voice- Yeah ... usually, and it's got no energy in it. It's not arguing with that voice. And it's not going with that voice. It's just- Moving on from it
so in those micro practices, the minor gesture that Erin Manning talks about- Yeah ... you know, that meeting that you held a bit differently or that, that way you reached out that was that, that captured something, that resonated with somebody in a different way.
James: Yeah. Where you, where you just went round and g- got people to talk a little bit about how they feel- at the moment- Yeah ... about what's going on.
Sophie: And that piece of work that you found soul-destroying, just not doing it.
James: Yes. Indeed.
Sophie: Not even [00:23:00] arguing with it, but just not doing it- Not doing it ... perhaps. ... If I did a psychometric, which Mayvin doesn't really do a lot of psychometrics 'cause they're a bit annoying a lot of the time, but If, if I did one, I think I would have things like Dad. Yeah. But there's another archetype that I see. Uh, this is more female, generally, one, but the head girl- archetype.
James: Oh, yeah. See
Sophie: it a lot in the public sector.
, Of, you know, just every time, just getting everything done. Being on it all the time. Being always so constructive- and thoughtful. and also maintaining the relationships and making sure-
everything's okay and everybody's happy. Yeah. And, like, and not really probably getting- that much credit for it.
James: It, one of my students- ... she talks about being the girl boss.
Sophie: Oh, yeah, girl boss.
James: The girl boss notion. And, actually, you know, she was talking about how her experience of her life at the moment is making it safe for everyone else, making it okay, sorting everything out, having no space for herself.
Sophie: Mm.
James: And that that is, you know, that's a [00:24:00] concern.
- I've worked with men and men's groups for many years, and I think, often men feel like they're wearing their clown shoes in a minefield- Mm-hmm
when they come into this conversation. A bit like a parallel would be, coming from a Jewish background when non-Jewish people are trying to engage in conversations about Israel, Palestine or whatever. It's like, it's silencing.
Sophie: Hmm.
James: And I think you were saying something earlier about, who was it?
We need to open up the space for people just to get it wrong.
Sophie: Oh, it was Donna Haraway talking about let each other get it be unforgivably wrong.
Like the permissiveness in that. I just love that. I mean, her implication was that it's unforgivable and we-- yet we'll forgive.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And actually, it's more useful that we're talking- and that we're making contact.
James: Right.
Sophie: That's the thing we really need now.
James: Right. And so that needs work on both sides, as in for people to realize that they might get angry and that they can contain that anger in a useful way.
Mm-hmm. [00:25:00] Not contain it, that's the wrong word. Metabolize, I think is the word you used- Mm-hmm ... in order to hear people getting it wrong and not jump down their throats. But it also needs the people who might have their throats jumped down to learn. Yeah. To learn what the experience is for people who don't normally get to talk about their experience.
And that-- so that's the inside/outside move both ways.
Sophie: Well, if you think about, a hearth fire.
It needs a containment. ... So that, you know, a hearth. Yeah,
James: so it's safe.
Sophie: But it also needs the air.
James: So how do we create the hearth fires in organizations then, in teams and in groups and in the work that we do?
H- that's a lovely metaphor, isn't it, the hearth fire- Mm. ... contained, safe space around which we can sit- and look into the fire. How do we create those safe spaces, safe enough to take a risk spaces, paradoxical hearth fires in organizations that have a need to enable people to express strong feelings, in [00:26:00] order to be able to m- process, metabolize, synthesize, move on-
Sophie: Mm ...
James: make good choices?
Sophie: I mean, it's easy to come up with the kind of Mayvin-
James: Well-
Sophie: platitude, isn't it? Let's try. Let's do Mayvin platitude. Let's,
James: let's give, let's give some Mayvin platitudes.
Sophie: So I do think different spaces, like away from agendas, away from doing-
James: Yes ...
Sophie: is really important- Yeah ... and giving permission. No. And it really, I just- Good point ... you can't do it without leadership having, giving that permission.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And, and role modeling that often.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And also the lack of kind of-
I think it was very reassuring, for me to actually kind of realize at some point there's nothing guaranteed.
James: Yes.
Sophie: Yes, our organizations might fail. Our organizations might be failing all over the place.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: Things are falling apart.
James: Yes.
Sophie: Stop feeling like you have to hold it all together-
James: Yeah
Sophie: 'cause that's stopping you actually feeling.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And, and it's not, it's not helping- [00:27:00] Yeah ... I don't think. That takes quite a jump for people, right? That's a hard lesson, yeah. Because people are trying to save themselves. Yeah. No, people are trying to save other people and organizations all over the place.
Yeah. They're not really trying to save themselves and that's all we can ever only, only do really. Mm,
James: that's
Sophie: interesting. I think the whole salvation-
James: Yeah ...
Sophie: narrative is not particularly helpful. Oh, things are failing, I'll just work harder.
Just try even harder. Don't let anything fail.
This is a society that's addicted to never-ending progress and-
James: so there's always a- No endings ... there's always a sense of disappointment in organizations, 'cause I think there's a- ... model that people carry that their organization should be perfect.
A bit like a family should be perfect. And that actually, most of the time there's a sense of disappointment. It's like, if only we could sort out our supply chain, 'cause it's lashed together by lots of individual relationships- you know, that are workarounds for all the systems that are broken down.
Then we'll be there. Well, then we'll be perfect, and actually it's never gonna happen. It's always gonna be a lashed together. It's always gonna be reliant on individual relationships, keeping [00:28:00] things together. And it's like, well, how do we help those, rather than try and make everything perfect?
And, you know, with AI coming in, similarly, you know, it won't solve everything. Yeah. We will need human friction in the system to enable things to work for the sake of people- as well as, you know, productivity and efficiency.
So, how do we support those people? And I like what you were saying about creating alternative spaces to the spaces that organizations mostly create, which are formalized meetings which are not life-giving enough for- Mm real progress to be made.
So a lot of what we do is we create some spaces where there's a bit of life in there, a bit of oxygen.
Sophie: And a bit of a respite from continually thinking, "We're not quite good enough."
, 'Cause I feel like that's, where I feel the underlying rage- and the, the grief at like, "It's never good enough."
And sometimes we do a [00:29:00] program for someone and I kinda get into, "Oh, it's not quite good enough."
Or we, we didn't do that, or we missed that bit or, or people aren't ... So people didn't turn up.
And it's like, yeah, 'cause that's life, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah. Like, it's sometimes what we say is like, the people who turn up are the right people.
James: Yeah, yeah.
Sophie: Like, just get on with it. Just go with the flow.
James: Perfectly imperfect.
Sophie: Exactly. Just start where you are.
James: But the other thing you were saying- ... which I really like, was the, the notion that we might start something without knowing that it's gonna work for us.
That it's an experiment, that life is an experiment, that conversations are an experiment, that a, a gathering of all your top leaders might be an experiment. 'Cause often what happens in those spaces is there's control, and that control squeezes out the creativity and life.
So that's why, you know, a classic open space type, you know, unconference-y type experience is great but rare- because organizations find that too scary [00:30:00] to allow people to come together without knowing quite what the outcome will be or if there will be any outcomes-
apart from what might be the most important outcome, which is relationships will be developed.
Sophie: Yeah. I mean, extending trust- is a very courageous act right now, thinking about what the anchors we can hold onto where everything is in flux.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: We need to find different anchors and we need to extend trust to that, which feels very uncomfortable- for some people, for lots of people, for lots of leaders.
James: Yeah. And one of the ways in which trust can be extended is by accepting people's expression of strong feelings- without making strong judgments about those people expressing strong feelings- which is what we tend to do. It reminds me of, uh, Anthea Lawson's work around activism. 'Cause I think actually change in organizations is often driven by an activist-type mindset.
A sort of seek forgiveness not permission- Mm-hmm ... type mindset. But she talks about, well, her latest book's called How to [00:31:00] Save the World Without Irritating People or something like that. Without annoying the very people that you're trying to influence.
And so there is a kind of notion of activism which is you know, relational.
It's Hannah Arendt's idea that labor is, in the relationships. That we misunderstand what labor is. That labor is actually a very relational practice.
And that that's what organizations are, you know, thrive on, live on.
Sophie: There's a quote of a kind of the easiest way, to topple a paradigm is to have fun with a new one. I love that. , I.e., not going to a political rally and being all earnest and kind of righteous. God, nobody wants to be with those guys. Yeah, yeah. Like, it does look more fun at a Trump rally sometimes, doesn't it? Yeah.
James: Mm. Yeah.
Sophie: And, um, I was very influenced by Silvia Federici's, idea of... And she's a Marxist feminist. She talks about joyful activism.
And she notes the same thing- about that, about, with this kind of- You know, you see [00:32:00] activists working incredibly hard-
Needing to kind of do something, say something- meaningful, like, 24 hours a day.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: Um, not, not getting enough sleep.
Um- Yeah, yeah ... feeling like we're not, we're never there yet. We just have to cross the next hurdle, and then we'll be there, and I can't, I can't enjoy anything until I get there.
That's... All that is doing is modeling late-stage capitalism.
James: It's like the people who create revolutions become like the people that they're trying to replace.
They become as dictatorial as-. the people that they're, uh, uh, you know, trying to, revolute against.
Um, so, you know, how do we continue to push for some useful change- Mm ... to stand in that, righteously angry place? Without recreating the very dynamics we're trying to- Mm ... subvert.
Sophie: Yeah. So Donna Haraway talks about this. It's not just enough to talk- Mm ... about apocalyptic scenarios and what should be.
Lot of shoulds- Yes ... in our organizations. But actually, how can we start imagining it and [00:33:00] inha- inhabiting a different kind of world right now.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: Like, allowing for grace-
James: Yeah ...
Sophie: even when things are tough, there's fear, there's anger- Yeah ... there's grief.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: Also allowing for the grace that's in the world- Yeah ... and the beauty. I think that's the resource that helps people.
James: Yeah.
Sophie: And trying to embody- Mm ... that in our
Sophie: interactions.
Good. I'm glad we've ended on that. Where did, where did that take us?
James: Uplift- Is that uplifting or, or- I think it's uplifting. Yeah, I think it's uplifting as well. I'm uplifted by it.
Sophie: All right.
James: Yeah.
Thank you, James.
Good. Thank you.
Sophie: There was a lot in that one, wasn't there? That is normally what happens when me and James, get a long time to chat. Um, so thank you for that, James. Always love our conversations. If that sparked anything for you, do pass the episode on, and also take a listen to the previous episode, No More [00:34:00] Heroes.
If you have any more ideas for controversial podcasts we could do at Mayvin, do shout. We'll probably be up for it.