Shaping the Shift: A Key Task of the Shamanic Leader

One thing that shamans do is called shapeshifting. Shapeshifting is the imaginal (realistic imaginary experience) process that shamans undertake to experience what it is like to be some other entity. That entity could be an animal of some sort, sometimes one the shaman’s ‘power animals,’ i.e., a helper who can provide insight and wisdom to the shaman. It could be another person, a spirit guide, or it could be some natural entity, like a tree, a rock, or a lake or river.

Traditional shamans often attain this imaginal experience by using drugs, drumming, dancing, or other methods of inducing the trance state. Modern shamans can reach a similar state without the use of mind-altering concoctions or extreme experiences, through various meditative and other practices that focus attention and allow the imagination to soar. Simply sitting quietly and allowing the mind to focus on the question of what it would be like to be, e.g., a tree, a lake, or an animal that attracts you, can be a powerful experience that takes you out of your current context and allows you to gain insight into that other entity’s existence.

Many of our organizations, communities, and institutions today need radical transformation to cope with the problems that the world is facing, not least of which are sustainability, climate change, and growing inequity. As a result, a major question for today’s shamanic leader is can this capability for shapeshifting help in bringing about needed changes? That is, can shamanic leaders not just shapeshift but actually shape the shift that is needed to bring about a sustainable social, political, and economic system?

Shaping the shift draws upon each of the core tasks of the shaman. The first step is to recognize that there are problems in the world that need to be healed—and then to set out to shape changes that can actually bring about needed changes. The shamanic leader in this capacity recognizes that business as usual itself is what is problematic and that doing ‘business,’ whatever the business might be, in new ways is called for because of the troubled times. Achieving this awareness is no mean feat for leaders who have been successful in the business as usual environment. Hence coming to this recognition requires the ability to see beyond one’s own self-interest to the whole—whether that is the whole enterprise, community, or society…or even the whole planet. It also requires a willingness to admit that business as usual is what is causing problems, and then to be willing to take steps needed to make changes for the better through whatever means the leader has at her or his disposal.

As connectors, shamanic leaders interested in shaping the shift have to connect the dots around the current system. That is, they need to be able to understand the systemic influences that are creating the current situation. What, for example, is the incentive system doing to shape current outcomes? What dynamics and forces are at play in fostering how the system responds to change? Where are sources of resistance and why is the resistance occurring? Who are potential allies in a change process, and who are likely to be resistors to the end? What will attract needed resources for the change—and, indeed, what are the resources that need to be attracted? Such questions can help a shamanic leader shape the necessary shift—what my friend and co-author Malcolm McIntosh has called the ‘necessary transition’ to a sustainable enterprise economy[i] that is needed to build a more equitable and sustainable world.

Armed with this understanding, which is a form of holistic systems thinking, the shapeshifting leader can ask, ‘What role does my enterprise or institution play in creating this problem?’ and ‘Where are there levers that could shift the system?’ Sometimes shaping the shift involves creating a new business model. Other times, finding the leverage for change is simpler, involving rethinking the reward system within an enterprise that creates incentives for problematic behaviors. There are many potential points of leverage that can be explored depending on the specific circumstance. Once the leverage within the current institution is understood, changes in its potential impact on the broader system can be explored as part of the connecting task of the shaman. Organizations that take the lead in shaping the shift can then serve as role models for other enterprises, much as Unilever under the guidance of CEO Paul Polman, who is surely a shamanic leader today, is doing.

Importantly, to shape the shift, the shamanic leader needs to understand what the memes, or core ideas and fundamental cultural units, which are shaping the way people perceive the enterprise or institution and its products and services, are. Even more fundamentally, to shape the shift involves uncovering the memes that drive understanding of the system as a whole and, when necessary, shaping the shift by creating new memes better suited to current conditions. Working at the level of memes is an important and frequently overlooked aspect of shaping the shift, because the memes that we buy into shape our understanding of and relationship to the world around us. For example, if we understand the purpose of a company (a popular meme) to be solely to ‘maximize shareholder wealth,’ as some economics would have it, then our view of the social and ecological role of that enterprise is likely to be limited. If, instead, we build a set of memes that suggests that enterprises fundamentally need to work with the best interests of numerous stakeholder groups, or to serve societal interests sustainably, our view of how that enterprise works and operates in societies will shift dramatically. That is a core aspect of shaping the shift.

The sensemaking capacity of the shaman in this sense is perhaps the most important task involved in shaping the shift, e.g., towards a more sustainable enterprise economy. Further, using the power of envisioning the future, today’s leaders can play a central role in shaping the shift by exploring the impact and replication of different new memes that shape our understanding of enterprise. Shamanic leaders can in their sensemaking role create new and powerful memes and visions that can help both themselves and others imagine how our troubled world could be different—and how we might get there.

[i] Malcolm McIntosh, Editor. The Necessary Transition: The Journey Towards the Sustainable Enterprise Economy. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf, 2013.