I believe that every challenge in life has some specific meaning; something the situation holds for us as a gift that we receive when we are ready to become aware of life’s teaching.
The gift that I received recently was the birth of the ORCA Matrix™
Let me explain…
I had been holding on to a dream to start my own business for quite a while; a change and transformation consulting company. I mean, for years; procrastinating successfully.
During the time I was working for my last employer, my dream became increasingly real and alive to me; more tangible and calling me louder. They were a company that urgently needed to change and had hired me to very specifically support them in navigating it. After a couple of initially promising years, it started to become increasingly obvious that the change I saw as necessary and the extent of the transformation needed by the business was actually far beyond the comfort zone of the management “power group”. It was clear that any intentions (on my behalf) to stay there and continue working towards the formally agreed strategic goals would be a waste of time and energy. Not only were many of agreed change initiatives stopped (formally communicated as “put on hold”), but also tell-tale signs of the business reverting back to their old, familiar and “well known” practices started to show up with growing frequency.
In hindsight, signs of senior management’s lack of commitment to what was once universally agreed and celebrated as our courageously ambitious change plan were present most of the time. But, maybe blinded by my initial enthusiasm, I just didn’t see them. Or, I was ignoring, justifying or excusing them until I received a couple of very clear wake up calls.
There were three very significant moments; situations that showed me beyond any doubt what the organisation’s true ‘commitment’ to the agreed change was. The stories and details behind those happenings are not important anymore. What IS important is that as they unfolded, each of these three situations separately made me decide to leave my employment. Each of them. After the first one, I decided to leave and follow my dream, to start my own business and yet… I stayed. Again after the second, I decided to leave, but stayed…and the third, the same. Three times!
When enough was enough and I finally did resign, I kept asking myself: “Why didn’t I leave when I got the first message…or even the second; why did I wait so long?” I was angry with myself for not having the courage to go when I clearly knew it was the right time but…if it’s true that everything ultimately happens when the time is truly right (and I DO believe that), then I left exactly when I was supposed to. Unknown to me, there was still something for me to learn at my place of employment.
And then I got it.
The last couple of months before my eventual departure provided me with experiences and unfolded new knowing that became the final, critical pieces to the puzzle that has now formed itself into our unique business product – the ORCA Matrix™ – Organisational Resonance & Consciousness Assessment.
I spent my last months of employment reading leading-edge studies about organisational evolution and consciousness; processing deeply my recent experiences and evaluating my long, diverse international corporate career with all the contrasting situations I have encountered. Somehow all this dynamic, highly-charged melting pot of knowledge, information, inspiration and experience swirled together and resulted in a crystal-clear unfolding of the complex methodology that shortly after…became the ORCA Matrix™.
During my professional career I have designed and developed numerous management tools and always enjoyed the creative flow of doing so. But this experience was really unique. This time I felt the ORCA Matrix™ unfolded of its own accord; not only letting me know about itself through emerging ideas, insights and new understandings but also through the energy that it’s process held and communicated. However weird it may sound, I am sure about one thing; the ORCA Matrix™ wanted to be here…and so it is.
NOW is the right time…