MBE facilitator Simon Fieldhouse shares his journey to working with renewed purpose for the betterment of the world.
How did you hear about the MBE and why did you sign up?
I heard about it on a Facebook feed. Anything that Small Giants and The School of Life do I’m pretty interested in. So I’ve kind of built my way through doing a couple of the short courses at School of Life, got to meet Kaj and other people. Then did the EQ intensive, which was a five-day, ten half-day program. Loved it. Anything coming out of that space I’m really interested in. When I read into a bit more detail I loved the evolution of the traditional MBA into more of a for-purpose progressive lens. And having done the MBA it felt like a beautiful extension, rather than duplication. Also there’s a particular look and feel that Small Giants have that I find particularly appealing, from logos to language to tone. It’s welcoming and nurturing. And the work we do is also challenging, so you feel held. I sent in an application the day before it closed, ’cause that’s when the best applications are done, and my insecurities were going, “Oh, you’re not going to make it. You haven’t heard for a week, so you probably won’t do it and it’s probably for the best.” And then I got an email saying, “we’re going to interview you!” I was like over the moon. And then I went, “hang on, don’t I just pay?” (laughs).
If I go to the balcony the MBE is the most impactful experience I’ve ever had educationally, which is interesting ’cause I’ve done quite a bit. The reasons for that were the quality of cohort and the diversity of it. And that my intention was deeply realised, which was challenging my existing world views and expanding them.
Initially I thought how difficult the first couple of weeks were, to be in a space where topics like white privilege come up. Much of that was an internal amplification versus what was actually happening in the space. I held that just long enough to be able to grow through it and start to really expand views. And far more deeply understand the lived experience of, say, First Nations. Impacts of colonisation. That I’m sitting in my high ceiling office looking around going, “This is partly funded by working for Australia’s biggest emitter.” It was uncomfortable at times. I held it, and I was held through it, and I was able to share that. I remind myself and others a lot through the work that it’s not about how we want to be influenced individually and what works for us. We’ve got to stand out of ourselves and deeply understand the perspectives that we’re trying to move.
It's good to be uncomfortable sometimes.
That’s right. When I started the MBE, all of a sudden my network started expanding differently. And I was showing up for facilitation work differently. For example, a much deeper understanding of acknowledgement of country. A more present role in corporates around First Nations issues. So it went from being something HR-driven to me more deeply understanding it and trying to bring in more First Nations perspectives to how we solve things. Sitting in circle as an example, which is a well-worn technique in numerous First Nations cultures, is a real feature of the work I do almost all the time. There are almost no tables when I work. And that was really accelerated as I did the MBE work. I’d often use poetry I was exposed to with groups. There were changes that were subtle on one hand and very different from what I had traditionally done. But I might be leading with a five forces model or something really meaty and tangible. Now I was engaging more head, heart and body. That’s what the MBE really activated in me that was then easy to pass on to others. My energy shifted a lot, and that was a very rich experience.
And what’s changed professionally since you’ve finished the MBE?
A lot. For a start, the name of the business I established just toward the end of the MBE, that name came out of a module we did on rites of passage. An idea from Arne Rubinstein that life is a series of transitions. And in the middle of those it’s particularly messy. He spoke about the caterpillar butterfly, and that if you looked at it sort of mid-process it’s just a white mush. You’d never comprehend what was possible. I put together a bit of a story about it. I can talk about life as a series of transitions. In the middle of it, it can feel really messy and not look like clean lives. And that’s the work I love to do personally and with others.
Professionally, I left big corporates and have not returned in terms of being within them full-time. I have run my own organisation for a year and then bought into another one that does what I do at scale. I’m now wearing two hats. And the gift of that is it enables me to work with other practitioners and go larger into organisations. Obviously when you’re a one-person-shop, you’re limited, whereas partnering with Adaptive Cultures allows me to stay true to the work with like-minded individuals at scale. And that’s exciting. It’s been a natural progression. And it’s a way to stay connected to corporates without being subject to them or a prisoner of the system.
The system as it is now – in the world we live in – if you could change one element in it, can you pick one that you’d change?
A few things come to mind. I’d love to see increased levels of compassion, and that to me connects with empathy. At the moment I observe we live like we don’t need each other. It’s more about the neighbour connections, the community connections, the humanised link between us and everyone else. There are a lot of systems in place that I feel create space. I think the world’s evolving, whether it’s through social media, the way housing is built, socio-economic divides which mean people are living further and further away from where they might be working in housing estates that don’t invite people to connect with each other, it’s all toy boxes and high fences and… I think for me that’s all inviting us to not connect when in fact we’re wired biologically to do the opposite. We evolved to know we are better together as a collective. That sense of connectivity, which then can feed empathy, interconnectedness, is what the world is yearning for at a soul level.
Is there a book, poem or film that’s made a big impact on you? That you want to share with this cohort. And you can lie Simon. You can sound smarter than you are.
It’s going to be Dead Poet’s Society. I was the age, or very close to, of the cohort that was represented in the film. They might have been 16, 17. And I had a rebellious streak that Robin Williams as a teacher really just spoke to. He was all about anti-establishment, here’s what you really need to know. Forget the preferred reading list, go and smoke in a cave, smoke joints, get drunk, read amazing stuff. And I just loved the journey that cohort went on. Plus the incredible challenge associated with the high flyer of the group, the valedictorian Neil, taking his own life. It crushed everyone, and it reminded me about how special life is, how you need to stay connected to people even when things are tough. I saw the pressure Neil was under from his parents to conform and he just wanted to do musical theatre. Whilst my parents never put me under that kind of pressure, there was something in me that wanted to step into more of that creative stuff and I suppressed it a bit. Plus, Peter Weir is just the most beautiful director. The cinematography was outstanding. I will still weep in when I watch it.
Is there a living person or organisation that you feel represents the wisdom and hope that we want these days? Someone who inspires?
Is it clichéd to talk about Obama?
Talk about whoever you want.
I struggle with the question. Part of it’s an absence of people that I hold at that level. And sometimes our systems don’t bring out the best in people. But I’m going to go with Obama: how articulate he is, how down to earth he is. The fact that structurally things were not designed to be in his favour and that he fought into that in a really respectful way that moved the dial. I’ve been interested in his post-presidential contributions as well where the American political system, it’s fair to say, has blown up since he left. Whenever I hear him he speaks a truth for me that is important for the world to hear. My nervousness is people have stopped listening or just other him, almost like he’s a root cause of why we got to where we got to. Like it’s almost like he was too progressive or it was too much. So we then had to swing back the other way.
What advice would you give a school leaver now about how to live a good life?
“It’ll be okay” is the first thing. And practice building your adaptive capacity. What do I mean by that to a school leaver? Your ability to change direction and hold multiple perspectives at the same time. Build that muscle. You’re gonna need it, ’cause lots of stuff is up for grabs.
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