Leveraging resonance to make relationships flourish

Published in

Cocoon Pro

3 min readJun 7, 2022

This article was first published in our Cocooners N° 11
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What happens when a leading employment agency and Cocoon Pro cross paths? An emergent value-driven trajectory, evolving from a specific organizational development need, embracing a broad ecosystemic perspective and enabling trust and resonance, to the point of partnering to deliver value together.

Ecosystemic lens

Operating in a complex and highly institutionalized context, the leadership of this key player had been sensing that a different way to function could enable a higher expression of their potential as an organization. The exchange we started at that point gave ground and roots to that aspiration and, in the summer of 2020, we were invited to support their strategic reflection by facilitating a more ecosystemic and adaptive approach to organizing.

Planting the seeds

We first engaged in a 2-day, in-person work session, carefully involving the whole staff in the very middle of the pandemic. In the pursuit of greater awareness of what the north star would be for the next three years, the group explored its horizon through the lenses of the Ecosight Framework. The Compass resulting from this work deeply informed the new strategy, planting the seeds for a whole new way to conceive the organization.

Releasing fear

By the end of 2020, two additional iterations followed, and grounded that first seed. In alignment with a more adaptive approach, both operational elements and experiments were introduced, enabling a continuous flow of feedback with reality. With every single concrete step taken along that path, more layers of fear — individual and systemic — were released, and more of the potential to navigate complexity was unleashed within and among the people.

Making it happen

2021 was the year in which their imagination and courage to believe in their own evolution met concrete reality, making it happen, one step at a time and at their unique pace, with deep understanding of the systemic complexity it entails. People started to apply new practices in their daily job, owning them and, most importantly, embracing the worldview that sprouts from those practices: an understanding of wholeness at work, way beyond fragmentation, siloses, command-and-control.

Cultivating resonance

Months have passed and this relationship has continued to be nurtured, beyond immediate needs and opportunities. In fact, it appears to have the quality of resonance and recognition of the mutual contribution to the larger ecosystem. This is how, at the end of 2021, we were invited to design and facilitate their new retreat and mid-term review of the strategic plan, which was delivered in the generative framework of an Open Space Technology involving all of their people and incorporating a multitude of insightful inputs from the ecosystem. Also, this is how we have recently even partnered to deliver complementary value to one of our clients in their own evolutionary journey.

Final thoughts

Can an organization operating in a highly institutionalized context take on the seeds of an adaptive approach? If their intuition glimpses this possibility and fosters it with determination and trust, a whole new trajectory of ecosystemic evolution and resonance is actually within reach. This can happen in a sustainable, step-by-step progression, attuned to their unique pace, where concrete practice complemented by sense-making reflections will ground and amplify the new dynamics.