This blog complements Fusion Advisors and my overall work on the Leading Edge of Change.  It gives me the space and freedom to share ideas on how we as individuals and organizations lead from the outside-in (what we experience in the world) and the inside-out (our wisdoms from within).

Our physical life needs structure and form and at the same time, it organically expands according to its nature.  Fusion Advisors, through its work and this blog greets this seeming paradox with eager curiosity.  Our goal is not to present answers, but rather to pose questions and frameworks that understand we are an inseparable flow of mind, body, spirit and emotions.

My intention is to be informative, insightful and expand ideas….about the type of organizations we want to participate in… about creating impact in the world around us… and about thinking of our work as integrated into the broader wisdoms of life itself.

I am grateful you found us.  Take what you like, leave the rest.  I hope you’ll have fun and stay in touch.

Kathleen

A Bit About What Brought Me Here….

Throughout my life, I’ve had my career, family, friends, community involvement, hobbies, and interests.  I was happy to have some overlap, but for the most part, there wasn’t much.  Business was business; and my personal adventures were separate.   That is, until a new idea popped into my mind.

In the midst of turning around a fledging, young clinical database company, it dawned on me that I wanted to live an integrated life.  My immediate question was “What does that mean?”  Over time, a familiar symbol popped into my mind’s eye to give me a visual cue.  It was an infinity sign.

The infinity sign starts with 2 separate dots – like the way I had been thinking about my life – this belongs here, and that belongs there.  But rather than connecting the dots with a straight line, the infinity sign flows in movement along different paths, crisscrossing in the center.  So, I thought “Perhaps an integrated life has something to do with remembering ‘here’ and ‘there’ were part of a larger oneness; and discovering what that meant for me.”

This was how life called me to her, asking me to be curious about my thoughts, beliefs, and my life.  At first I dove into me – reading, journaling, meditating, finding communities where I could learn and experience life in new ways.  My life as seen from the perspective of my daily routines looked much the same.

Over time, life’s expansion beckoned again asking that I begin to integrate my inner and outer worlds.  For example, I knew what compassion felt like in my quiet space at home and with people close to me; but what did compassion look and feel like at work?  Where life whirled in nanoseconds.  Where things needed to be done, decisions made, process followed.  Or as CEO, when I found myself smack dab in the middle of the reality of revenues and expenses and the only place left to reduce expenses was in the team?

I did what I did before:  I went searching for answers to my questions.  But rather than uncovering discreet, actionable answers, I found perspectives, opinions, experiences, and frameworks that could serve as a guide, but the rest was up to me to discover for myself.  And once again, I was  back where I started – hanging out with the infinity sign wondering what I would find when I jumped into the flow.

Along the way, I created Fusion Advisors as a container to share and put into action what I found.  The visual representation for Fusion Advisors is a mandala – infinity signs connected and flowing from the center.  As the ancient wisdom of  “As above, so below” reminds us, the mandala is us, as individuals; it is us, as organizations; it is us, as community.  In each situation, we see our aspects more clearly and we decide how we want to flow with and between them.

My work, like my life, draws from many sources – traditional and non-traditional; personal contemplation and organizational leadership; science and the arts; and my experience along the way.  Whether I’m writing, consulting, facilitating or teaching, the work is part of a greater ecosystem of integration, particularly in organizational thought leadership.  For example,

Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point goes beneath the surface of how things look and into the unseen, underlying dynamics of change.

Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence, brought the much maligned “E” word into the acceptable circles of organizational dialogue.

Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky in their work and book called Adaptive Leadership, give us compelling stories and frameworks for creating technical solutions (how we do things) and adaptive/behavioral solutions (why and when we do things).

I am grateful you found us.  Take what you like, leave the rest.  I hope you’ll have fun and stay in touch.

Kathleen