Part 3 & 4: Bringing it all in to practice

Working with Source and Fractal Development

Part 3: Working with Source: Awakening the Feminine and Honoring the Masculine

In this article we will look at how the approach Working with Source provides key tools and important understandings when it comes to the creative collaboration between the Holding Masculine and the Creating Feminine. In order to understand what this means and why it is important, let's start with a recap of what we have covered so far. This recap will very briefly run through deep and complex concepts, so for the rest of this article to make deeper sense, I recommend that you read the full articles.

The Polarities Map and creative flow of the Feminine and Masculine 

In the first article of this series I describe my journey with discovering Awakening Feminine Leadership and the polarities map, which lays out how the Feminine and Masculine dimensions create together. In addition to the Feminine and Masculine being in polarity within each other, there are two main polarities within the Masculine and the Feminine is cyclical. Within the masculine we have the grounded holding masculine and the executing creating masculine, while the feminine flows cyclically in and out of the life force creating feminine and the unifying holding feminine. 

Both are equally true and are always happening at the same time, like the particle and wave, depending on what perspective you are looking at a creative process from. Naturally, you will always have to choose one lens and I will mainly use the feminine lens, as it is more unusual and most longing for a voice. Either way, which dimension comes first is not as important as always keeping the polarity between the Creating Feminine and Holding Masculine in the first phase and the polarity of the Creating Masculine and Holding Feminine in the last phase of a creative process.

The toxic Creating Masculine and collapsed Holding Feminine

In the first article I also shared my observations on how most organizations are too much in the Creating Masculine: moving too fast, getting too focused on money, lacking a meaningful purpose, not taking care of our people and planet, and making priorities too short term. Many agree that more of the feminine is needed, however, most often, the only feminine dimension we know how to or dare to bring in is the Holding Feminine. Yet when the holding feminine is not sourcing her power, or “filled up”, from the Creating Feminine, who in turn is not supported by the Holding Masculine, what we are left with is a disempowered Holding Feminine. This energy manifests as a collapsed mothering figure that is just trying to subdue the toxic Creating Masculine. The result of these two dimensions playing out in their shadows lies at the root of many common struggles in organizations today.

In contrast, when the Creating Feminine is embodying the creative life force, the Holding Masculine can sense and then translate this lifeforce into a clear, meaningful direction and actionable vision that is truly serving what wants to be born, at a deeper creative level than simply what will create the most short-term profit, or with a thin sense of purpose such as making something more efficient, or a miopic focus on customer demands. When the Creating Masculine in turn is guided by this deeper vision and purpose, he is free to fully unleash all of his creative manifesting building power into the endeavor, without him becoming toxic, but rather being truly in service of something larger than himself. When the Holding Feminine is filled up with the Creating Feminine’s life force, she keeps the team connected and guides and guards the lifecycle of the project like a panther, who has the respect of the Creating Masculine simply through her pure powerful presence.

The missing inspiration of the Creating Feminine and direction of the Holding Masculine

The conclusion is that what is missing in most organizations is the fuel and creative power of the Creating Feminine, and the direction of the Holding Masculine. In this second article I shared why the Creating Feminine, supported by the Holding Masculine is especially important to thrive in the emerging decentralized network economy. In short, as we move from the Industrial Age business logic based on pushing out your products, into a network age pull-based business landscape where those who are able to attract resources, data, users and collaborators as well as navigate in the information overload, are successful, we need the gravitational power and creative inspiration of the Creating Feminine and the Holding Masculine’s ability to create direction in complexity. Also, if the emerging blockchain-powered, decentralized world is not created through the Holding Masculine guiding initiatives to create in service of the Creating Feminine who has access to a deeper knowing of what will create most life, we will not be able to create a regenerative society, and the same unintended consequences of the old system will be recreated.

Lastly, in this previous article, my teacher, Lovisa Alsén, and I lay out a deeper understanding of the Creating Feminine: a lifeforce beyond words, found in embodied pleasure, power and presence. Which brings us to the focus of this article - to deepen your understanding of the other often missing piece, the Holding Masculine. The focus will be on how to successfully bring this dimension into your initiative and how the Holding Masculine and Creating Feminine work together.

Working with Source

The field of work I have found that best explains the Holding Masculine and his relationship with the Creating Feminine is my colleague Tom Nixon’s book Work with Source, which is based on Peter Koenig’s Source Principles and Moneywork. I will start with briefly introducing the concept of Source. As with the recap of previous articles, this introduction will be using very broad strokes, so if you are completely new to Peter’s work, I recommend you to also look into deeper content such as Tom’s book, the articles on his website or podcasts like this one.

When looking at a group of people working together towards a common vision, we usually put the organization in focus; we think of our work as developing the organization and realizing the organization's purpose or vision. Working with Source offers a different lens, where instead of thinking about organizations, we focus on the creative process of realizing an idea in the world. Yes, we can find better ways of organizing, but that is secondary and in support of the creative initiative to make something happen in the world.

The role of Source

Peter found in his research that for every creative process to realize an idea, from companies, to nonprofits and any other human endeavor you can imagine, there is one single individual who we can think of as the overall author or artist of that process. Peter called this the “role of source” (or just source, for short). The role of source comes into being when someone takes the first vulnerable step, a risk, to begin realizing an idea in the world. When someone takes an idea from the realm of possibility and turns it into an initiative in the real world, this person will have a natural, creative form of authority over the creative process that unfolds. This authority is creative rather than power-over, and entails that the person will have a natural sense of the edge of the initiative: what is in and what is out. Also this person alone will be the one who can ultimately sense the next step for the initiative as a whole, not on a micromanaging level, but when looking at the big picture. Guarding the edge and sensing the next step with the source’s natural authority also means that person has a natural responsibility over what transpires. Neither the creative authority nor the responsibility that comes with it are things that we can give to someone by appointing them or through collective voting - rather, they emerge naturally.

The creative field and source hierarchy

When someone steps into the role of source with their creative passion, this will start to create an attraction pulling in resources and people who want to be part of realizing the vision. Peter calls this gravitational field around the source the “creative field”. The creative field is a place we can step into, and is a very useful metaphor when collaborating; we can start asking ourselves have I stepped into your field, or are you stepping into mine?

When stepping into someone's field, people can step in as a helper, meaning simply receiving jobs to do that take the initiative forward. Other times, someone feels called to take responsibility for an entire sub-part of the initiative. This person then becomes a specific source, and that person will have the same role and natural authority and responsibility to guard the edge and sense the next step for that part of the initiative. In turn, someone else can step in as a specific source to that person's specific initiative, and this can create a pattern of nested fields many layers deep. When you look at the chain of who is helping who with what throughout the initiative you can identify a pattern of nested circles showing how the global source’s bigger vision breaks down into specific initiatives with specific sources. This pattern of nested circles is the natural creative hierarchy of the initiative, also called the source hierarchy.

Source transitions

Even though there is always only one source for the overall, “global” initiative, there can be transitions of the role. When the initiative is done, or the Source does not have energy for the initiative any longer, the initiative can be closed. In the business world this is often seen as a failure, but from a source perspective this is just simply a natural part of the life cycle of all living things. If the source feels that it is time for them to leave, but that the initiative is not done, and there is someone who naturally steps up to take over the role of source, there can also be a succession of source in an initiative. Like the initial emergence of the source, this succession cannot be collectively or rationally “decided”, it will only happen as the outgoing source and their successor naturally connect and feel something energetic passing from one to the other.

The Creating Feminine and Holding Masculine

This shift of perspective from organizational thinking with entities that we can rationally design and develop, to the lens of a creative process that emerges as we are called into it - is much more aligned with my research on the Feminine and Masculine. Identifying the role of source highlights the important roles of and the collaboration between the Creating Feminine and Holding Masculine in any creative endeavor. Together they create the natural authority energizing and guiding the entire creative process. The creating Feminine gives us access to the creative lifeforce, the energy, inspiration and substance of the natural authority. The Holding Masculine senses and listens in to this and from there clarifies what seems to want to come to life into actionable direction. The stronger the presence of both, the stronger the clarity, inspiration and attraction of any creative field’s natural authority. This presence lays the foundation for building thriving initiatives in the emerging decentralized paradigm.

Sourcing from all four dimensions

For the complete process of taking something from the realm of ideas into a concrete initiative in the world all four dimensions are needed: embodying the inspiration of the Creating Feminine; sensing the next steps and guarding the edges with the Holding Masculine; taking action from the Creating Masculine, holding the field together and knowing when it is done through the Holding Feminine. Thus, the process of sourcing something from idea to reality is fractal; each individual needs all four dimensions within themselves to be able to source something and individuals have their core archetype in one of the four and may have a much smaller embodiment of the others. So a source can have their core creative archetype in any of the four dimensions, then surround themselves with others who complement their core dimension. In other words, it doesn't matter which of the four dimensions come most naturally to you, you can source from all four, and it is your responsibility to make sure that all four are present, in their power and being used well within your field.

With that said, to source large initiatives in a healthy, regenerative way, it is probably useful for the global source to work on embodying the Creating Feminine or Holding Masculine well. To be able to create direction and source the inspiration of a very large creative field calling in many sub-initiatives and sub-sources, it will probably be useful to be able to embody either one or both of the deep connection with the creative field of the Creating Feminine and/or the clear connection with the initiatives direction of the Holding Masculine. Regardless of which dimension is your core archetype, as the Source it is ultimately your responsibility to make sure that there is sufficient creative capacity within your initiative.

Source hierarchy and the Holding Masculine

Many initiatives today lack sufficient presence of the Holding Masculine, and one way this shows up is the lack of a clear and alive source hierarchy. As previously described, the source hierarchy is the pattern of nested circles showing how the global source’s bigger vision breaks down into specific initiatives with specific sources. As the source hierarchy is simply like a map of who took initiative for what, and who is helping who - it is always there, regardless if it is acknowledged or not. However, if there is not sufficient presence of Creating Feminine fueling inspiration and Holdning Masculine taking that inspiration and turning into actionable direction - this natural and creative authority behind the hierarchy will not be sufficiently felt and clear. In other words the sources and specific sources will not be able to sense what is theirs to do and clarify it for themselves and others. And if people do not feel motivated and/or unclear, it is naturally challenging to realize a vision together.

The collapsed Masculine

When leaders who have their core archetype in and should be embodying the Holding Masculine are in a collapsed state, not standing in integrity and in their power, this shows up as a collective inability to make decisions, take initiative and provide direction. Leaders who have their core archetype in and who would embody the Creative Feminine will not feel held and sufficiently backed to be able to surrender into accessing their creative fuel. In general, people within the field will not know what is in and what is out and the creative efforts become scattered in different incoherent directions. Even if these initiatives can feel “cozy” or “free” they are seldom good at efficiently realizing a vision, and usually quite frustrating to work within over the long run.

The controlling Masculine

In other initiatives leaders who should be embodying the Holding Masculine are in a detached, controlling and over-executing state. This means that they are not creating space for, listening to and daring themselves to receive inspiration from the Creating Feminine. This shows up as initiatives that are overly driven by ego and full of command and control; stifling autonomy, creativity, motivation and collective intelligence. Leaders who would embody the Creating Feminine cannot be forced into providing creative fuel and inspiration and instead become disconnected, in turn disconnecting also the Holding Feminine. Even if these kinds of initiatives can be effective at getting things done, without the Feminine present, what is created will not be in service of people and the planet. Also, in the long run, this push-based centralized way of running an initiative will struggle to thrive in the pull-based and decentralized network age.

Both cases lack a clear and alive natural source hierarchy. In the first case there is insufficient clarity, and in the second case there is insufficient creative energy for a natural hierarchy to be felt and clear enough to guide the initiative. The Creating Feminine will in neither cases feel willing nor safe to surrender into embodying the life force, and without the Creative Feminine, the Holding Feminine will lack her source of power.

The honorable Holding Masculine in Service

Fully stepping into the Holding Masculine is a vulnerable and demanding endeavor. The journey of daring to let go of control in order to face the void that is the Creating Feminine, realizing one’s powerlessness to her and from there beginning to act in service is the, literally dead-scary, and honorable journey of fully stepping into the Holding Masculine archetype. Additionally, the inspiration and longing of the fluid and sometimes chaotic Creating Feminine can be difficult to decipher. This entails that acting in service of her often means to take initiative based on your best guess, listen in if your actions seem to align to her wish, and if not, try again with something else. Leading from the Holding Masculine requires a lot of courage, integrity and humility, which is why we feel so much admiration for the leaders who successfully are able to artfully stand in this archetype.

Likewise, for the Creating Feminine archetype; surrendering into the power that wants to come through you and to trust and let your true self be seen by the Holding masculine is the equally intimidating corresponding journey into fully embodying the Creating Feminine. Both have to face the risk of their true self being rejected by the other, and it is far easier to detach or collapse. Their strong interdependence as well as the vast amount of vulnerability and courage required for the Holding Masculine and Creating Femining to trust, show themselves to each other and dance together - is the reason behind why this fruitful collaboration is rare. And also why it is so potent. Thankfully, as the Holding Masculine can hold up the container that the Creating Feminine can surrender more easily within, and the Creating Feminine calls in the Holding Masculine the more she embodies the lifeforce. So, even if it does require great courage and surrender from them both, they can both be the ones who invite the dance.

When there is a healthy strong presence of the Holding Masculine, that supports a strong presence of the Creating Feminine, a vibrant source hierarchy based on natural authority will become present and felt. This is the kind of creative hierarchy that enables decentralized leadership that is generative and in service of what wants to come alive and thus the larger whole.

The Source Compass

Again, the source does not need to be the one having the Holding Masculine as their core archetype, but they are the one responsible for there being enough presence of the Holding Masculine, as well as the other three dimensions, in their field. This responsibility is summarized well in the Source Compass presented in Tom’s book. The Source Compass shows the main tensions and polarities within an initiative that a Source is responsible for ensuring a creative dance between.

From a cyclical feminine perspective, all creative processes start with the Creating Feminine sourcing the life force; the fuel and inspiration of all creation. When she is met by the presence of the Holding Masculine direction is created. This direction can then be executed upon by the Creating Masculine. During the execution phase, the Holding Feminine keeps the team and the creative energy together, making sure the executing is serving the whole. She also makes sure we go back down into the Creating Feminine when the creation process is complete and makes sure that we bring what we have learned into the soil as fertilization for the next creative cycle.

The masculine, linear lens on the same creative process starts with the masculine grounding in the Holding Masculine. When he is present and grounded he is ready to surrender into the unknown and receive inspiration from the Creating Feminine. From here he goes up into the Holding Feminine to look outward and make sure the inspiration he received truly is serving the whole and what the larger context needs, so that he can turn the inspiration into purposeful actionable direction. With this direction he moves into the Creating Masculine and executes.

The Source is responsible to ensure that there is sufficient leadership daring to; standing in the not knowing, give enough space for and wait for inspiration from the Creating Feminine, being clear and giving direction to the Creating Masculine when the inspiration is clear (or to act in service of trying to get clear when that is right), holding the field together through the Holding Feminine and guarding the creative field around what is in and what is out through the Holding Masculine, as well as allowing sub-sources to step in with their creative authority and let them autonomously create what they are called to do, as long as it does not threaten the integrity of the creative field.


Part 4: Bringing it into practice


Now that we have sufficient understanding of the creative flow and collaboration between four dimensions of the Masculine and Feminine, we will look into how everything we have covered so far concretely and practically can be brought into realizing a vision through running an initiative.

Getting the foundation right 

There are of course unlimited possibilities when it comes to developing an initiative and the way you work within it, and my intention is not to provide the silver-bullet collection of methods and tools. In general, and especially with the ever increasing rate of change of today’s business world, I do not believe that there are generic recipes when it comes to how to run a business. Rather I believe in each source and initiative finding their unique way of navigating through the four dimensions and creative process, and continuously adapting your way of work as your inner and outer circumstances change. Naturally, it is wise to learn from others and to use the wisdom of best practice, but ultimately what combination of strategies, structures, processses and tools that works best will be different for each source and each initiative. Fundamentally however, there are some key high-level areas for ensuring a strong foundation. These areas are; having a global source in their creative power, clarifying the source hierarchy and ensuring a sufficient presence of the Creating Feminine and Holding Masculine through supporting potential role models.

The inner journey of the role of source 

One of the reasons that it can feel challenging to view an initiative through the lens of Source, is the realization that if the source principles are true, most shadows and challenges in an initiative can be traced back to, and are therefore the responsibility of, the Source. Sometimes painful to acknowledge and admit, but very rewarding when it comes to development as this also means that a lot of organizational tensions can be addressed by the global source acknowledging their role and developing their ability to Source. 

Embodying the role of source well is a complex topic that, in its depth, is out of scope for this article. We have, very broadly, gone through the Source Compass, that summarizes key responsibilities in the role of Source. However there is one important aspect of the compass we have not yet touched upon; the center. The center of the compass speaks to the inner journey of being a source, centered on having an integrated identity. Identity reclamation work is the other core pillar of Peter Koenig’s work, and you can read more about it in the last part of Tom’s book. But in brief, having an integrated identity means having the ability and willingness to step into the wide range of characters required to source well. If the Source has a fear of, or over-attachment to, any of the four Masculine and Feminine dimensions within themselves, this is going to show up in how who and who are called in as sub-sources. Ultimately, leading to either a suppression of or overemphasis on different dimensions throughout the initiative resulting in an impeded creative process.

Getting the source hierarchy clear

The work around clarifying the source hierarchy naturally also starts with the global source.  If the global source is not clear on their vision, it will be difficult to clarify how this vision breaks down in the specific initiatives. As we have covered, getting clear involves both creating the space to be able to hear and feel the deeper calling and inspiration as well as being able to translate this inspiration into clear direction that others can act on. Tools like Charles Davie’s Very Clear Ideas, that you also can read more about in Tom’s book, is a great way to do the latter. In short, the Very Clear Idea of your vision should be specific and simply answer the question “what are you doing?” on the appropriate time scale. When the global “what” is clear, each specific source can clarify what they are doing to realize part of the global “what”. This way, the source hierarchy is a stack of nested “whats” that all build up to a global vision of what everyone is working towards together. 


This stack of nested “whats” and who is sourcing and helping each can be visualized in a map of nested circles, where each circle represents a specific initiative within the outer circle of the global initiative. For a deeper explanation of field mapping and how to do it, I recommend Tom’s mapping masterclass video series.

Example of a field map

Having the source hierarchy visualized in a map has many important benefits; it keeps the responsibilities clear as initiatives grow and shows where there are gaps, accountability increases as transparency increases, it speeds up onboarding of new people and lastly it helps to get an overview of and to understand the field; it is usually not smart to start trying to develop something without understanding what is already there. An important perspective to remember when mapping a field is that it is not about designing your initiative, it is simply about mapping and making visual the source hierarchy that is naturally already there

Supporting the role model leaders

To creatively thrive, leaders embodying all four Feminine and Masculine dimensions are needed. However,  as the Holding Masculine and Creating Feminine are both very important for the emergence of a thriving creative hierarchy and the ones most commonly lacking it can be very generative to specifically identify and support the people within your initiative that you believe have the most potential to embody either of the two. 

I have witnessed how initiatives have excelled purely by having more access to the Holding Masculine and Creating feminine (complementing the often already existing Holding Feminine and Creating Masculine) through existing leaders stepping up or new leaders stepping in. With them present, people’s ability to create and self-organize around challenges as they arise immensely increases, and you can spend less time on implementing supporting structures and more time on realizing the vision. Without them present, you can have the best strategies, tools and practices in the world for efficient collaboration and creation, and you still are likely to end up with tensions and power struggles. 

I will not dive into how to best develop the Holding Masculine and awaken the Creating feminine as it is a too deep scope for this article. But what I can say is that, in line with seeing each individual as the author of their own creative process, when it comes to leadership development, I believe in the general approach of allowing individuals to be in charge of their own development and call in the support they need. Furthermore, rather than everyone striving to become the same type of leaders, I believe that the most efficient path of development is to identify and grow in the archetype that comes most naturally to you, given good conditions. 

Up until now, for simplicity's sake, I have only talked about archetypes that have their strength clearly in one of the four dimensions. Of course there are individuals who thrive in between dimensions who play equally important roles, such as being bridge builders between the dimensions. These bridge builders can be crucial for a fruitful collaboration between the Feminine and Masculine, so in addition to identifying the Holding Masculine and Creating Feminine role models, identifying and supporting the individuals who can role model the more fluid leadership archetypes is a good idea. 

Running initiatives well 

Though fundamental, being a better source, getting the source hierarchy clear and supporting role models - do not necessarily speak to the operations of running the day to day business. It is often easier to hold the four dimensions when stepping out of the operations and looking at an initiative from above. So now, let's look into how you can, in your day-to-day work, generatively unleash and utilize the four dimensions to realize a vision. 

While leading a team together and through years of experimentation, a colleague of mine and I, Viktor Ansund, developed a method for running an initiative and developing your team that does precisely this.

For three years we led a team at an ecommerce group with ​​6.5M visitors/month spread over 6 stores, all with presence in 24 countries. As CMO and CTO, we and the specific sources in our team were responsible for all customer facing initiatives apart from customer support, including the front end development of the store sites and all content for the sites, social media and newsletters.

The diversity of tasks the team was responsible for was mirrored in the diversity of the skills and personalities of the team members. This diversity of both tasks and team imposed a high risk for collaboration difficulties, communication challenges and lack of uniting direction. However, by implementing the most value adding bare-minimum project management and team development processes and continuously improving them, we were able to instead harness the creative potential that comes with diversity and form a highly successful team. After three years of iteration, we realized that we had developed a quite unique and highly effective self-learning method for continuous improvement within our team. When the company was restructured and one of our team members, equally successfully, implemented the same method in her own newly formed team, our sense that we had cracked something universal was strengthened. 

Fractal development

I could actually explain the method that we used in one sentence. Viktor named the method Fractal Development and essentially the method is to daily, weekly, bi-monthly and yearly ask the two questions:

  •  What went well last period? 

  • What will we do (better) next period?

By asking these questions over different time and initiative scopes and continuously making improvements in your way of working, given time, your team will thrive - regardless of where your starting point is. Rather than implementing verbose agile methods that are not adopted to your specific context and needs, develop a tailored way of working by starting simple and only implementing the supporting structures that have passed the experiment of actually solving real problems and needs. 

Most experienced team leads and product owners have come to similar conclusions; it is not over complicated processes that work, it is the super simple structures that allow continuous improvement, becoming more and more adapted to you and your team's specific needs and circumstances, as those needs and circumstances change. 

So, for some, the method of these two questions might sound quite trivial and/or not necessarily that different from other agile approaches. However, it was not only the strict philosophy of keeping things simple with only value-creating bare-minimum structure built from continuous learning that made this team experience unique. As my understanding of the feminine as masculine has deepend, I have realized that what made our team development so effective, making our experience stand out from other experiences with agile development or other continuous improvement methods, is that we asked the questions from all four of the feminine and masculine dimensions. 

Bringing in all four dimensions

In our case, the women on the team were all practicing Awakening Feminine Leadership and could embody both of the Feminine dimensions in a way I haven't experienced before in the business world. And Viktor had for some time dived deep into mens work, bringing in both the polarities of the Masculine into the team. This was before I had synthesized the polarities map and we did not consciously set out to bring in the Feminine or Masculine in any particular way, Rather, by embodying the Masculine and Feminine in our leadership we could in hindsight see that generative structures and processes around the team that embodied wisdom and power of all four dimensions had naturally emerged. 

So, what do I mean then when I say that the questions need to be asked from all four dimensions? Let me walk you through them. 

Holding the Project and Team polarity of the Creating Masculine and Holding Feminine

The “What did we do well last period” question needs to be asked deeply embodying the wisdom of the result-focused “did we do what we said we would”  Creating Masculine as well as the Holding Feminines ability to see beyond the shallow layers and into the deeper mycelium of the vision and the team dynamics and prosperity. 

Without the Creating Masculine present you end up with process lacking concrete results and losing accountability and responsibility. Which is devastating for masculine motivation, as the masculine is here to serve, provide and create results. Frankly, there is little point with most businesses if you lack the Creating Masculine. The deeper purpose of, not all, but many businesses is to provide society with resources in ever more efficient and regenerative ways.

But, if you merely focus on results when reflecting on a period of work, without the polarity of the Holding Feminine present, both the team and the deeper purpose will suffer in the long run. Without the Holding Feminine you will end up with endless doing without any space for reflection, learning, course-correction and celebration. If you don’t give continual space for healing, learning and coming together as a team, their ability to collaborate will stagnate.  Viktor and I talked about this as creating a fruitful polarity between project and people. 

Holding the Inspiration and Direction polarity of the Creating Feminine and Holding Masculine

The “What will we do (better) this period” question needs to be asked from a grounded present Holding Masculine, who is honoring the bigger vision and answering in service of life, requiring the alive presence of the Creating Feminine. The Creating Feminine embodies the creative fuel and gives us access to the deeper mission behind all we do. Without her, the group and initiative will soon start to feel lifeless, de-energized and meaningless and it will be more and more difficult for the Holding Masculine to sense the right directions and next steps. And without the grounded Holding Masculine we lose connection with what we are doing feeds into the bigger vision and we get lost in directionless doing of the Creating Masculine. Possibly in the short term giving a sense of high speed and agility, but in the long run creating a scattered initiative with extrinsically or unmotivated people running in different directions. 

Taking in the polarities map, a slightly more detailed summary of Fractal development is to, every day, week, bi-month and year, repeat the same reflections and actions:

What went well last period?

  • Demo projects and assess the delivery - Creating Masculine

  • Share appreciations, constructive feedback and set new team focus - Holding Feminine

What will we do (better) next period?

  • Tap into what is alive now from en embodied state - Creating Feminine

  • Reconnect with plan and set new project goals - Holding Masculine

What this looked like concretely for us, after three years of iteration was the following.

Daily fractal

We would start each day with an all-hands stand up that would take around 15 minutes. In addition to the check in, the women on the team would often meet earlier in the morning and do different practices from Awakening Feminine Leadership like embodied meditations, dancing and breathing exercises. During the stand up we would start with 30 seconds of silence and then one round of checking in, where everyone would take a moment to land into their bodies and briefly share what was present for them.

We would then do a second round where everyone would share one sentence on what they accomplished the day before and one sentence on the most important thing they were planning to do today.

Lastly we would rate how well we as a team lived up to the sprint focus from yesterday, by a simple show of hands rating the focus from 1 finger meaning poorly and five meaning very well. If relevant, one or two people would share what they think we could do today to better live the team focus.

Daily Fractal

Embodied mediations and check in - Creating Femining 

What did I do yesterday? - Creating Masculine

What will I do today? - Holding Masculine

Rate sprint focus from yesterday - Holding Feminine

Weekly fractal

We began each week by doing a 30 min retro of the previous week. We would start with a project retro looking at what we had committed to in the past week’s planning and then demo the achievements and deliverables of the past week. Based on this we would do a team retro starting with one round of everyone sharing one thing they appreciated about themselves, someone or the team followed by a round of everyone sharing one thing they wish themselves, someone else or the team would do differently in the future. Lastly we would decide on a focus that would support the team in the coming week. This then became the new team focus that we would assess every daily stand up.

After the week retro we would shift focus into a 30 minute planning session of the coming week. We would start the planning session with an embodying and grounding sharing of “what is alive in me and important for me this week”. After this we would plan the coming week by scoping an prioritizing tasks for the week . When choosing what tasks to do we would take into consideration the motivation of the team as well as where we were at in the bi-monthly overall plan for the initiatives that members of our team were sourcing.

Weekly fractal

Demo week achievements - Creating Masculine

Share appreciation, feedback and set team focus for the week - Holding Feminine

Grounding and embodying sharing - Creating Feminine

Check in with bimonthly plan and choose and prioritize weeks tasks - Holding Masculine

Continuous improvement through experimentation

I do not share this to tell you exactly how to run to your daily stand ups or weekly planning meetings. One of the core success factors in the design of Fractal Development is that the method doesn’t include any processes or tools for things like task planning or team development. Rather, it only includes a simple structure of continuously improving your way of working, allowing you to iteratively find better and better ways of running your unique team and realizing your specific initiatives.

The key is to continuously run experiments of adding tools and processes that meet needs as they arrive as well as removing tools and processes that are excessive or don’t seem to work. And again, keeping all four of the dimensions in mind when diagnosing a problem and designing its solution. This enables you to find your and your team’s unique way of integrating and utilizing the four feminine and masculine dimensions in your work. The importance is not exactly how you do it, or in what order, but that you include all 4 on a continuous learning journey.

When it comes to running experiments, there is wisdom in allowing some time to try out new structures and processes before evaluating them. In our team we, after a while, landed in the rhythm of designing and evaluating these experiments on a bi-monthly rhythm.

Bimonthly fractal

Bimonthly we would gather the team for a half day session consisting of a retrospective of the past two months and planning of the coming two. The bi-monthly session followed the same flow of the weekly session, only applied to a longer time and larger project scope.

We would start with a bimonthly retro where we would look at what we had committed to achieving the past two months and demo the projects and initiatives we had succeeded in completing. We would then have a deeper process of sharing appreciation and constructive feedback in the team, look at the aggregate appreciations and constructive feedback we had gathered the past two months at each week planning, and discuss team intentions for the coming two months.

We would then go into planning the coming two months. We would start with each team member connecting to their deeper calling and motivation in what they are sourcing. Then we would look at the high-level yearly road map for our specific initiatives, and based on both, create a high-level plan for what projects to take on in the coming two months.

Bi-monthly fractal

Demo projects - Creating Masculine

Share appreciation and constructive feedback - Holding Feminine 

Check in with source inspiration- Creative Feminine

Reconnect with yearly plan and choose projects - Holding Masculine 

Design experiments for coming bi-monthly period - Update code of conduct

Updating way of working through experiments

Lastly, we would update our code of conduct; a document that explained how we as a team had committed to working together. To update the code of conduct meant designing experiments on what we wanted to change in the way we worked the coming two months, as well as evaluate the experiments we had run the previous two months.

We would evaluate the last two months' experiments by looking at if they had met the need they were designed to or not, if yes we kept the new way of working, if not we scrapped it.

When designing new experiments we would start by first identifying the most pressing needs in the team. We would identify these needs by taking in the overall feeling, learnings and results of the past two months as well as the nature of the projects that we were facing the coming two months, all of which we had gathered during the whole bi-monthly retro and planning. With inspiration from our common experience of team and project management tools, we would choose the process, structure or tool to try the coming two months as an experiment to see if they would solve the identified most pressing needs. To avoid redundant structure we never implemented anything to solve future problems and of course, an experiment could also be to remove something.

When we had created a proposal that everyone could consent and commit to, we adjusted the code of conduct. The code of conduct this way, became a living document containing the project management tools and team development processes best fitting our current specific needs, that everyone had committed to following the coming two months. In other words, after three years of iteration our code of conduct consisted of describing the daily, weekly and bi-monthly structure that I have just walked you through in this text.

The last version of our code of conduct

Yearly fractal

The last time period that we would gather the team around was yearly. Again the yearly session would follow the same flow as the weekly and bi-monthly, but looking at the whole year. We would start with looking at a project timeline showing all the completed projects of the year. We would then have a session of diving deeper into celebrating accomplishments and reflect on what we had learned as a team. After that we would take time for each individual to go deep into and embody his or her personal vision for what he or she is called to source the coming years, followed by reconnecting to the global initiatives wider vision and how that impacted our teams sub-initiatives. Based on this we would set a high-level roadmap with focus areas for the coming year. Last, but not least, we would end with a party celebrating the death of the old and birth of what was to come.

Yearl Fractal

Demo yearly project timeline - Creating Masculine

Deeper celebrations and reflections - Holding Feminine

Deep embodiment of individual source - Creating Feminine 

Reconnect with global initiative vision and choose high level focus areas - Holding masculine

Putting all of this together this creates a fractal flow that looks something like this:

The lacking ability to hold polarities in most Agile methodologies

Most agile methods are not able to bring in the creative power of both the cyclical feminine and the linear masculine. Most of them have a linear way of viewing the creative process. They move between planning and executing, but miss out on the inspiration and integration of the Feminine, and both the team and project suffer in the long run. The leaders that do emphasize on the Feminine instead often put too little focus on the Masculine, resulting in poor progress and lost sense of project accomplishment.

Furthermore, most agile methods are not adopted for a specific team's needs and are not implemented with the team’s consent, which makes them clunky and demotivating. Also they seldom dock into and strengthen the natural source hierarchy, and therefore are deficient when it comes to holding the polarity of creating common direction while at the same time allowing for autonomy.

To summarize, the three main areas that make Fractal Development stand out is that it is a method that allows for intrinsically motivated continuous improvement, within a clear source hierarchy, using the wisdom and power of all four Feminine and Masculine dimensions.

Intrinsically motivated continuous improvement

The word Fractal refers to the fractal nature of the two same questions being asked and acted upon daily, weekly, bi-monthly and yearly encompassing ever larger initiative and time scopes. When developing your team and initiative in this way, it creates a way of working that is created by the people using it. This ensures that processes and structures implemented are specifically adopted for the team's unique needs and skills, and ensures both high motivation and commitment to actually use them.

Additionally Fractal Development allows for a culture of experimentation and incremental improvement, which when it comes to realizing a vision together, almost always is preferable. In the long run, the winners are not the ones who are the most skilled from the start, but those who are able to improve their way of working every day.

An illustrating example is looking at the tool “checking in” and some of the developers in our team. A few of them were highly skilled at coding, but were not used to self-reflection and sharing in a group setting. When we first implemented checking in we started with a simple “how are you”, and they would simply answer with a short “I’m good”. After a couple months of iterative feedback-loops they were sharing nuanced descriptions of their inner world, which helped them become present and able to more efficiently collaborate during the day. If we would have asked them to share a deep, embodied description of what was alive in them the first week working together, we would have probably just come to the conclusion that check-ins are not a good idea.

A lived creative hierarchy with clarity and autonomy

Fractal also refers to acknowledging how the global initiative fractals into ever smaller sub initiatives and sub sources. When planning what to do next, at each fractal, space is given to sense into the inspiration, motivation and clarity of each source. Also, when planning each fractal, the team takes in the vision and plan of the initiative one level up in the source hierarchy, to make sure that only the actions that are within the creative field are taken. When plans are made from both of these perspectives it is possible to ensure a direction that is both collectively coherent and fueled by autonomous motivation and wisdom.

Using the wisdom and power of all four dimensions

Lastly, fractal also refers to the fractal nature of the Masculine and Feminine dimensions in each part and in the whole. As with a fractal pattern, each dimension can be found and is needed in each sub-part of the global initiative; in each individual and in each team, and some parts and some phases and parts will naturally utilize some of the dimensions more.

When developing your team and initiative, the idea is to, for each fractal, create a flow between the four dimensions that is as creative and generative as possible. This means holding the polarity between the inspiration of the Creating Feminine and the direction of the Holding Masculine in the beginning of the initiative or project cycle and the polarity of project execution of the Creating Masculine and team unification of the Holding Feminine during the end of the initiative or project cycle. In practice, it is not always important which dimension you focus on first, the importance is that the strength of each is brought in at each fractal level.

The listening of the Holding Masculine and the life-sourcing of the Creating Feminine are the most intangible; though there are methods that support us to tap into them, they are more about how you show up; the presence, energy, embodiment and level of connection and truth you speak and act from. They are more difficult to measure or design for, but you will notice when they are there or not.

Running generative meetings

The principles of Fractal Development applies for all groups coming together to work on an initiative and can be implemented regardless if the group does recurring work together as a team or not. During our time at the ecommerce group Viktor and I implemented a structure for meetings following the same flow through the four dimensions. And just like we did when working within our team, the meeting structure was adapted by experimenting with it in different groups. As more and more people loved it, it gradually spread across the company until pretty much all meetings were led in this manner - vastly decreasing the time spent in meetings across the company. My favorite culmination of this meeting structure spreading was when the CEO introduced a check in to the confused looking board. The simple flow that we implemented was the following:

  • Start with an embodied check in - Creating Feminine

  • Set an agenda - Holding Masculine

  • Do the work and decide on next steps - Creating Masculine

  • Checking out with reflection of appreciations - what went well and improvements - what we could do better next time - Holding Feminine

Again, this is not rocket science or much different from most proven processes for running efficient meetings such as IDOART. Simply implementing a good process does help, but what takes it to the next level is when all four dimensions are present, embodied and in their power, throughout the different phases of the meeting.

Bringing it all together

We have been on quite a journey through deep waters. To summarize and bring it all together, I will share a broad stroke overview of the approach that is emerging as Tom Nixon and I work with supporting sources and their initiatives. This approach brings together the concepts that we have covered, summerzing how they can be applied in the process of realizing a big, creative vision.

As a starting point, we approach initiatives as an emerging creative process, rather than an organization that we can redesign. Following this, we never focus on supporting organizations, we support sources and their initiatives. Like for all employees, as someone supporting from outside of the initiative, there will also always be a person who is the one that brought you in to help out the larger field, and it is important to acknowledge the source principles also in this relationship.

Supporting the source to source well

Following the source principles, we start with supporting the source or specific source in being a good source. This includes supporting their inner development journey and identity integration, as well as becoming connected with and clear on the vision they are sourcing. We also introduce the principles of Fractal Development to bring in the power of experimentation and continuous learning, using all the wisdom of all four dimensions, when working with others in realizing their vision.

Identify and support role models

As the source becomes ever better at artfully sourcing, we look at their creative field to identify and offer support to the potential role models who want to become better at embodying the often lacking Holding Masculine, Creating Feminine and fluid leadership archetypes.

Clarify the source hierarchy and acknowledge tensions

At this point, we also clarify the source hierarchy in the field through field mapping, giving an overview of the field, identifying specific sources as well as acknowledging the tensions in the field such as gaps in responsibility or areas where someone has unwillingly taken responsibility. These tensions give important information on where to go next.

Support specific sources

When the tensions and closest specific sources in the hierarchy have been identified we, in turn, offer these specific sources support in sourcing their specific initiatives better. Again through inner development, becoming connected and clear with their specific vision and through helping them develop through experiments and utilizing all four dimensions in their day-to-day work through the principles of Fractal Development. Rather than imposing the same collective tools or structures on everyone, through using a method like Fractal Development, each specific source and specific initiative will find the tools and process fit for them.

When these specific sources in turn have done their work, we offer the same support approach to the specific sources helping them, in this way moving ever further into the source hierarchy.

Visualize and maintain the field map

As more sources step into their role, it becomes more and more fruitful to visualize the source hierarchy in a map that can be shared throughout the organization. With a shared map that is continuously updated the natural authority of the sources and thus the creative power of the initiative is further strengthened.

Join the exploration

In the emerging interconnected, complex and fast changing business landscape, the mainstream management consulting approach to business development of gathering data and using it to design solutions for an initiative to implement, is becoming redundant in more and more contexts. Progressive and agile approaches that are better fit for these new circumstances are becoming ever more common, but unfortunately, most of these approaches also struggle to hold the key polarities that lay the foundation for thriving creativity.

The, sometimes provokingly, contrasting approaches presented in this article are attempts to navigate through and thrive in this new world, as it is emerging. If you also feel that the ideas presented here are inspiring and/or intriguing, I would love to hear from you and to explore more together. I warmly welcome you to join in on the journey towards a more creative, alive and purposeful business world.