Have you experienced the creative buzz and joy at the start of a new initiative? Or do you rather dread its first scheduled meetings when people are asking for help and contributions, because you’ve experienced how the initial motivation can be drained by lengthy discussions and power struggles?
I find myself on both sides of the spectrum due to my very different experiences in the various initiatives and organisations I’ve worked with, co-founded or joined as a volunteer. For quite a while, my one-size-fits-all solution was to be very passionate about organisational models and concepts that foster low hierarchies and collective decision-making, such as sociocracy, etc. However, I’ve noticed a shift in myself in order to avoid an unbalanced focus on external structures only. So my question for the last few years has been:
Which inner conditions contribute to a thriving organisation
based on collective and collaborative efforts?
Luckily, I’m not the first person to ponder this question, and with this article I’d like to share the principles of Source with you. They have resonated deeply with my various lived experiences, and we’ve started to embed them more strongly in our work at Unity Effect. I’ll share our own insights and some practical approaches for you to transfer to your own groups, collectives and companies.
In the following article, I’ll mostly use the term initiative to include any form of human endeavour, ranging from personal projects to large-scale organisations.
Try to notice if resistances or rejections arise while reading this, as you could use one of the exercises (shared in the toolbox at the end) to better understand your own perspective.
"This was our joint idea!" – I often hear people say this, and yet diving deeper into the founding history usually reveals that there was one person who initiated something, who took the first step.
And here comes a bold statement, that we’ll take apart in a moment to learn how and why this matters:
Every human initiative has its origins in the actions of a person who takes a risk to bring the initiative to life.
To start something new, somebody has to take an action where the outcome is not clear and therefore risky. Here are some examples:
So, it’s one thing to have an idea – quite another to take the first step with it, which often comes with risk. This means that sometimes one person “has” a certain idea but doesn’t act on it, while another person takes the initial step. To know more about this often means digging into an organisation’s history and uncovering the deeper stories and dynamics that have contributed to what characterises the initiative today. Imagine the growth of a plant: even if we’ve planted several seeds, there is only one seed for each plant that has sprouted and created something new. The same is true for rivers: many other streams have contributed to it during its course, but you can trace it back to one origin, the Source.
We refer to this person as the Source because they have a special position in the initiative: they share with it an intense and often intimate connection. After all, they are the person who has created something new out of nothing by taking a risk. This person therefore has a special feeling and intuition for what the actual vision is, which goes much deeper than linguistic forms of expression can initially grasp. The Source usually has a feeling for the next steps, or strong inner or sometimes even physical reactions if this intuitive knowledge is not honoured and a different direction is taken. The Source can sense what form the initiative could take, although other people within the initiative often find better words for it.
Let’s picture this with an easy and oversimplified example: you’ve invited your friends on a camping trip and, when you’re sitting down to discuss the details, one of them brings up concerns about going camping and suggests booking a hotel instead. This is the right time for the Source of this initiative to investigate whether the intention is to spend time with friends independent of the intended destination, or whether it is about going camping. Otherwise, there is a high likelihood of running into conflicts during the trip, with the Source saying: “But I didn’t want to go to a hotel anyway …!”
Looking at the history of an initiative, there is a certain (temporal) order depending on the actions of the so-called global Source, i.e. the person who took the first risk. The Source’s initiative opens up a creative field that attracts other people who are interested or fascinated by what is emerging here. These members can either become specific Sources by taking responsibility for a part of this initiative, e.g. by designing the logo or by organising events to gather resources (people, money, …). Or they can join as members, supporting the initiative by taking part, helping and contributing, without taking any personal risk. For example, consider a person quitting their job to come in with full commitment to start a new project inside the initiative, compared with someone who is happy to implement projects that somebody else created and thought through. This is a qualitative difference in commitment, but no judgement, as members might want to contribute more at some later point and become a specific Source themselves. This order of global and specific Sources is not necessarily congruent with titles, roles and tasks, and it exists both in strictly top-down organised groups and in groups with flat hierarchies and self-organisation principles.
In summary, there are two Source Principles:
To avoid any misunderstandings, the Source Principles are not an invitation for a cult-like style of leadership where the global Source has unlimited power. On the contrary: Source Principles are a part of moving from the paradigm of “power over” to “power with”, where power is shared among the members of an initiative. Just like any human being in the initiative, the Source can make mistakes and should be questioned regularly. Sharing power relies on a culture which welcomes different opinions and celebrates a diversity of voices and experiences.
If the Source principles are misinterpreted they can be used in harmful ways. Janja Lalich, a survivor and researcher of cult systems, offers insights into identifying and leaving unhealthy systems.
If we consider and value the special role of Source and pay attention to the order and connection of Sources in our initiatives, they become powerful and focused. Working with Source allows us to follow the flow of creativity and commitment – exceeding formal hierarchies and mission statements on paper – to let human initiatives thrive. The following graphic from the book “Work with Source” by Tom Nixon shows how this interplay of Sources could look:
This version of the Source principles is based on the work of Peter Koenig, which has been further developed by Stefan Merkelbach, Tom Nixon, Nadjeschda Taranczewski and others. However, I want to highlight that in my opinion, and to my limited knowledge, these underlying principles are not someone’s invention, but rather something that people in many places have been living by and which are deeply rooted in indigenous cultures. Peter Koenig developed the Source Principles through action research with various entrepreneurs. Therefore his work provides language to address these inherent dynamics in the business and organisational context, which has otherwise been lost through colonisation and other rewritings.
Why is this important? Particularly in the context of uncovering the role of Source in an initiative, the invitation here is to not become overly attached to “your” idea. Referring to the quotation “standing on the shoulders of giants”, there is nearly always someone who created something similar before that which you are now extending or adapting. We’re forgetting about this especially in the current regenerative movement, which tries to heal and conciliate stories of separation (e.g. between human and nature) . The Inner Development Goals initiative is a prominent example, offering a framework suitable for businesses and large-scale organisations. However, they don’t mention explicitly that their approach relies heavily on cultural practices, spiritual traditions and especially indigenous wisdom, extracted and presented without any reference to or acknowledgement of what these people have been, and still are, facing.
So while the Source Principles invite us to acknowledge the special role of the Source inside an initiative, it is also worthwhile to investigate the deeper origins and belief systems that our initiatives are rooted in.
I like to use the word sourcing – derived from the action itself – to describe the process of clarifying and strengthening the existing Sources and people within an initiative. Sourcing is a process, because it is nonlinear and never-ending: stepping into becoming/being a Source helps us to contribute all our creative forces to the topic we’re working on. From a Source’s perspective, sourcing is something that rarely happens in meetings, at the desk, or when writing a document. It is the kind of quality that you find when you’re pondering a question while going on a walk, gardening with your hands in the soil, or sitting quietly in nature and meditating/softly gazing around, etc., and suddenly have an insight. This is highly individual and I’d like to encourage you to do this more often in an intentional way, as this is an essential part of your work in order to fully contribute as a Source.
Having read up to here, with more or less resonance or resistance, what are the consequences for your daily life? Based on my conversation with various Sources, I’ve tried to cluster and sort different approaches using the following quadrants based on the work of Ken Wilber:
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Mindset
(inner / individual)
Behaviour
(outer / individual)
Culture
(inner / collective)
Nourish the creative field of the initiative:
Structure & Processes
(outer / collective)
Clarify the interplay between the Sources (e.g. via an organisational map):
Some hands-on examples from us here at Unity Effect:
I had the immense pleasure of hosting a conversation with Jannik Kaiser, co-founder and Source of Unity Effect, and Francesca Pick, co-founder and Source of Greaterthan, where we spoke about our own experiences as Sources and how we embed this in our organisations. This was part of a workshop on the Source principles, so having just read about them, you now have all the background you need to listen in:
Looking at the matrix above, you may already have some ideas of what sourcing could look like for you.
Our wish at Unity Effect is that being the Source of an initiative can be regenerative for yourself. As the process of sourcing focuses on dealing with uncertainty and sitting with doubt, it is crucial to have supportive conditions to be able to dive into these processes. Otherwise, we risk either building more restrictive and hindering scaffolding, or we risk exploiting the creative energy of a few people, who are not able to sustain their contribution over a longer timeframe. We also need to take into account that not everybody has the same capacity to navigate this kind of creative uncertainty and thus has different needs. Sourcing should therefore be as diverse as the team itself.
Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions and/or would like to implement sourcing in your initiative:
You can also use our toolbox which provides you with exercises and more for working with Source: Working with Source Toolbox
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