In the Midst Of …
Somewhere between what was and whatever comes next...
What a caterpillar, a bowl of soup and a butterfly got me thinking about
I disappeared down one of those internet rabbit holes recently.
You know the sort. You look one thing up and forty-five minutes later you're reading about something you never even knew you were interested in.
Mine was butterflies. Or rather... caterpillars.
I'd always assumed a caterpillar climbed into its chrysalis, had a bit of a reshuffle, grew some wings and emerged a few weeks later looking rather fabulous.
Turns out I'd got it completely wrong.
Inside the chrysalis, much of the caterpillar actually dissolves. Not all of it, before any biologists start twitching, but enough that what is going on in there has been described rather wonderfully as a kind of nutrient-rich soup.
Soup!
Obviously, this required further investigation.
I take my research very seriously...
And yes, the soup fascinated me. But it was what it made me think about afterwards that really stayed with me.
Because there is something very particular about being in that place where what was doesn't quite work anymore and what comes next hasn't revealed itself yet.
I've started calling them the "in the midst of's."
And I think we spend quite a lot of our lives there. In the midst of changing, deciding, letting go, becoming... although, of course, when you're actually there it rarely feels quite as poetic as that. Mostly it feels confusing. Sometimes bloody uncomfortable.
You can sense that something isn't quite right anymore, but you can't necessarily explain what. The role you've inhabited for years suddenly feels a little tight around the edges. The way you've always approached something isn't getting the same result. Things you once tolerated start irritating the hell out of you.
You know something is shifting. You just don't know what it's shifting into.
I've been there more than once. And one of the things I've noticed about myself is how quickly I want to do something about it.
I want to understand it, name it, make a plan for it. Preferably with a nice notebook.
Because surely if I can understand what's happening, I can get on with whatever comes next?
Except I'm increasingly wondering whether that's exactly what some moments don't need.
Maybe there are times when the work isn't to get ourselves out of the uncertainty. Maybe the work is learning how to be there.
That's an uncomfortable thought, particularly when it comes to leadership. We reward leaders for knowing things. We expect them to have answers, make decisions, create clarity and reassure everyone that there's a plan.
And sometimes, of course, that's exactly what leadership requires.
But human leadership surely has to have room for something else too.
What happens when you genuinely don't know? Or when the person sitting opposite you doesn't know? Can you resist the urge to immediately fill the gap?
That's where this particular rabbit hole started connecting with coaching for me.
Because when someone brings uncertainty into a coaching conversation, there's a huge temptation to do something with it. To find the insight or ask the brilliant question that somehow unlocks everything. To get to the action, the breakthrough, the aha!
After all, we're there to help, aren't we? Except sometimes helping looks remarkably like not doing very much at all.
It might simply mean sitting alongside someone while they hear themselves think. Letting the silence last a little longer than feels comfortable. Staying curious without needing that curiosity to lead somewhere and, perhaps most importantly, trusting that the person in front of you isn't a problem requiring a solution.
And I think that's just as true of human leadership.
It's easy to say we trust people. It's rather different to keep trusting their capacity at the very moment they're struggling to trust it themselves. To sit alongside someone without needing to solve them. To notice that something is changing without rushing in to name what we think they're becoming.
I don't always find that easy.
There is something wonderfully reassuring about being useful, isn't there? Doing something feels useful. Knowing something feels useful. Fixing something definitely feels useful.
Simply being there can feel suspiciously like we're not doing enough.
And yet, when I think about some of the most important conversations I've had, I'm not sure anybody did very much at all. Nobody rushed to make something happen. There was simply enough space for something else to be noticed. And sometimes that noticing starts in the body before we have any words for it.
That's something my somatic work has taught me again and again.
Our heads can be very busy insisting that everything is absolutely fine while the rest of us is telling a rather different story. Perhaps we're holding our breath every time we walk into a particular meeting. Our shoulders tighten around a certain person. Something that used to energise us suddenly leaves us exhausted. Or we hear ourselves saying yes while some other part of us is very clearly saying no.
We might not know what any of that means yet. And perhaps we don't need to.
Nothing has been decided. There isn't necessarily an answer. But something has been noticed.
Maybe that's one of the gifts of the "in the midst of's". They ask us to pay attention before we act.
Which brings me back to my caterpillar.
Because while disappearing even further down my rabbit hole, I discovered something I loved.
Inside the caterpillar are tiny groups of cells called imaginal discs.
What a fabulous name.
Imaginal.
They're there before the chrysalis, carrying the beginnings of the structures that will eventually become parts of the butterfly.
And that stopped me.
Because the caterpillar doesn't need to know it's becoming a butterfly. It doesn't need a development plan or a five-point action plan. It doesn't need to see the finished version before something can begin. Something is already happening long before there is any visible evidence of what comes next.
Now obviously I'm taking liberties with the biology here … stay with me.
But I wonder whether we sometimes demand evidence of ourselves far too soon.
We want to know what we're becoming, whether we've made the right decision, where the change is leading. We want to feel confident again and have something we can point to that reassures us we're heading in the right direction.
And perhaps sometimes we simply can't.
Perhaps becoming is happening before knowing catches up.
And perhaps the question isn't always "What am I going to do?"
Maybe sometimes it's simply...
"What am I noticing?"
That feels different.
Softer somehow.
And considerably harder to put on a five-point action plan.
Maybe that's what I'm learning about the "in the midst of's".
They're not empty spaces between the important bits of our lives. They're not the annoying waiting room we have to sit in until the next version of us is ready.
They're part of the living of it. Part of the leading of it. Part of becoming whoever we're becoming next.
So perhaps we don't always need to rush ourselves, or the people we lead, love, coach and work alongside, towards an answer.
Perhaps sometimes the most human thing we can do is stay curious enough to notice what is quietly shifting.
And trust that we don't have to see the wings yet to know that something is happening.
Bobby Davis is a qualified executive and team coach with extensive experience in organisational development, business change (the people angle), human resources and personal leadership.
Her coaching experience is against a backdrop of 30+ years working in managerial and human resources/OD roles in the British Army, Not for Profits, Professional Services and most recently with a private equity owned Hotel Group.
She has led the People “strand” within large business transformation programmes, creating people strategies, internal coaching schemes and embedding strong performance cultures, as well as supporting at all levels of an organisation to implement effective change.
She is absolutely passionate in her pursuit to support, challenge and deliver sustainable change for individuals, teams and organisations, one person at a time if necessary!
You can catch her for a chat about coaching, using your body better as a leader and/or supporting you in HR/OD here Bobby Davis FCIPD PCC | LinkedIn
And check out her dulcet tones in “More Than A Lumpy Jumper” - Conversations about Leadership, Life and Learning here More Than a Lumpy Jumper | Podcast on Spotify
