What if trust was the operating system?

What if trust was the operating system?

Hi folks! I had the pleasure of delivering this “mini keynote” address this morning at one of my clients’ corporate leadership retreats. I think it landed well, and it was a pleasure to be with them. This speech touches on themes of trust, unity, the promise of a better future, artificial intelligence, risk, and more.

Read the mini keynote here: https://aaronjmarx.com/mini-keynote

Another theme I introduced early on in the workshop…

Did you ever notice the similarity between these words?

Organelle • Organ • Organism • Organization

They all have the same root. Micro to macro.

Organelles are those tiny structures that work together to make your cell successful.

Organs or those complex structures, made of many cells and tissues, that work together to make your body successful.

Organisms are those self-contained, self-governing alive beings who work together to make a family or society successful.

Organizations are those groupings of aligned people who work together to make civilization successful.

This is of course a simplistic, reductionistic reading. It’s not a straight line to success. There is dysfunction, conflict, disease, strife that threatens this notion of success. But the graph does tend upward and to the left because existence has a bent toward coherence and always has.

It’s systems all the way down, and we can draw boundaries wherever is necessary to improve performance. And these systems are “organs” of different types.

“Organ” is from a Greek root that means tool or instrument (and yes, it is related to the musical instrument organ). Think about that. All organized entities (and last time I checked, that is ALL entities), can be thought of as tools or instruments. Tool feels a little impersonal and crude, whereas instrument is more precise and sophisticated, but they both orient toward a purpose, task, job. So, all of reality is made of entities that are organized, internally or externally, toward a goal. This is Aristotle’s notion of “telos”, or purpose.

So, reality is purposeful. It reaches toward a meaning. As do you. As do your organs, and your organizations.

And reality is all organs. So, where are you (and your organizations) headed next, and why?

Read the mini-keynote, here: https://aaronjmarx.com/mini-keynote

Ready to Re-Organize?

Your organization is not a machine. It’s an organ.

Living. Breathing. Recursive.

Part of something larger that’s trying to heal itself.

What if your team wasn’t just executing a strategy—

but tuning itself to the ache of the world it was meant to address?

Want to have me present at your own organizational leadership retreat? Drop me a line and let’s talk: aaron@aaronjmarx.com