Location: St. George Petroglyphs | Anazasi Ridge | Tempi'po'op Trail I Santa Clara River Reserve
Journey with me to southern Utah, home of the Ancestral Puebloans and Southern Paiute with renowned anthropologist Boma Johnson who spent more than 30 years of his life living among the tribes, seeking understanding about ancient Anasazi petroglyphs and learning from modern day tribes. The Anasazi rock art is found along this trail Tempi’po’op. [Map here]
Photo of Tempi'po'op Trail with Boma Johnson © by Joanne Markow
"Sit there and watch, listen, have respect before knowledge, and then you might understand a bit about a place.” [Hopi quote]
The Hopi of the Southwestern U.S. bring an important perspective with how Westerners unfamiliar with their land, people, and viewpoints approach Native American sites. As with any two groups who engage, there's a lens of understanding through which we reveal our bias when we inquire.
In fact, it's not unlike any scenario in business where new leadership enters markets, seeks customers, or delves into an organization. The desire to obtain knowledge and move forward with a decision or change is usually top priority.
Inevitably, it's pretty complicated for 21st century CEOs, boards, founders, and organizational leaders. And interim or not, there's an immediate tendency during leadership shifts to disregard history that helped build or grow an organization. The risk? In the spirit of forging ahead without a connection to a root culture, a group's people may lose focus and trust over the long term.
Patterns from the Past
We have to dial it back pretty far to see alternative views for mobilizing people.
Ancient Puebloans (known as Anasazi) carved symbols as far back as 14,000 years ago and naturally gravitated toward harmony with people, places, and things. Their descendants, the Zuni and Hopi of Southwestern U.S., tell us that elders built upon their ancestors' wisdom through the generations using integrated imagery as signs for achievement, hope, and direction.
They were brave, inventive, and clever thinkers in how they chose to architect their spaces with limited tools while also designing hunting strategies.
Ancient Puebloans communicated in transparent ways in public spaces. We imagine people could follow, visit, understand, and absorb meaning daily. Unlike rhetoric or long written forms that are easily forgotten, past leaders leveraged simplicity in messaging on huge slabs of rock.
Photo of Tempi'po'op Trail with Boma Johnson © by Joanne Markow
Symbols and Storytelling
"Design-thinking" and "systems-thinking" were an integral part of every day survival—naturally. Today we tend to toss labels on people or processes but the ancients' nimble and open-minded lifestyle was born out of necessity.
Mindful of the present state and where they need to go, today's Hopi help us to understand that there was a connectedness between "where we are, where we've been, and where we're going together" that their ancestors wanted alive for generations of descendants.
Storytelling through images paved the way for cohesiveness in the clans.
Photo of Tempi'po'op Trail and Red Rock mountains © by Joanne Markow
Petroglyphs
The Utah rocks photographed in this post are located along the Tempi’po’op Trail in the Santa Clara River reserve and adorned with petroglyphs from 7,000 to 9,000 years ago layered alongside each other. This iterative "adding" of symbols to rocks (like modern graffiti) that people felt were missing in the storyline was a relevant and welcome practice as teachings passed through hundreds of generations. Think of it like a permanent blackboard for teaching.
The descendants of Ancient Puebloans and Southern Paiute achieved a harmonious leadership transition century after century for thousands of years...way more than in today's business world!
So how did they do it?
Flow
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi looks into "optimal experiences" as times when people exhibit genuine enjoyment, creativity, and total involvement in life. He dubbed this state "flow" and defines it as "order in consciousness."
How consciousness works, how we assign meaning, and how we experience motivation are all tied to happiness says Csikszentmihalyi. When people have "control over their inner life" and things make sense for you, me, our teams and everyone in the organization, then we find people passionately doing what they love...for the sake of doing it. Not for any reward.
Flow tells us that it takes more than titles and money to achieve staff happiness.
The rocks along the Tempi’po’op Trail were considered outdoor classrooms and depicted the vision for the "ideal" state as much as for the present. Petroglyphs were carvings in the rocks documenting history, present dangers, environmental concerns, spiritual aspirations, historical moments, and differentiation among clans. Every new generation was trained in time by elders.
Life lessons merged with threats. Goals blended with ways for optimal living. History and future were intertwined in a way that made sense.
The petroglyphs described how to achieve "flow" and remove any barriers to advancement.
What Can We Learn?
"Sit there and watch, listen, have respect before knowledge, and then you might understand a bit about a place.”
Let's build upon the past while treasuring founding missions, cultures, and sources of harmony. Unleash higher levels of strategies and development opportunities as staff increasingly understands the bigger picture. Work with our teams to communicate simply to customers and in open spaces for staff.
Grow and shift the business, but remember the core. Don't be afraid to descend to rise in sales hunts or undertake migrations to new industries. Use all the help, guides, and environment around us to seek that complexity of differentiation and integration simultaneously.
But most of all, respect and maintain flow.
Flow for ourselves, our people, and our company's future.
Photographs (c) Joanne Markow taken at Tempi’po’op in the red mountains of Utah under the guidance of archaeologist Boma Johnson who spent the last 30 years of his life living and learning from the local tribes.
