“I once thought that I was growing something called EPP. Today it is abundantly clear that EPP is actually growing all of us.”
–Susan Olesek
EPP Founder | Human Potentialist
EPP Founder | Human Potentialist
What does it mean to be a Human Potentialist?
What is an evolutionary teal organization?
What does it mean to be a Human Potentialist?
What does it mean to be a Human Potentialist?
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When I first began teaching the Enneagram to incarcerated students in a Texas prison, I quickly learned that the insights gained from this self-awareness tool were always meant for everyone. Enneagram Prison Project (EPP) was born from a deep commitment to bring healing and transformation to some of the most hurting people on the planet. It was also a response to healing a broken system, and shifting the paradigm of incarceration in our country. What we have discovered is that EPP is part of a much, much bigger calling for healing. Ours is a vision where EVERY human being is free to flourish through the realization of our human potential.
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EPP has clearly demonstrated itself to be an innovative thought leader in the field of prison reform. Our curriculum is now being taught in public and private high schools in California, Fortune 500 companies, and to the staff of one of the largest homeless shelters in Santa Clara county. Just as the incarcerated are starving to know the truth about themselves, so is the world hungry to know that there is nothing wrong with ANY of us! But, do any of us really know that to be true?
I am reminded that the vision of EPP has always been to free people - all over the world - from the prisons of our own making. Informed by what we have learned over nearly a decade of teaching EPP’s curriculum in prisons and jails, we are starting to grow and evolve as an organization to reflect the holistic approach we are taking to healing the very fabric of society.
What is an evolutionary teal organization?
What is an evolutionary teal organization?
Our organization is unfolding from the profound values and principles of our work. Who we are in service must be who we are as an organization to support the rapid and mind-bending growth that wants to be birthed. As we looked around for how we might do that, we discovered a book that has changed how all of us think about an organization, Reinventing Organizations, by Frederic Laloux. Based on Ken Wilbur’s model of evolution, or Spiral Dynamics, it describes how an organization might emerge at the “Teal” level of consciousness.
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Most importantly for our mission, the world is viewed as a place for individual and collective unfolding, a place where we can let go to find our true nature and listen to our deepest inner voice. As an organization, the work then emerges from our being-ness, not our doing-ness. The shift in how an organization is an organization comes from the consciousness of each participant.
We are not individuals joining an organization – we are individuals from which the organization emerges. The organization allows and supports individual wholeness to come forth, and the individuals bring forth the organization through their whole-hearted, vulnerable participation. It is the deepest form of community.
As simple as that sounds, it is profoundly different from anything most of us have experienced in traditional work environments. We are just beginning this journey as an alive organization, where the work is non-linear and we don’t always know where we’re headed, where we move through sensing and not planning, and where everyone is welcome to show up as beautiful whole humans, deeply interconnected, and facing together the profound challenges and opportunities before us.
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EPP highly recommends Frederic Laloux's book, Reinventing Organizations.
