Edgewalking

An Edgewalker, according to a book by that name just written by Judi Neale, is defined this way:

They're the first people to volunteer to head up a new business unit, lead a cross-company initiative, or take on an overseas assignment. They're the glass half-full folks, who are constantly thinking "out of the box," forging alliances with colleagues in other departments, seeking out new solutions to old problems, and anticipating challenges on the horizon. And in today's increasingly diverse workplaces, they are often people who have pursued unusual educational and career paths, traveled widely, and speak more than one language. Judi Neal has a term for these people: Edgewalkers. Literally, an Edgewalker is someone who walks between two worlds.

I haven't read the book yet and can't request it from the library because the city employees are on strike, but I will when they come back. It seems to me that the author is focused on the business world but I'm more interested in how these people behave in society. I used to call them 'deviant bees'. I feel that I am one; either a deviant bee or an Edgewalker. I really like the term Edgewalker though. (Find out if you are an Edgewalker by completing Judi's questionnaire)

I see them as the people who walk the edge between the known and the unknown in any community. You could be one in your profession, in your community, your family - in any group really, where the known is trying to grow into the unknown. My friend Julie has always been great at trying out new things that are available on the market. I admire that trait in her and wish I had it. I tend to wait until it has been around for a while, until I get used to seeing it around and someone else has tried it, and then I decide that maybe I'd like to have one.

I think I walk the edge in other spheres. My sphere is the spiritual/emotional. Sometimes I feel that I'm so avant-guard that what I'm looking at doesn't even have words to describe it yet. I like being in that weird territory, even though it isn't always comfortable. I'm willing to risk people not understanding me, or even ostracizing me in some situations. It's worth it. It's where I live. It's home somehow.

I don't imagine that true Edgewalkers try to be what they are. It just happens because of the way they look at the world. I don't even imagine that you could recruit people to be a part of that group. You either came wired that way at birth or you didn't.

All this relates back to what I want to do with my career next. I'm trying to define what I do and how I do it - because how can you get someone to do it with you if you can't say, concisely, what it is and what it can accomplish. but more on that in another blog.

Speaking of blogs, there is a group in the US called BlogHer. These are women bloggers, blogging about everything under the sun. I came across one yesterday and I'll link you to it here. She's talking about what she refers to as the 'S-word' in business. 'S' being spirituality. She carefully defines it as 'not religion' and says that businesses would do well to acknowledge that it is important to a number of employees, and even customers. I'll paraphrase but my take on it is that they will ignore it at their peril.

When I was in the business world in the 80s, and even in the 90s, if you mentioned anything spiritual, you immediately and automatically lost credibility. Many of the issues I work with are related to what we see as spirituality, although I don't think they are truly limited to that area. It's just a catch-all label for a bunch of things we're not yet comfortable talking about in the world of work. Business ethics and personal integrity, values, fears about illness and incapacitation, death, birth, marriage, friendship, self worth and meaning; I think all of these are very much related to our spiritual outlook in life. They may also relate to our religious beliefs and practices but not only to those.

This 'S' area, for lack of a better term, is what interests me. How does it affect how we work and what we work on, with whom and how well? I don't think human beings work optimally without meaning, and meaning is derived from many things. Just wanting more money in order to buy more security and more material things seems a mean and limiting expectation of what motivates us.

I'm hoping that we're going to get fed up with being on the often fear-ridden material treadmill and seek something with richer meaning. I hope that we demand more of our jobs and our relationships at work. Given how much time we spend there and how influential our work environments are on our lives, I hope that we can do better than we have been doing. I suspect that there are a growing number of people who do, or we wouldn't have so many home-based businesses, children being home-schooled, or even people retiring early in order to do something that holds more meaning for them.

I celebrate walking on the edge, in whatever capacity we do it. I found a post card which I gave to my mother years ago. It said:

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.