Love as Infrastructure

What if the polycrisis — climate breakdown, social fragmentation, economic inequality — isn't primarily a failure of strategy, but a failure of love? Systems scientist and organizational philosopher Dr. Louis Klein joins host Mary Schaub to trace the hidden architecture beneath our most visible crises. Drawing on decades of work in organizational development, complexity science, and collaboration with Morocco's Tamkeen Community Foundation, Louis argues that the governance crisis sits atop a deeper relational crisis — and that systems thinking itself must evolve to invite what it once cast out: wisdom traditions, indigenous knowledge, and the irreducible fact of our shared humanity.

Key Topics

✅Hyper-normalization — Adam Curtis's concept applied to our current cultural moment, and why Gen Z's refusal to "fit in" is a coherent response to an incoherent system

✅The Tamkeen experience in Morocco — how a 10-year learning journey co-creating conditions for human flourishing revealed what mainstream change management consistently misses

✅Tamkeen and Makan al-Makeen — the Arabic concepts of fertile potential and safe, nourishing space that no European language quite captures

Takeaways

💡The crisis is layered. Beneath the polycrisis is a governance crisis; beneath that is a crisis of humanity — of how we relate to each other, to nature, and to ourselves.

💡Growth as anxiety. Our addiction to extraction and economic growth is rooted in a legitimate but distorted impulse: the fear of fragility. Understanding that impulse with compassion — rather than judgment — is the beginning of change.

💡The future is invited, not engineered. Transformative change doesn't come from moving from point A to point B. It comes from recognizing what already wants to grow, and creating conditions for it.

💡Capacity isn't built — it's recognized. The shift from "capacity building" to "capacity recognition" is not semantic. It changes the entire posture of leadership, change work, and community development.

Memorable Quotes

🎤"Don't look for love — just remove the barriers you put up to find it." — Rumi, cited by Louis Klein

🎤"You don't need to earn your living. You're living already."

Resources / External Links 

🔗 Adam Curtis, HyperNormalisation (2016 documentary) — BBC iPlayer / YouTube — on the Soviet concept of living a hollow lie for lack of alternatives, applied to our current cultural moment

🔗Donella Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth (1972) — the Club of Rome's landmark systems simulation, referenced throughout

🔗Tamkeen For Our Humanity Foundation (Morocco) — tamkeencommunity.org — the organization behind the 10-year learning journey discussed in depth

🔗Louis Klein's writing on the Tamkeen experience — co-authored with Karima Kadaoui; searchable via the Systems Sciences community and Louis's organizational profiles (IFSR — International Federation for Systems Research

Keywords  

systems thinking and love · polycrisis solutions · organizational transformation · humanizing organizations · Louis Klein systems scientist · Tamkeen Morocco human flourishing · conscious change management · limits to growth Club of Rome · reflective organization · safe and nourishing spaces · complexity and change · love in leadership · HyperNormalization Adam Curtis · capacity recognition · fractals of change podcast

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: FractalsofChange@outlook.com  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

Transcript

Mary Schaub (01:15)

Most change efforts fail not because of strategy or execution, but because they lack love.

Louis Klein (01:24)

I couldn't agree more.

Mary Schaub (01:27)

Wonderful.

I've heard it referred to as a polycrisis, climate, economics, social fragmentation, loneliness, but you've suggested this isn't a collection of separate problems. What are you seeing that tells you something fundamental is breaking down?

Louis Klein (01:47)

If we look at the poli-crisis as we used to call it now, looking at climate change, loss of biodiversity, geopolitical struggle, hunger, poverty, you name it, it's all interconnected on an ontological level. the different crises feed into each other. In the 1960s, the

Club of Rome or what became later the Club of Rome came up with a description of that called the global problematique which is to not look at each of the crises separately but also be aware of the interconnectedness and how they feed into each other. So that is very much on the phenomenological surface but if we

look at it and again following the Club of Rome when they were doing the standard run and the MIT and using the computing power available at the time in the early 1970s to simulate those interconnectedness they were testing not the unfolding of the crisis but they would test what

would be the impact of different policies on the different matters. And bottom line, published later in the Limits to Growth was that we have to first of all, look at all of them together. And secondly, we have to, what I like to call,

move towards a soft landing consumption, consumption, growth, you name it, to really cool it down rather than craving for more growth, for more prosperity, for more extraction. And that is indicating something, and that is the layer underneath that all that we see on the surface and in the phenomena is human made.

It is a governance question. How do we contain our own might, so to speak, as human kind? We can do so many things and we've proven to be able to do so many things of which a lot very beneficial and some not so.

And how to mitigate that, how to balance that, that is the question. However, we say we have the level of the poli-crisis, have an underneath, we have a governance crisis, but what is actually informing and forming our way to govern, to govern our together being as species on the planet?

And this is where humanity comes in, where we say it's a crisis of humanity, it's a crisis of love, it's a crisis, it's a relational crisis. How do we relate to each other? How do we relate to the living nature? And how do we relate to ourselves? So this is how it comes together and where it starts, it starts with ourselves, individually and collectively.

Mary Schaub (05:13)

Wow, I think we can end right there. That was just magnificent. It struck me as you were speaking that this polarity from needing more and more and more. And I had seen a quote somewhere that said unfettered growth is the...

is a framework of a cancer cell or something like that. It's wonderful that we have this drive and it's needed, but we're so over-indexed on it. And it almost feels like we're trying to fill something that we're not getting elsewhere. And I'm wondering if that is is propelling us, this lack of connection and love is feeding into this frenzy for growth that we're trying to get our needs met in unhealthy ways.

Louis Klein (05:56)

When we look at the underlying experience for that craving or for that drive to advance technologically, advance economically and so on, it's a very legitimate experience of being fragile.

as a species, being fragile individually, seeking protection, seeking to, well, protect us today and tomorrow. So there is a lot of wisdom in that very impulse to hold, to secure, to safeguard. And it is, to a certain extent, an expression of care.

And that is, let me just go for there for one moment. That is the beauty in system sciences. So as we know it, that we are not thrown into an either or logic, but we are able to two experiences at the same time.

even if they are conflicting. And that is something we are struggling with in scientifically informed, logically informed thinking that leads to whatever kinds of governance and policies. what here is the important point is that we need to find that balance to

of care, of care that is informed by an anxiety, informed by fear, in the light of our vulnerability on the one hand, on the other side, the trust, the care informed by love

what we see in different wisdom traditions or religious traditions in terms of struggling with that balance.

When we go to the Bible, for example, you'll find passages where it said, those who do not work should not eat on the one hand. And on the other hand, it says, you shall embrace the poor and give, and both sits with you. So you have the question, shall I give those people something to those people who do not work?

because they shouldn't eat or should they eat or shall I just throw myself to the mercies of those who I want to give me and all of this and to acknowledge there is no wrong or right if we try to apply logic we can only dissolve that imbalance from our heart.

to know it is necessary to live that solidarity and care in a community for everyone, because everyone is the same and everyone is different. And those who possess more power, more strength, who are clever.

who whatever makes them stick out, shall feel obliged to use that for the benefit of the community so that we together mitigate balance that challenge of care. And then underneath, it's always the question, what informs our idea of care or what...

kind of community of care are we looking? You see, I'm German and we have the dark ages in the 30s and 40s with the Nazis. And the Nazis claimed to be a community of care. And they were a community of care to the inside and only to a certain limit. And that care, and that is the point

was informed, informed by fear, anxiety and fear, and brought about all that harshness, while if that, if that idea of care, or if care is informed, informed by compassion, by love, by our sense of humanity.

it turns out to be embracing furthering solidarity not only for ourselves but to everyone under the sun.

Mary Schaub (10:55)

That's wonderful. I feel like I need to sit with that. I don't recall in my lifetime certainly listening to public policy or politicians speak and use the word care at all.

It's interesting. You've written that systems thinking promised wholeness, but often reproduces the very fragmentation it was meant to heal. Can you briefly explain what systems theory proposed and where you saw its limitations?

Louis Klein (11:29)

we look at the systems theory and how it was understood from the very beginning and also in our times, it is perceived as a promise, a promise of wholeness and agency. A promise of agency to say, if only we would know more about the subject, we would be so much...

more able to deal with it, would be so much more powerful. We would have leverage, we would have all these kind of wonderful things that evoke that magic that is so often associated with system thinking, system practice. And on the other hand, if we look at...

If you look at the history of system sciences, very at a very early stage moves together with life sciences, ecology, looking at the whole of life on the planets in its interconnectedness and interdependence.

And with that came the idea, if we would understand more about that interconnectedness of the whole and those interdependencies, we would be able to identify those leverage points, almost like in acupuncture. put in the needle and the entire system relaxes towards a better state. However,

Well, we saw a lot of progress in that field. We saw a lot of magic coming with it. However, if you promote wholeness, what do you do if you claim to be a saint? You're still operating on the distinction between the science and that what is outside. You're not inviting that.

which is outside. And at the current moment, I think we see system sciences, system thinking mature to a level where it becomes able to invite that what is not scientific, but relevant to complete the whole or to complete the puzzle for that matter.

wisdom traditions, indigenous traditions, religious traditions, just to start with a few, all that is sort of cast out by science as non-scientific and to re-invite that and to acknowledge, recognise and appreciate the wisdom therein.

Mary Schaub (14:21)

feels like an exciting time.

Louis Klein (14:24)

Indeed it is, and I feel privileged to be part of it.

Mary Schaub (14:29)

I'm wondering at the same time, this polycrisis I referred to earlier, if this is the moment where system science is ready to expand, and if that is a reaction to where we are or if there's any sort of connection, there feels like a...

And this is not a scientific point of view, but it does feel as though we're, as a species, evolving to a certain point where we're taking a leap from what we have known to be familiar. And I'm wondering about the timing. It does feel like we're here at an important time and there's a reason for it.

Louis Klein (15:16)

We started off with the Poli Crisis. Now I would like to bring in an additional perspective that goes back to British filmmaker Adam Curtis who 2016 came up with a documentary called Hyper-Normalisation which was addressing the situation, starting to addressing the situation in the Soviet Union.

in the decade before its collapse. It was a situation where people knew that the Soviet system or the sins making of the Soviet system did not work out. They were living a lie, they didn't, due to the lack of alternatives, they just went along. Went along, struggled,

not waiting for the collapse, not seeing another way out and felt stuck and felt stuck in a life that felt very, very hollow and shallow. And I think that we are living at the time, not only the public crisis, for example, look at Jin Zed. We are still struggling. What?

how to understand this young generation that seems to be well educated, fit and everything but does not want to fit in. But then we have to ask the question, fit into what? Fit into a system that is built on plundering the planet, on extraction of natural resources and people.

What do we ask them to become part of it? I with the internet and social media around, we have so much more information about how the world unfolds and a lot of things which we could hide behind the facade, about mining, about...

geopolitics about how we were extracting resources from wherever we could get hold of them. And all of that is visible now. And do you really want to become part of that system as a young person? Probably not. And here again, but what else? What would be the alternative? And we're again stuck in that situation of hyper-normalization where we do not know

We cannot think yet an alternative. There is this bonron about, it's easier to imagine the apocalypse than the end of capitalism. at the moment we cannot really think it. And if you go to system sciences, we see something at the moment which I would call a reflexive term. It's similar to what...

and a mountaineer would do, realizing that he or she got lost. They would go back on the path to the point where they were in a situation where they still had the confidence that they were on the right path. And we experience something like that in systems sciences where we see the turn back to the early 90s.

when there was a lot of hope, a lot of ideas how to contribute to that proverbial better world that we could collectively bring about. In last 30, 35 years, we didn't, didn't really. And so we may want to revolve back to that place.

with all the experience and all the knowledge of the last 30-35 years, start again. And that I think is a very, very exciting moment where all those experiences we made on the way come together, maybe core reflected to grow a shared understanding of what could be

a better path and a better and shared understanding of what could grow out of

that recognition of our humanity beneath what we see in terms of governance and what we see in terms of the crisis.

Mary Schaub (19:54)

It reminds me of how in personal transformation people describe the space between the old you and the new you, by simplifying this. And that it doesn't happen overnight and that sometimes there's this uncomfortable in between stage where you've outgrown something old, but you haven't quite found the new. I love sort of in the fractal nature of it that that applies to something broader. feels, it feels apt.

Louis Klein (20:19)

Mm-hmm.

I love that and the question is are we looking at progress here or what is it we are looking at? And I'm hypercritical of a lot of stage theories that we see in that space and then they have all kinds of colours going with the red and yellow and green and blue and they come in a specific order and...

Mary Schaub (20:44)

haha

Louis Klein (20:48)

there's a top color and there only a few people in that top color and you have to, and there is a way towards it. I am not quite sure that that is really facilitating for what we are looking at between the old you and the new you. What is really the difference?

And I would argue it's a difference of recognition, of self recognition. is not, it's not a change in the form of, I'm completely different. I don't grow wings or, or, or antlers or something. I'm still the same, I'm still the same person immersed in the same social fabric. However, hmm, something changed.

But nothing changed. We had in our experiences in Morocco and the transformation of the education system there, where people describe that as a moment where nothing changed.

Streets were the same, the buildings were the same, the schools were the same, the teachers were the same, the pupils were the same, nothing had changed and everything had changed. It was not in the what, it was in the how, in how people related to each other and how I relate to myself. I may want to describe that as an old me and a new me.

However, probably it's more on the level of self-recognition and self-realization to understand what it means to be a human being. And not so much the specific human being, but a human being with a heart, with compassion, with love.

Mary Schaub (22:55)

You brought up Morocco, so I want to give a little background. In 2019, you received a call from the Tamkeen Community Foundation for Human Development in Morocco. They'd been on a 10-year learning journey, asking the profound and wonderful question, how can we co-create conditions for human flourishing and societal harmony? Just the fact that someone asked a question like that fills me with joy.

very reassuring that people are asking those questions. They had recognized the system science component of their work, but sensed something was missing. Can you tell me about that call and what you came to learn about what was missing?

Louis Klein (23:40)

Certainly. I'd like to go one step before that because I like your joy with the question but that was not the first question. The first question was the question that we usually have in this kind of situation.

⁓ we look out, we look for change and we don't see the change and we ask why despite all the political will and all the money nothing moves on and it's getting worse. And to reflect on that question and question that question, what does that question facilitate? And it rather facilitates looking for corporates.

looking for what's wrong, instead of moving towards a question that is facilitating a learning journey that in itself recognizes and realizes the world we want or the future we want to invite, or not the future we want to achieve, but the future we want to invite. And that makes

and that makes all the difference. And for me, I was coming there as a system scientist and the task I was immersed in, well, systemically, we would say it was a social systemic complexity evaluation, but in the Arabic, much more poetic, they caught my role.

being the mirror to the mirror. A learning journey, a learning journey that looks for how can we co-create the conditions for human co-flourishing and societal harmony is a hermeneutic process, a phenomenological process, is looking at the lived experiences and what can we learn from that lived experience? How can we grow a shared understanding?

Mary Schaub (25:16)

Wow.

Louis Klein (25:39)

in the core reflection of lived experiences. And by doing so, you become a mirror to your own development, to your own being, to your own becoming. And in that situation, having a mirror in which you recognize the process in its capacity, that was my contribution to it.

And what I learned is exactly what we've been talking about earlier, the limits that we impose upon ourselves if we say, we do just do system sciences, or if we say we do project management, or we do community development, all this kind of...

ideas about processes which are very very linear, which start somewhere in a situation we don't like towards a situation we think it's better and then we try to orchestrate resources to get there. People, money, time, you name it. And to, well to haste.

to get things done rather than to recognize and realize one's capacities to let something grow. And that is something.

in my perspective on change is different to what I've seen before and different to the mainstream of project management anyway, but also system sciences to move away from these three horizon and go from A to B, but to recognize what kind of future wants to grow from

what is, and if we recognize differently what is, a different future can grow from it. We're back to the old me and new me. If I start to recognize myself differently, see myself differently, other possibilities come into view, and I can embrace those. can...

live those and the beauty that comes with it is that we are not going towards a future but we invite a future to the present. We live the future in the present and if we do that, we want to live in a society that is more fair, more compassionate and so on, well why don't we start with it right here, right now.

and live in that experience already and grow whatever wants to grow from it from that very experience and in that process taking care to remain in that compassion to remain in that care to seek for that process becoming an expression of our humanity.

Mary Schaub (28:44)

It feels like what you're saying is that we have everything that we need now in a way, which is a very different way than, no, here's that in abundance. Yeah. So sometimes there's this idea and you're going back to, need to, I need to change the person. Or if I'm running a program, here's the target state and these are the things that need to happen. But you're bringing in this different view, this new addition to system science is saying.

Louis Klein (28:51)

in a positive way.

in abundance.

Mary Schaub (29:13)

wait, maybe there's an uncovering, maybe there's something that we need to cultivate that's already here, which is a very beautiful and different way of looking at it. It also occurs to me what you're saying, and it's something you've written about with the Tamkeen process as creating safe and nourishing spaces where people can co-reflect on lived experience.

Louis Klein (29:20)

Mm-hmm.

Mary Schaub (29:42)

It sounds, and as you're speaking now, there's a gentleness, a therapeuticness. There's, you know, I don't want to use the word woo woo at all, there's some metaphysical tones. But to be clear, this work produced measurable outcomes. Can you talk about the tension between gentleness and effectiveness? And is there a tension or is it actually complimentary?

Louis Klein (30:11)

struggling to see the tension, I have to admit. And I'd like to go just for a moment back to the vuhu, or back to the magic.

The first blog post that we wrote together, Kali Makadhawe, the executive president of Tumkin, and me to start publishing about the journey was titled Beyond the Magic. There's so many people in the process described it as being magical in its...

outcomes in its sensation, the experience of the process. And you went to the safe and nourishing spaces, the meccan, the meccan. And we went to the term keen and the word to keen. It's such a beautiful word. We don't have that in English. We don't have that in German. It is describing the potential of a certain consolation like

the seed finding its perfect ecological niche. We know there will grow something will grow out of it. But it becomes very, very, very close and deuterous. Imagine the situation you are entering a cafe or a restaurant and you overlook the scene, ⁓ a few people, windows on one side and whatever.

There's one chair, there's one seat that calls you, because you have the intuition that this is the place where you will enjoy the hour or whatever in that cafe the most. You have that intuition, we all have that intuition. And there's voo-hoo about it, but something that we trust and that we learn that we can trust.

And if you take that as a criteria into a learning process, into the recognition of whatever constellation, be it a group, an organization, a school, an education system, an entire society, a nation, tap into that feeling, use it as a mirror to

your ideas of what it is and what could grow from it and have that and look at what could grow from it in that mirror does that does that feel like something that is contributing to the core flourishing and the societal harmony or not and if yes do it if not ⁓ leave it aside and and that is

In those components, it becomes very, very, very tangible. Also the McEnmockean. McEnmockean is not that safe space that we think of if we say the word. It is the moment you are together with somebody you trust. End of the week.

Again, in the cafe with your best friend, what do you do? You talk about the week and what you experience, you call reflect lived experience and you grow a shared understanding how what happened to you lands with you or what you want to make ⁓ out of it and what it facilitates, what openings are there, what needs to be done next. It comes kind of naturally and in that

It can be in the cafe, it can be on the sidewalk, it can be everywhere where you and your friend or your friends co-create that space which is safe because you can show yourself, can go there with your vulnerabilities, with your questions, with your anxieties, with your insecurities and it is nourishing because watch that

shared understanding that grows from it brings you back into a state of certainty. You again find your place in the world in that relationship with your friend, in the relationship with the world and that is very, very nourishing.

Mary Schaub (34:35)

What you're describing, certainly for me personally, I've met in a cafe with friends since I was young, but I've recognized a shift over the years where a more embodied presence in those environments has become more important. When I was younger, I don't think I could have told you what that meant.

And I certainly didn't know what it felt like in my nervous system. I would just say, I'm in my twenties. We're going out. This is a fun cafe. We're out and about being seen. Maybe we had a good chat. We laughed, but it's what you're describing is a very different felt sense experience. doesn't mean that the first one isn't is bad. It was certainly had its place, but once I felt and understood the difference and how it felt.

And as you're describing, feeling one's place and uncertainty and understanding and connection, now it has become so critical in my relationships and even sitting down with people. I can feel if it's there or not, or if it's possible or not. The Tam Kean work demonstrated how this energy exchange was beneficial beyond personal relationships.

and you've referred to it as the standing in the spaces. Can you speak about what it means for leaders and change practitioners to hold space and maybe somewhat practically, how does what we're describing between two people scale when you're working with large groups and communities and organizations?

Louis Klein (36:11)

I'd like to go back to the 1990s and the idea of the learning organization. In the 90s the learning organization was all over the place and if the organization only knew what it knows and going deep and trying to extract all the data and all the learning histories and all that.

but it didn't move into a fruitful direction. And in the zero years, it was almost forgotten already. It's coming back now, but with the Tom Keane experience, it becomes so of clear-ended. What we overlooked is, if you...

want to learn, you need to make space and take time and make time your best ally. Create those or co-create those safe and nourishing spaces. Just let it happen. And if you look at organizational and corporate realities these days, everything is sort of...

driven towards efficiency and all those spaces where you wouldn't identify immediately that there's something getting done. They're sort of cut out without an idea of what it actually was that had been cut out back then. And to bring that back is the call of the moment. To bring these spaces back and

not over engineer them. I mean I'm in the field of organizational development and change management and strategy advisory for many many many years and in the early years I thought I need to come with a lot of knowledge, I need to come with theory and programs and you name it. What I learned over the years is

best contribution I can bring, best thing I can do is to hold the space and not getting into the way to have to hold the space for the people in an organization, in an institution, in a community to co-reflect their lived experiences. They have the knowledge, because they have the experience.

And that is something I very much learned with Tonkin. We can really trust the human nature to, in those moments, really relaxing into a gentleness, a softness, a kindness in that core reflection. Sometimes it starts with a battle of ideas and a right and wrong.

But over time, and if you make it a habit, you relax into it. There's only so much time you can run around chest banging before it becomes ridiculous. And if you have a space then that catches you and say, okay, come on, it's all right, come on, sit here.

What did you experience? What can we learn from it? What can we learn to get that? It works. It is again, we can describe it as magic, but we can also describe it simply as human nature. And this is where we are not daring, where we trust our humanity.

Mary Schaub (39:48)

Earlier in your career, you were sort of onto this idea. So you, you were at Daimler-Benz and in the nineties, I believe, is when you were doing your research there. And that research revealed that organizations couldn't learn without continuous reflection on lived experience, not just annual employee surveys or the periodic workshops as you're describing.

Louis Klein (40:11)

you

Mary Schaub (40:17)

but continuous reflection. And what's coming up for me as you're speaking and going back to the word Tamkeen is this fertile ground that...

creates the environment for all good things to grow. I find it really interesting that years before Tamkeen, your research was pointing to this. Were you aware of that distinction

Louis Klein (40:54)

In my personal journey over the years, it very much started with a learning organization. also, back in the time when it was still a topic, it came hand in hand with ideas of continuous improvement, total quality management, which was another way to make space to improve, to come together.

on the shop floor, what did we experience, what can we do better, how can we do it better? And there was this recognition that this is a very conducive, very, very nourishing way for a learning organization to...

grow from itself, out of itself, into itself, into a further recognition of itself. And you were touching on my time with that, LeBenz. I was in the in-house consulting unit and I did my PhD with that research and called it the Reflective Organization, Corporate Consulting.

But we saw there as an intuition of the organization that it had to attribute capacity, people, to hold that space, to support the organization in that reflection of its own being and becoming. Intuitively.

Because the moment you would ask the question, what is the reason that the reason for being for such a department, it is consulting, but it's but it's on the inside. It is the people are employees of the company. It doesn't really fit. And the moment you would ask the question, that was a bit of a finding of my my my thesis back then.

the organization would cast it out. And that is actually what happened. Around the turn of the century, we saw this kind of in-house consulting as a trend in many, companies. A few years later, only a few survived because the organization couldn't answer the question, why do we need that? They had an intuition for it.

but driven by the idea we need to be more effective and productive, they cut it out. And for me, well, they cut it, they cut the unit out and they cut me out. And I found myself on the other side for a couple of years, actually 20 years, being in that space of organizational development, consulting, coming from the outside and supporting

organizations to become understanding organizations. So that's the path from the learning organization to the reflecting organization to the understanding organization. Knowing about the difference between knowledge and understanding.

Knowledge is facts and figures and empirical things, while understanding is so much more. It embraces the whole being of the individual, of the group, of the organization as a social ecosystem. And if at that point...

you allow yourself in that mikenmikeen, in that spaces to trust our humanity. You move from the understanding organization to the humanizing organization. And it's not a step. It's a deepening in recognition and realization what's already there.

Mary Schaub (44:48)

Did you know when you were cast out that there was no turning back, that you already had this innate understanding of what organizational change needed? Because you could have very well become a very, very successful efficiency consultant and continued down that path where there was demand, but you didn't. Instead, you started your own firm.

with the motto, another change is possible.

Louis Klein (45:18)

Yes, but there is one detail here. I didn't really start the firm. It sort of crystallized. It was sort of a bunch of outcasts, people who were consultants prior or...

worked for large companies and had that idea, that sensation, that intuition, another change is possible. That's not it. What we were invited to live in these organizations or in these consultancies, that's not it. There must be more. it happened, well, probably Berlin was the right place for it because so much was possible.

late 90s, early zero years, Rens were cheap, the city invited you to broaden your perspectives, to think wide beyond the horizon. And in that atmosphere, we teamed up and said, let's put ourselves on the journey. And...

and live that recognition and live it as an organization ourselves before we share it in the consultancy, in the organization to development settings or transition change, you name it. And that was very, very, that was very, very rewarding. It was a great time of a lot of laughter, a lot of joy, a lot of...

it advances a lot of outcomes. It had already that those elements of joy, those elements of nourishing, those elements of realizing or recognizing, realizing the relational

and human aspects in the organization not as a regulated behavioral setting, but as a social ecosystem.

with its capacity to flourish.

Mary Schaub (47:18)

You had your own test kitchen. In a way.

Louis Klein (47:21)

Indeed,

indeed, and we enjoyed that very very much.

Mary Schaub (47:25)

by the way, you're a beautiful writer. And I've really enjoyed reading what you've written. And there's a phrase you've used. We are both gardener and garden.

Louis Klein (47:29)

Thank you.

That is again a recognition from the Tamkeen experience.

In a social ecosystem, whatever we do to each other, to the system, we do to ourselves. And whatever we do to ourselves, we contribute to the system. It is a call flourishing, a call...

It's more than creation, really holds that organic element of thriving and flourishing. And there's one aspect that comes with it is the inescapability of it.

When we get, when we debate, we're back to the public crisis now, debate a lot of biodiversity and climate change and all of that. We seem to draw a line between humankind and nature to different things, but we are not. And to realize that, and also to...

to dissolve all these hyper romantic ideas of untouched nature and what we are part of nature, our sheer existence makes a difference that makes a difference to whatever we'd like to call nature. And throughout all civilizations that know of a paradise, the prevalent

image of paradise is a garden, is the recognition that we have the capacity throughout existence and what we can contribute to beautify even something that is so beautiful like nature.

And again, saying nature is beautiful, yes, but we know about climate catastrophes, we know about all kinds of power of nature, which renders us very vulnerable. But we are able to co-create a space, a garden, which we are part of.

that we would call paradise in the end. Isn't that beautiful?

Mary Schaub (50:07)

It's

so beautiful. I've become a gardener in recent years and I mean, who doesn't like a garden? It's not like this was a big shift. didn't dislike gardens, but there's something really very spiritually moving when you start to tend your own garden. And I think it's the felt experience of exactly what the words are that you're saying. And

It also evokes for me, it brings up Jung and Buddhism and so many, as you were speaking of earlier, spiritual and indigenous concepts that have been around forever, that we've let fall to the wayside that has been our species knowledge for some time. And maybe in the disconnection from nature,

is where everyone moves to the left brain and thinking about efficiency and how many data centers we can put in this space. And so we feel a disconnection to it. Some people cry. I literally had this experience. We were doing a little bit of construction and there was these lovely trees right outside my office window and birds would sit on the trees. And as I'd work during the day, I'm always looking outside and

of Rose of Sharon, think they were beautiful. And when the landscaper came to move them or get rid of them for this construction, I said, can you put them somewhere else on the property? And he explained to me all the reasons why that didn't make sense. It was expensive at 20 % chance of success rate. And so he pulled them up and I wept. And I actually felt my legs buckle. It was a really profound experience because I felt like I was killing.

this tree that I had this power. And I, you know, I've not told this story before. It seems silly, but in these years, since I've really come to feel connection with my garden and to watch the seasons pass, it's, it's had an enormously positive effect on me in all sorts of, of different ways. And, and of course we know

some of the research I'm going to have someone on later this season who does biophilic design. It's just speaking of the tangible changes in humans when they're surrounded by trees. And I think Europe's far ahead in this where there'll be redevelopments and they'll add more trees or put in walkways. And we know again, the science and the feeling of the knowing is that we know that this is good for us.

Louis Klein (52:38)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Mary Schaub (52:48)

It's beautiful.

Louis Klein (52:50)

Yes!

Mary Schaub (52:53)

I want to read another beautiful thing you've written. Love integrates experiences of completion, wholeness, well-being, and embodied understanding. So framed this way, it feels logical that love is essential to transformation. But there's also a feeling somewhere inside that it can also feel inappropriate for me to think that.

or that it would be a threatening idea. Now on the back of the success of the Tamkeen work, is this changing people's idea of feeling more comfortable talking about what we're talking about in the context of transformation? Has Tamkeen changed that?

Louis Klein (53:41)

Certainly for me. Well, I had a propensity to talk about love. There has been a time when I was a research director at the International Centre for Complex Project Management, when Canberra was affiliated to it. We were very much involved with...

with the defence industry and their question, why is it that all these defence projects don't meet the schedule, are so costly and hardly produce any quality? And the culprit at the time was complexity. So we tried to get our heads around complexity and people in project management and all of that and very much.

resonated with what we've been talking about through our conversation here. at that time, I don't know, what kind of bit me? When I was sort of at the academia,

Militaire in Paris, I was sort of lecturing about complexity in projects and the different perspectives, the cultural and the social and the technological. And there would always be one slide somewhere in the stack that says, love is the answer. it was just sort of, I don't know, I just put it there just to test the audience to see. ⁓

Mary Schaub (55:01)

love it. It's

wonderful.

Louis Klein (55:03)

Yes.

Yes. And I still meet people from those years. And the only thing they remember from all these great, great research and science and concepts is that one slide. And there was something that really struck there.

and address that intuition that we have. And with a Chunkin experience and what we were talking about in terms of enlarging or transforming system science from itself, out of itself, into itself, embracing indigenous wisdom, all kinds of wisdom traditions, spirituality, religion and all...

all that humankind came up with to find a language for its experience and for the possibility to find that balance out of which this cool flourishing can grow. And ever since I...

I try to bring that into my scientific work and usually nowadays somewhere you'll find the sentence, what's love got to do with it? And to bring that in, to call that in, not in a gesture to say, well I'm a...

That is the final solution, probably it is. However, to invite that, to inform and form our recognition and realisation of the whole human being, the whole of what it means to be a human being or humankind, to understand our humanity.

and to invite that, to allow ourselves to have that question, not only when we go to jet, not only on a Sunday morning or on the weekend, but as an integral part of what we're doing, day in, day out.

Mary Schaub (57:15)

For the uninitiated, it feels like all they need to know is that it works until they're able to feel it. But the person who said that that was the slide that they remember, it's a very clever way of you gave them a lot of information for them to know the knowledge, but that one slide is where they came to understand it, it seems.

Louis Klein (57:39)

Shams Tabrizi, the companion from Brumie, poet and mystic, once said...

All the study and all the books only bring us to the door. It is love that allows us to enter.

Mary Schaub (57:57)

Wonderful. And on that, if for those who are still thinking with their left brain, this Tamkeen work, you've been able to understand why maybe these government programs, and we always see these statistics of the percentage of change initiatives that fail, but it really is the trust and rapport that helps the behavior change without coercion.

Right. You've spoken about the Tamkeen work where you were saying choices were just understood. It just sort of happens in that space, that magic that you're describing, which is so different from how traditional programs work where there's stakeholder meetings and you have to socialize ideas and then there's meetings to run things through.

you think that it's an efficient approach, but actually what you're describing is take the time, go this route, take the time and all of that alignment getting and socializing and politicking, you don't need that anymore because it's happening within the relationship without coercion.

Louis Klein (59:05)

It always, it is always what we gravitate to. There have been times when I was a helper on construction sites with bricklayers and everything, sort of tough guys.

You come out there in the morning, you say, oh, what's the work today? You send somebody to grab lunch for everybody. You work until lunchtime, then you have lunch, then you talk about what happened in the morning, how far you got, what else is left to be done. Years later, we called that edge art and scrum and all this kind of thing. We kind of brought it back. that is, and now again with this

relationality, and if people work together, they have that, they're not just colleagues, they're comrades in that. They describe themselves as family. They take care of each other. And if somebody...

is not at his eyes of whatever. They compensate for that. They know you'll call it, comrade will compensate for on those days where you're not the best version of yourself. And hedging that in and living that care is what we do naturally. And

If you go a wee bit back in time and look into the fans of the organization and corporation, it is a very, very recent development that we come up with all these kinds of coercive ideas about how to optimize efficiently our behavior.

And the moment you don't watch, the moment you let go of that a bit, things relax and gravitate again to something that is so much more flourishing, much more conducive, so much more nourishing than what we think is the most efficient way to proceed.

Mary Schaub (1:01:21)

We overthink things, overcomplicate things. I've been, well, I've been guilty of this. I am a big over-intellectualizer. And I was going to ask you a question that I think you've just answered, which was around capacity building. Because sometimes, you know, you and I are sitting here talking about these things.

we both have a capacity to understand and be in the space and interact with other people in this way, not everyone does. There were times in my life where I didn't. And so as I was thinking about it, I was trying to plan for the problem. And the problem in my head was, but what if someone on that construction site wasn't on board with love? They weren't going to be like that. But what you're saying is that when the conditions are set, maybe

that person's offered a little grace. They're offered some space. We know John is a little, he's not as soft and fuzzy as the rest of us, but we love him anyway and we accept him. And just by doing that, John builds the capacity because he's been given that grace and that acceptance. having a program that said we have to build capacity for all the humans to know how to do this, but...

Louis Klein (1:02:08)

you

Mary Schaub (1:02:34)

We know how to do this. This is our nature. This is human. This is what being a human is, right?

Louis Klein (1:02:42)

And if we move away in the language from the building to a recognition, capacity recognition, we unlock it. There's nothing that we don't, we're not looking at something that is not there and that we have to sort of put things in and do things to achieve that or to construct it. It's there already. And what we need is that

safe and nourishing space to recognize it. Or back again to Thammele Tha Samstha Phrishe who said, what all the prophets told us, find yourself a mirror. So we recognize our own capacity in the mirror of the other. So what we can do is to be that mirror.

for a person to recognise their own capacity for love, for going the extra mile and everything in between.

Mary Schaub (1:03:47)

This is so, it's so inspiring. I love these topics, but they feel even more precious in light of, if we go back to the polycrisis and the sense of urgency, I think many of us feel in the world. It feels like Tam Kean offers hope about creating sustainable change.

which improves the lives of people not just through the execution of programs, but through the creation of relationships. Is there one thing you could recommend that people can begin doing to humanize their organizations and communities?

Louis Klein (1:04:30)

There's nothing we do to humanize. We recognize it. if we, for that moment, we go, for example, to leadership, what would that ask from leadership? It is to have the courage to trust, to make space, to take the time and be the mirror in which...

the people you're entrusted with, recognize the better version of themselves. Not you as a role model, but as a mirror to them. It's not an imitation game. It is really recognizing your own light in the mirror of the other. And that is what a good leader can do. And that is what good leaders always have done.

Mary Schaub (1:05:21)

Do you feel hopeful?

Louis Klein (1:05:25)

Absolutely. I would love to go back to leadership development and the skills. What these programmes do is not teaching skills. They bring courage. They bring the courage by

kind of giving the permission to relax into the trust, to have courage, to trust our humanity at the workplace, in the community, in the institution, in politics. Yes, get, well, probably it's easier to sell if you call it a skill, but there's so much more to it.

And this is what's giving me hope. you reduce it to skills and training, yes, it is. It creates an opening again, but there's so much more to it, which we already possess, which we already have, which we are invited to recognize, possibly in this kind of leadership and development programs.

but we can be the mirror to each other wherever we are.

to whomever we meet.

Mary Schaub (1:06:40)

We covered a lot today. As we close, I wanted to give you an opportunity to raise anything that we might not have covered

Louis Klein (1:06:48)

I would love to come back to you. What changed for you from the beginning of the interview to now? Is there something you see different now?

Well, then I will come with my answer.

Mary Schaub (1:07:03)

I'm very aware in myself of this tension of seeking to know the knowledge, trying to, as I said again, over intellectualize things. I've spent my whole career doing transformation and loving structure and order and process, and then seemingly completely disconnected in parallel to that.

There's another side of me that exists that's deeply spiritual, loves solitude and philosophy and gardening. And I think I am really trying to understand how these things can integrate in a way that feels right and complimentary. And I know that that's what I'm doing and that's what I want.

But as I was reflecting on some of the questions I had for you, I saw that I was leaning more towards the left side. Questions like, okay, well, you have the soft side of change and the hard side of change and Tamkeen, how did you integrate those to have the two groups work cohesively together? And yet, what I'm feeling and what makes me very happy is...

your slide that love is the answer, that that's the answer, that that is sort of, you know, every time I'd have one of these questions, these left brain questions, and I just could imagine the slide that you had. And that it feels like, of course, that's the answer. And of course, that's where all paths keep going. And this whole season, everyone I'm talking to, subconsciously, I'm bringing people in from all these disciplines that are saying, this is what we're realizing that

relation in love and kindness and compassion that this is the answer and all these different problems.

But I'm seeing that there is an attachment to maybe a fear of letting go of that other, that structure, the rigor, the discipline. And when I asked you the capacity question and you were saying, well, we just, we have that inside. And so,

Or, you know, we're going, we, we know, we know the right thing to do because now we're trying to roll out agile, but we still need to roll it out and have a program. What's getting in the way of us just getting back to our true nature and just relaxing into it. Because I think everyone just feels very tired. And as you said at the beginning, I think Gen Z and others where we're recognizing that what we've been doing isn't working. And I think we're all desperate for something else.

And I think it's right there, but there's a little bit of an attachment to the old way that we need to keep practicing on loosening and softening and letting go.

And that's what this conversation has reminded me again, that this is the way and we can do this, but it probably will require some softening of some old ways of being.

Louis Klein (1:09:58)

I'd like to land on, in the light of your answer, on one thing that brings us back to the very beginning of our conversation where you were asking about the unfettered growth and the craving. There is in our culture an element that dislocates our locus of value.

We think or we are taught that we are our achievements, we are our money, we are our titles, we are our... you name it. And to, like a dislocated disc, relax into the locus of value that recognizes that you are beautiful.

the way you are, that you have all that is needed not only to be yourself, but to contribute to that core flourishing and societal harmony we are all desire and you're good as you are, you're welcome to this world as you are, you don't need to earn your living, you're living already.

and to have that recognition of that beauty inform all your further steps or your further relationships because you are already the best version of yourself. And as Rumi once said, don't look for love, you just remove the barriers which you put up to find it.

and you don't fight for love. Love.

Mary Schaub (1:11:50)

That is so beautiful. And I think what was so wonderful about this exchange was that I was aware of how relaxed and happy I felt as you were speaking. And I thought to myself, could you imagine if going to work and talking to colleagues brought up this feeling? Can you imagine if the people around you...

engaged with you in this way, how safe and how creative, how kind and how generous you would be. And just in this space between us and as we're talking about leaders and their teams or organizations and communities, how profound it would be if we created this field of acceptance that would allow others

to soften into their true nature and how we would immediately feel it back, right? As you were saying earlier about what's inside is outside and how it would multiply.

So beautiful.

Louis Klein (1:13:03)

What you're describing here is very much the essence of the humanising organisation, or for the matter and the experience in Morocco, the humanising education system. Imagine the kids, students, pupils go to school exactly with that.

joy to go there, to be with the others, to learn and to have a good time and leaving school energized, nourished, full of joy, bringing that to their families, to their communities and vice versa. When this is what we see growing in Morocco for example, but also in other places.

And I think that this is our true capacity.

may just find the courage to relax.

Mary Schaub (1:13:59)

And to your point about agency, when the world feels complex and overwhelming, this is something we can all do in our interactions, in our responses versus reactions. And we can put this energy out in the world and watch what happens and garden our garden. So what a wonderful conversation.

Lois, is, your work is inspiring. And I really do believe it, it's offering a ⁓ concrete approach to making positive transformations, not just for organizations and communities, but in individuals and their families. imagine a generation growing up where this is more the norm. Imagine that future where this starts to become how we.

We live. It's maybe it's rose colored glasses, but your work actually makes it feel very tangible. And thank you for that. Thank you for the work you do. And of course your kindness and generosity and spending time with me today. Thank you.

Louis Klein (1:15:11)

and thank you for your time and your contribution to bring us all together and to facilitate sharing what me and others on the show may share with the world and you make it possible. Thank you so very much.

Mary Schaub (1:15:28)

Thank you.