Chris Parker: This is Chris Parker with the Business Simplicity podcast and I just had a conversation with Aline Frankfurt and she’s the author co-author of The Art of Shapership and this is an invitation to create much more positive futures beyond simple leadership and entrepreneurship. And we go wide and far and deep and get into the power of the intuition, the power of beliefs in maintaining the status quo. And we go into some different anecdotes and stories of people that have really changed the world for the positive beyond simple profit motive. It was great. So Aline, why would it be valuable or inspirational for people to listen to this conversation?

Aline Frankfurt: Well, maybe there are some keys for everyone who wants to become a sort of not activist in the usual sense but activist of their own future or life. Just to find, to reclaim the power and freedom to consciously operate some shifts in perspectives and say okay maybe I’m just looking at the world in a way that encourages my life to continue the way it is and I’m happy with it or maybe I’m just feeling the desire for something else and see how much pleasure it might be to consciously choose new ways of looking at the world. And there are some keys in this podcast. I think that we give the best we can and with truth and not with so much theory more inner wisdom.

Chris Parker: Welcome to the Business Simplicity podcast where Chris Parker explores how leaders cut through complexity to accelerate strategy, execution, and growth with calm, clarity, and confidence.

Welcome back to the Business Simplicity podcast. I’m having a conversation with Aline Frankfurt who is coming in from Brussels. We are part of a network of coaches called the Enablers Network and she is involved in many things. Probably too many to mention but as involved in education in coaching consulting book writing and shaping the future or changing the perception of people to change the future. We’re going to unpack all of that. This is a gift for me I feel to unpack the word shapership and earlier she said you know to get beyond the cult of leadership and entrepreneurship and these are just such triggering words for me I cannot wait to discover more about shapership and in the show notes I will include link to her book The Art of Shapership The Eye Only Sees What the Brain is Ready to Understand. What she wrote with Jean Louise Bowen.

I’ll include the link there, but I believe we’ll also go into some new territories. There’s some discovery territory. So, it’s I think in this case strap in your seat belts because this is going to be I hope a wild ride with someone who is so dynamic in her thinking. So, Aline, can you just start with and then we’ll discover how to get there. What is the word shapership mean? Shapership. What is that?

Aline Frankfurt: Yes. So shapership comes from the verb to shape like shaping a diamond. And ship like you have in craftsmanship or in friendship or in leadership in entrepreneurship of course. And so the ship means a craft or a skill in a particular field. And shapership is the art, the craft of shaping new realities. And we as I said to you, we invented this word because we had projects that were called shaping the future and we were so fed up with leadership and entrepreneurship that we began to see as words that needed to be re thought or reinvented because when we turn to someone to find leadership, it’s not always at the top that we find them. And entrepreneurs for us many of them or too many of them might be just creating something a job without thinking far further in terms of what we called shaping or opening new path towards the future. So we invented this word shapership as the art of making new path visible, desirable and actionable.

Now you might say oh this is what entrepreneurs do. But we started to say that maybe some people in the past and in today’s world have been opening new path that were invisible before them in fields like medicine, justice, maybe management, care, whatever. And we decided to look at the way they looked at the world and how they shaped new realities. And of course, shall I give you some words on the already so much we can go into this.

Chris Parker: What I’m really curious is what was it that was making you fed up about leadership and entrepreneurship? What was not allowing this openness for future potentials because you had a reaction there. You’re like leadership and entrepreneurship was failing. Therefore, we needed this new framing of the invitation for the future. So what was it that was failing in the current paradigm of those terms?

Aline Frankfurt: To me it’s of course it’s just my point of view just I felt that we are mixing being at the top of a company with being a leader and status is supposed to give people the to make them deserve the name of leaders but in fact they might be on top of nothing. And very often in my perception they are not on top. They are on top of a pyramid but not on top of complexity. They lack a vision that really opens new doors to the future. And it starts sometimes to be frightening to see how much they like creativity. And so in the board the decision where decision strategic decision happen and sometimes impact thousands of people hundreds or thousands when you decide the direction well for deciding the direction there is a need to have options and creativity and I discovered that at the top of the system very often people lack a lot of creative options so it’s as if they were making decisions out of lack of vision and now they there is a lot of talking going around talking about realism. We need to be realist. Yes. But being realist demands vision otherwise it’s blindness. And so I started to discover that there are many so-called leaders who are little boys as I call them. And I’m sorry to be so critical but it’s really something that that is to be said that it’s first it start with courage which is from the heart. Courage it doesn’t mean to be tough. It means to have an open heart with open mind.

Chris Parker: Let me just be super vulnerable on this and give you an example from my very recent experience and behind the example is is this not a systemic issue meaning these pyramid structures are primarily power-based and authority-based and in my case I was speaking to someone a good friend who’s was a top head hunter in London and we were basically talking about my career and where it’s going because I’ve been a CIO. I’ve been that leadership CIO CTO. I’ve have these C labels and in one hand those are really nice. You have power, you have influence, you have budget, you’ve got people, you can get stuff done that you think is a good idea. You get a lease car and money in the bank and all these nice things. And his feedback to me which was I had to invite him to give me the feedback. He said, “Chris, it’s really unlikely that you will ever again be a chief of a large multinational again.” And he said, “And simply, it’s because of risk. Chris, you’re too creative. You’re too colorful. You move you’re too much of a generalist.” and he said those are all the things I love about you but when it gets to large corporation decision-making for these chief roles there’s a thousand people who are striving for that power internally and finally it gets to the point of what is the least risk appointment they can make and Chris you are risk because you change things you break things you influence things and that was such a gift to hear that black and white from him and I was like yeah looking at my career, I am always involved in a portfolio of things and exploring the new and messing it up a lot and failing and so I get that. My I guess my question is is it not a systemic those little egotistical boys as you called and sometimes girls and the system calls for those people to in a lot of ways to be part of the operational immune system to keep things from changing. So I don’t know I think there’s a systemic dimension and a need for the fresh and the new and the art of the possible. So, so how do you reconcile the those conflicting perspectives?

Aline Frankfurt: I think that there is you’re perfectly right. I think if I share with you there is the system itself, the dominant system, let’s put it that way and the way the economy currently works. We’re talking about this universe of company so far. But in this world, of course, there is a chase for power. That means that you have certain rules to respect if you want to move up the ladder. And of course, obeying those rules rather than disobeying them means that at the top you very often have the most obedient people, not the most creative ones. And disrupting the rules is an art in itself. And there are some leaders who disrupted the rules. Now the thing is that I’m not accusing anyone. I know it’s very complex to be in a system like that.

And you cannot be alone against the system. So how do we change the system from within might be a good question but I would say you talk about power power of decisions power whatever I’m saying something really stupid but I like this idea that I’m observing myself sometimes entering even a bakery with being a customer and sometime with something is dissatisfaction creates dissatisfaction. I’m looking at myself and one day I looked at myself being disagreeable and I thought well who do I think I am suddenly in power or what? And I think that we need to observe our little reactions everyday reactions. How much power might create a certain arrogance the illusion of being on top of something even for a minute or whatever. So resisting power is in itself difficult. Have you seen how the faces of people change when they are in power for a long time? They don’t look more alive. They look like they have lost their soul sometimes. And I say it very clearly. Go in a shop where there are very rich people and look at them. Watch what they how much aliveness there seems to be. What does it mean to be alive? We meet people. we know where they are alive and there is an animation in French anime is a soul it’s the soul so I’m not talking spirituality here I’m talking just basic life now we put words the way you want but what I’m interested in with all the search I’m interested in is about this power and freedom we have as human being to precisely change something which is the microcosm within our mind. I’m not talking about changing the world outside directly but first the power and freedom to change the way we see things and that’s where I thought that the leadership to come to your first question leaders sometimes have lost even the entourage or the people around them and for this little battles with plastic helmets and stages and sometimes they start to be afraid and they don’t realize they are in a power game which doesn’t mean more than power game and life has been sucked out of those companies and I think that it’s a question of bringing it back and starting to make people feel that they can really start to feel where life is in their mind and heart and soul. And that’s where leadership to me is in danger if it becomes soulless and dead like I think we should be careful about that.

And the second thing about entrepreneurship is not it’s Adam Arvinsson. Arvinsson is a Swedish guy who lives in Italy and he wrote a book which I really admire for the difficulty of the entrepreneurs to stand out at the moment and do something that is really differentiating for the world and I believe that entrepreneurship is great and at the same time a friend of mine and she’s in the health business. She said I’m going to create a company. I said great it’s a great idea. What are you going to do? I’m going to sell this product and blah blah blah. And then I presented to her shapership which will come and I said there is another way of thinking which is rather than ego driven or in a narrow scope. How about having an outward scope and really start to focus on what the world demands? What the world demands because this really needs to change. And how about associating the ecosystem to answer that rather than me myself and my company and me being an entrepreneur. How about creating the needed coalition to create the system solutions that the world needs and that would be more powerful. I think there are examples of that which I admire. And there’s still too much ego in entrepreneurship. Sometimes it’s changing. But so the idea is to inspire shapership is a proposal to give added dimensions which will be the subject I guess. the added dimension as an inspiration, potential inspiration to people whatever they do without any obligation.

And maybe the keys we propose are universal because they can be used by a 15-year-old girl or man without status and a guy at the top of something. whoever who is human, whatever age, gender, education might receive this. And that’s what I wanted to grab on that.

Chris Parker: So what the world demands and I’m assuming that this is not I demand a different type of hamburger from McDonald’s. This is not what we’re talking about here. I think we’re talking about a different level of demand. So, I’d love to unpack a word demand and then if you can explore a little bit how shapership can allow that 15-year-old girl to connect with that demand, that purpose, that intent, that I feel where you’re going, but can you walk me down that path of how shapership can enable me to fulfill that demand.

Aline Frankfurt: I feel that if I tell you one of the stories it will be easy to feel the thing and then apply it to whatever question and another person. So is it okay if I tell you a story?

Chris Parker: Please. Yeah, please.

Aline Frankfurt: So, let’s say one of them there is a man in India. He’s 55 years old. He’s an ophthalmic surgeon. He got an arthritis that prevents him from operating people. His name is Dr. V. is living in India and he does the first thing that I think that shapership means. He looks at reality square in the face reality as it is. So he looks at his country and what he sees is that there are millions of people who are becoming blind because of lack of preventive care. So the shapership attitude is first to look at reality as it is and to feel that we don’t need to say this is the way it is. We are not prisoners of fact and then some of them they say screw it. Some they say what I call a big no. A big no is I cannot stand the status quo. This is like being in the middle ages. So this man he says a big no. I cannot stand that. And if you follow this now I’m talking about something a big no is something in our body it’s a I cannot stand that it’s not an idea about something it’s wow somewhere I’m touched and then if we remain in the big no that might be a durable attitude but we need something and feel how much it’s natural to say we need a big yes we need a big yes which is a transformative vision. And so this man, he says, sorry, you want to ask

Chris Parker: What just is exploding in me is and it’s core to one of my beliefs is I see many many people then get stuck in the big no and then they get stuck in the rage against the big no. They talk about the big no. They report on the big no. that’s becoming an activist and it I will give you an example which is famous after because I think it’s a major issue to connect the three and so that’s why I’m saying as Buckminster Fuller the futurist he said if you want to change the system you don’t fight the existing system you create a new one that makes the old obsolete

Aline Frankfurt: Yeah great so what does this man Dr. He says a big yes. And now I’m going to tell you this the sentence which is so interesting. He says I’m going to eliminate useless blindness among the poor. Okay. Useless. Okay. Now this is from this is the amplitude of what Martin Luther King said. I have a dream. He didn’t say I have a nightmare. And I think that this big yes is like this. It’s I’m going to eliminate needless blindness. Everyone puts a finger in their forefront. They say this man is crazy. This is what happens to all the people who make a hole in the bubble. Bubble is the jungle of the representation of what we believe is possible and impossible. If we believe we cannot change the system, we won’t do it. So what the shapership what shapership is is first we make a hole and as we know when we make a hole in a bubble light comes in.

Chris Parker: Yeah.

Aline Frankfurt: Yeah. That creates a tension because we might be in our living room quite satisfied and suddenly there is room coming in and we thought we were very well with super sofa and all that and suddenly we look and say gosh it looks like crap So it creates a tension between the place where we are and a possible other world. This is typical. It’s called a double vision. And so Dr. V says I’m going to eliminate needless blindness. He has seven physicians and he’s going to make it. And that’s the third part. We call it anticipative experimentation. It’s reinventing the world because once you have a big no and a big yes, you’re not going to make a timid incremental movement. You need to reinvent the things otherwise it’s weak.

So this guy is going to create alliances with all the women in rural India who often don’t know how to read is going to create an alliance of the tele medicine centers for early diagnosis. Then the poor are too poor to come to the hospital. is going to create a transportation to bring them there. They are operated seven times faster than in Europe because physicians are there to eliminate needless blindness. That’s the vertebral axis. Then they need glasses because they’re not going to come back. So he creates a glasses factory. And in fact, Dr. had an idea that it’s stupid to see how McDonald can create the same hamburger all over the world and we cannot create a super qualitative eye operation for everybody. So he created the system and he asked the rich to pay for the poor. So one rich pays for two poors because they accept to go to a hotel facility. after 30 years the this hospital was diagnosed the best the best eye care hospital in the world at 1% of what it costs in UK as it was evaluated not because it’s in India because they are driven by a big yes which is beyond ego eliminate needless blindness and in 2020 Dr. V is dead for long and they decided to become to eliminate needless blindness in the world not in India. So what does that mean? They don’t have competition because you don’t have competition with that purpose. But who wants to be trained by those people? Not us European too proud. We have Essilor as a company who is going to India doing the same thing as Dr. V as a company told me. What does that mean? They are selling glasses. Yeah, they are not doing the same thing. So I admire this because there is this idea that what seems impossible is made possible by people who create a movement, the coalition of actors very often without any structure, without power. Yeah. Yeah.

And they’re all the same. They create a movement because what they want to see happen the future they make visible by saying I’m going to eliminate needless blindness. Now I don’t have the numbers in mind. He has not eliminated needless blindness but he has taken care of six million people maybe and now they there is this idea that the the story I told to one man who I mean they manufacture plastic components for bags whatever and so they are in business and bags for blood for dialysis in September 2024. He worked to me. He said I’m in Africa. I’m here created a system for people in the deep in the middle of nowhere in the jungle. Sometimes they lost an arm or a leg or whatever. And I have created a system inspired by all those discussion we had. And now they can take a picture of their missing arm or leg. They send it 600 kilometer away to Kinshasa where there is a 3D factory who prints their missing remember on demand for a budget that is I think it’s really affordable in Africa and they are they receive their prosthesis on demand and it was possible because he created a coalition of actors among the nurses hospitals It was inspired by this story and he said to me shapership shapership because otherwise it wouldn’t he wouldn’t think of it. He’s not creating a business is creating a solution to what the world needs in Africa and the other in India and that’s the expression I use is that we used to focus on what needs are but what the world demands is a well it means it needs to happen somewhere. It’s something we cannot just witness the world like that and say my gosh those people are becoming blind and it means three years to live in India. I’m just witnessing this and I don’t give a damn I mean just I know some people they say I’m going to stand up for something and you’re right some people stay in the know. I don’t know if you remember Sydney Lumet movie Network which is a it’s a guy who there’s Peter Finch and another great actor and she’s in the CEO of a network and one guy he just he’s run out of things as he says. So one day he’s just getting mad and he’s telling in front of everybody, I want you to get mad. I want you to stand up and say, “I’m mad as hell.” And there is a famous scene and he goes to the window and he shouts that I’m mad as hell. And in fact, that’s something it’s a big no. But in the movie is hired by Faye Dunaway to say this big no all again and again and some people are just sitting there until at the end of the movie is just shut down because he’s making too much noise but nobody said a big yes. There is this physicians Dr. Mukwege who was in Africa correcting taking care of women who were violated harshly and I think that he did a great job until the moment that he said I’m surprised I’m taking care of the daughter of the woman I took care of a few years ago and I thought maybe he never said a big yes.

Chris Parker: Yeah, he said a big no. No alternative. Yeah. I do remember the network movie because it’s also a multi-layered meaning there was there was a relationship dimension as well between some people and and indeed that I’m damn mad and then they made a TV show out of it and it was just yeah they then they started selling the no they started pushing the no and one of my beliefs is that the more you spend your energy on and energy in your physical self but also your just your life energy, your essence what you focus on will grow, and if you’re focusing on this no, then that no thing will just grow and grow and grow. So that’s what I particularly see in politics is they’re so raging against each other, which actually just enlarges this whole dynamic of againstness.

Aline Frankfurt: Yeah, I think to make it nuance because there is the no I don’t want to the okay I’m going to challenge the rules which is simply say I’m not a slave to the dogma the dogma that’s something which is again it’s not because the others are doing it this way that I have to do it this way it’s not because people tell me that this is not supposed to be done that I’m not doing it It’s not because the facts seems to show that this is difficult. So it’s like being prisoners in fact of either the facts. We don’t we don’t have to obey the facts. We have to look at the facts. We don’t have the truth. We have momentary truth. We have the dogmas of the past. The best practices might not be the next practices. So it’s always taking a the distance to say okay this is the way it is. what am I where do I stand and then then this is not enough then we need to open something to the way things could be and I think this double double vision because vision is always associated with the future but vision of the present is interesting in an institution I worked with which is a university they told me you’re right we never said the big no so He never said a big a big yes.

Chris Parker: Yeah.

Aline Frankfurt: The system is corrupted to the max with power far from teaching and research. And I said to him to start with a big no. Oh, okay. No, blah, blah. 20 years later, the friend of mine, he said to me, you’re right. We never agreed on the fact that the reality we shared was maintained by our power games, by us, that we were in the game. We never agreed to look at the stories we were telling ourselves that were reinforcing the system. So we never could agree on changing the system.

Chris Parker: And why is that bad? I mean most organizations are as we said systemically bound by power and momentum and operational excellence. So standard operating procedures, stamping out the creativity of people as they’re raising, coming up up the road. Is that bad? And I guess my need for non-judgmental observation. It could probably be better. I guess it’s bad if they don’t like it. I don’t know.

Aline Frankfurt: Oh I think that there might be different way to answer but first I don’t think I say it’s bad I say that we should ourselves free ourselves from our shoulds we use too much should we should do that we must do that blah blah blah who what are those rules that companies should make profit and therefore well-being doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. I just say the shoulds and woulds, the should the should and must. is it how you say in English? The should and must of this world are creating automatic thinking patterns, habits. There is only one way to make business. We should do this. We have to blah blah blah. So we have built a world around rules and we live in a chaotic soup of dogmas and shoulds and blah blah and so at the end we repeat those things without thinking and I’m not saying I have the answer but there is something to say for some companies like I was in the other day in a big industry phosphate industry They’re making a lot of money. Business as usual is going fine. Not as fine as before, but they are starting to think that maybe they are a bit too much damaging the environment. pretending they are in health business in agriculture business and making more innovative soil additive whatever while destroying radically the soils and blah blah blah blah blah. So there is the corporate stuff who says everything is fine until one moment somebody like me some other people say you know what there is a difference between technological advancement and betterment. This is Daniel Schmachtenberger. You might make a more powerful soil additive for industrial agriculture. That means advancement. Is it a betterment for the soil, for civilization, for food, for whatever? Not really. So, at one point our business model business models might have reached its end of the fit for purpose. If we consider that life is our purpose. If we consider that profit is our purpose, maybe not. But if I say well maybe sustaining life is a purpose different than and it’s not because we are making profit that we just consider this is an end in itself. So it depends where we put our questions. And so I don’t say for everybody it’s bad, it’s good.

Chris Parker: I’d like to reach back into our previous conversation before we started this podcast and talk about the role of intuition in your belly because could it be that in these organizations that maybe they’re business models are no longer fit for purpose? Is the early indicator the discomfort within the people involved that because I think people know this as well when they’re walking through life, they’re like, “Well, man, something feels off here.” Like, “Are we sure we want to do this?” Like, “Okay, well, I’m making my bonus. I’ve got my big car.” But I was like, my feeling is people are aware of it. Maybe they have covered that awareness with all these shoulds and woulds and titles and things like that. So then the pain gain equation it’s not uncomfortable enough. But that discomfort I think over time that kind of discomfort can also manifest itself in disease in your body and disease in your organizations. It’s something that’s disconnected in its essence. Is that the early indicator? Like if you’re feeling in your belly, something’s off here for me in this space. Is that the signal or is there other signals that we need to call the lean because we’re on the wrong track here. Like what’s the signal that someone would call you and say please help us shape the future?

Aline Frankfurt: Oh, it’s a different question, Chris. The first one is I feel that if we if we are in good shape more or less we just let’s say human beings are connected minds body and soul or mind heart and guts it depends the way you want to say but that’s very body mind and soul. So we are good at telling ourselves stories and so maybe some people say okay it’s good but I’ll see when I’ll retire until they have a 15-year-old boy or girl in their family and very often I ask him what does your boy say he says dad you’re stupid to go on like that you need you to stop and then I look at the boss the CEO or the whatever if there is a CEO sometimes there is one who is not a manager busy be managing the deadlines and sometimes someone who can get above that and tell me I know he’s right. So why are you waiting? What are you waiting? How old are you? Oh, I’m 55 45 sometimes 35 sometimes. Are you going to wait until you’re retired or it’s just what does it mean? And you are right. Some people they know there are there are many games we play denial like the ostrich. many games we play because the comfort zone is so much we paid so much and with many reasons I feel now I’m using this in inner compass you could call it intuition call it simplicity sometimes you know our rational mind he knows everything and he is ready to justify everything he knows intuition knows best every time from the start so we need to be not either or But start to admit that we are strange creators and creators. Sorry. And it’s fun to play with things. But at one point you remember maybe Bluebeard. Is it how you say it? The story of Bluebeard. The man who was assassinating his wives and putting them in the

Chris Parker: I don’t know. It’s a story of a monster with a blue beard. A blue beard. Okay. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Aline Frankfurt: And one day the one of the wife who was supposed not to go in into the cave to see the dead bodies, she goes there and the keys of the room falls into the blood. And I like the version of the story who says the key was bleeding. She couldn’t hide the fact that she had seen. No, it’s the same for us. Whether we talk about looking at reality as it is, sometimes we see things and we cannot undo erase. And just one word and then the same for the future. Sometimes we know that the world the future we build right now cannot be the same as the as I mean we have to move something. So intuition is the place where we know that we need to stop telling ourselves stories.

Chris Parker: I want to hug this word intuition or inner compass or there’s so much in my work and I have followed some teachings of like Dr. Joe Dispenza, people like that who deeply transformative primarily meditation, mindful breathing techniques, naturally triggered psychedelic experiences like Dr. Joe weeklong retreats you have psychedelic experiences without chemicals and it was through that through one of those moments when I feel I connected with my essence my innerness past my ego past my fear and it took me a couple weeklong events to actually realize how much fear was driving my decisions. And so, so if you get past the ego, past the physical body, and then you’re left with what what’s left. Is that also where the big no comes from? Because I think your repulsion, like if you’re really there and if you’re truly in touch and you’re holding those bloody keys, you cannot ignore the big no. Is that where it’s found or am I just projecting my journey?

Aline Frankfurt: No. I resonate with what you say very much concerning the first the idea that expanding the realm of our connection with whatever we call consciousness, reality etc. through whatever we do meditation etc. expanded experiences of expanded awareness show us how much our daily awareness is restricted and narrow by our rational mind which is okay but there is so much beyond that we need to understand that beyond is a lot and that’s the connection with fear and desire in French desire and desire is exactly the opposite in the desire is being paralyzed and feared and desire is the opposite. it’s like an anagram and I think that there is a I love to play on the fact that what the decisions we make from fear fear of not knowing fear of uncertainty fear fear fear fear are not good enough for our lives and they except if we are in our true survival mode for good reasons I mean just the reptilian mind otherwise I believe there is there this is more interesting to play around the desire. Let’s say for instance a young boy comes to me say wow I have a fear of lacking money the fear of getting bored the fear of being employed and having a career that doesn’t mean mean meaningful things for me the fear of what what what moment what is your desire so what does the fear indicate about what you want more and this articulation might be sometimes very useful because what We say a big no to as we know is very often saying a big no to some to open some space to something we absolutely want. it’s like I see plus V images, sensations, emerging emotions and voices. We are not we are ambivAlinet beings. We have we might have a certain fear of being stuck in our comfort zone and liking it quite a lot and not feeling ready to go but at the same time finding that we might aspire to something more alive and blah blah blah blah blah. So it’s not as if we were shifting like that. But beyond fear as you have lived and I lived it too strangely enough. Suddenly we are very cool. Yeah.

It’s just that this there is a difficulty to connect what we now know about the universe and the the large the breath of our essence. We are much more than what we think in the invisible realm. And now we come and we have to make a something and we are in the material world. How do we bring the spirit into matter in a way that doesn’t betray yeah doesn’t betray and I think that’s what that’s where that inner guidance system that I believe we all have. I believe we are all gifted with that that inner sense of right and wrong. I know other people believe differently but that’s this is just this is how I operate.

Chris Parker: Yeah. Yeah. And does shapership like okay when you’re connected to that deeper self and then and you become aware of the potentiality of vastly greater this is where I guess that visioning can come in that you can then poke that hole in the illusion and then see a potential future that that is beyond the shoulds and the musts and the must nots and it’s beyond all of this tapestry of control.

Aline Frankfurt: But as you say the to give you an example of that there’s a man in the chocolate business with whom I worked who has made the tour of the world alone on a ship sails I mean he has courage he is in an industry as a system which is locked in a certain way of functioning maintaining poor producer on one end, supermarkets on the other and in the middle there are people who buy the chocolate to make pasta and then six industrial who sell the chocolate code blah blah blah then bean to bar some of them and what it takes to call in to talk about the intuition and so on is that we talked about what is before we talked about opening or making a hole is is the CEO of a company. There are people behind with jobs. And so I think we managed together to have a dialogue about what does it mean to look at what is and say is this what you want? No, but I mean just this is how it is and where where do you look first? You look at the dominant system. Where are the people on the at the edge as you say earlier? I looked at people who are fed up with the system who are already making a revolution in their own country in Peru in Africa whatever like the Dr. There are people in chocolate making that. What are they doing? They are they are saying screw industrialist. We never taste our own chocolate and we are poor. We are fed up with that. And so when we look at the different realities while a world is crumbling our world while a model is reaching a certain stage of maturity there there are always different way different places where the future is emerging and we need to be aware that the future is not in time. It’s all it’s here now. So we look at these things and then we we could say okay we are we are not part of we don’t want this relationship of power with the poor people and maintaining this and we opened a vision for them with them on the future they wanted to create which was so far from where they are and need so much coalition that it’s not going to be done like that. So it has to be worked and then we created the portfolio of in initiatives that would allow them to shift the system. In the meantime, the factory was destroyed by the flooding and they were giving money to the producer and I heard a journalist interview the workers in the factory. What do you think about your company giving money to a producer and finding new ways to support them while you were rebuilding your factory and you’re nowhere? And they said, “You know what? We said a big no and a big yes. That’s our project.”

Chris Parker: What was the big no and big yes then?

Aline Frankfurt: The big no was to the power relationship. And the big was for a new type of company built on.

Chris Parker: Oh yeah. So they’re taking a moment to reinvent completely.

Aline Frankfurt: Yeah. And they they are now they gave up fair trade which is finding ways to proudly say we redistribute part of our money to poor people. They said we’re going to help them live. So we’re going to find find a way to interact with them differently. So so it’s they rebuilt the factory. They are starting to get out of the big distribution. That mean they are they are strategically trying to find a way to be coherent with their big no and big yes with people behind them who are proud proud not proud members but proud contributors to the world in a way and say we took position we’re not like the we’re not copying anyone now I think that this is about courage several times. The courage to look at things and say instead of being like the ostrich putting our head in the sand recognize we decide every day to buy the coffee we buy to buy the chocolate we buy. We vote for a world. Now I’m saying that it’s good we don’t have to be under self-surveillance all the time but there are times in our lives moments where we say poof feel and I feel I’m starting to be sick as you say or sorry or sad or so what what is the life I want for myself and for the rest of us and not everyone is going to be Martin Luther King and change the world some are changing the family, three people around them, four, five, what I mean, we don’t have to just pick your big yes.

Chris Parker: I think I do want to get to that question of what is the trigger for people to call you, but before that, I want to see if I can sync up or assimilate our different work because I work on simplicity and one of the artifacts I have is I have this simple business design canvas. Yes. And across the top there’s it starts with purpose and I know purpose is an abused word but in intent impact who’s your customer what’s your product or service and then what’s what’s the emotional journey so and what I really try to do is and it’s so fun to working with a leadership team I have them write their stories separately so I have them answer these questions separately and then I confront it back to them. And it’s astounding how rarely anything is really synced up or aligned. And then what I look for is where are they violently agreeing or violently disagreeing. And violent mean I mean completely. And the reason I look for the violent agreeing is because there could be a false dichotomy there as well. Like okay, you guys all believe this and it could be fundamentally wrong. So let’s pull that out. And then where the disagreements are then it’s an invitation to engage. Oh, okay. So, if this is what you believe the purpose is and this is what you believe the purpose is, this is what like well is there a common ground and what I strive to do is find the connection because the true essence of a company is the some of the humans involved. because if it’s not then it’s just pure marketing. it’s greenwashing or something like that because if they’re not actually living it and breathing it then the people in involved will know it’s inauthentic and the people outside will know it’s inauthentic and so having a discussion around simplicity of then removing the unnecessary with the intention to align intent deep intent is so incredibly powerful and what I’m hearing from you is you actually take is an a huge step further and say that’s great and the art of the possible the potential is even beyond what you’ve thought about on this canvas in this conversation and I love that because what I do feel sometimes is the the gravitational force of now can keep people in an orbit is really close to the comfort zone and what I’m hearing from you is that that there is a way of engaging with something more, something better. And I love that. I was I’m just trying to sync up our two practices in our in our works.

Aline Frankfurt: I think we have a lot in common. just I’m going to tell you a very short May I tell you a short story? I when I was young I admired a lot Cartier-Bresson the photographer and I there is a legend around Cartier-Bresson who is supposed to be the one-click photographer just making wonderful pictures just like that and I thought my gosh this is incredible and one day I read an interview he said my preferred book is Zen and the Arch of Archery.

Chris Parker: Oh, okay. Japanese Japanese boom. I thought you were going to go towards motorcycle maintenance, but you went archery no zen and the art of archery. Okay.

Aline Frankfurt: Archery. So, it’s written by a German guy who goes in Japan to learn this art and it’s very difficult because he’s German, but he needs to let go things like that. And he finally cheats. By the by the way, his master says, “Okay, now is the day you’re going to target this target and aim it at just reaching it.” And takes his bow and he breathes the way he’s learned and he tries to reach the target and his arrow just goes not even in the middle in the distance. And then the master takes his bow and just he just reaches the target in the middle which is very far away the target. And so looks at the master and says master this is impossible. And the master says no Eugene you are aiming at the target. I’m aiming at the infinite.

So this is Dr. V. I’m going to eliminate needless blindness. There’s not a lot of bullshit This is one tensions. It’s like a poof. It’s you feel it. It lasts for years. And I think that beyond just having slogans somewhere, we need to have this helicopter view in tune with reality which makes us say things that are meaningful from the start and nevertheless elevated. So it’s not I want to I want to make people free. It’s I want to eliminate needless blindness because there is something in the world. So this this idea of connecting things goes through our inner self.

Chris Parker: Yeah. Yeah. So what is the trigger when when no before that let me let me go. This is impossible. when I when I hear that sometimes in these sessions and also when I’m coaching I like the the master’s infinite comment but my retort sometimes is is like well if you believe that then you’re right yes absolutely and and then but even even the fact that I’ve introduced the concept of there’s a choice they’re like wait what what do you mean by that and then at least then it opens a conversation and because if if you believe it to be true. This is this creates the frame in which you can see. The the subtitle of your book, the eye only sees what the brain is ready to understand. This is what what resonated with me on that which was if you believe it’s not possible by definition it will never happen.

Aline Frankfurt: It’s a joke of this book with Descartes. I only believe what I see is Descartes but it’s false. you know that people don’t believe what they see also not yeah there’s there’s multiple I preferred Bergson sentence because it’s right of course we we need to prepare our mind and the world is filled with vision that wait for us to see well that that’s I guess that was the other thing is I don’t I think it’s not that we have to invent or create these dramatically new ways of living and existing.

Chris Parker: For me, it it what resonates with me more and I can’t really articulate it is it’s more that we’re that we are remembering them or we are connecting to the existing potentiality. that Dr. the potential for Dr. V to do that has always been there. there there was nothing that was fundamentally disallowing it. It was just a matter of him looking at the pattern slightly differently and if you look at the pattern slightly differently then then something else emerges. So it’s Yeah. I don’t know. I guess like with like the the artist’s way and those types of things where where this inner voice of creativity that emerges from us. it’s coming from somewhere deeper. And if you get rid of this ego and this body and you become in tune with it, maybe inspired by this big no, then you’re then you’re willing to be brave enough to say, “What about that?” Then like why not that? That’s a that’s a much more simple way of doing this. This makes much more sense to me even though it’s counter to what we’ve experienced so far.

Aline Frankfurt: There is there’s a lot to of questions behind that I think because there is the the notion of deep wisdom inside of us or deep knowledge or accessing a a field of whatever we call it consciousness or let’s say wisdom sometimes inner wisdom local knowledge and a friend of mine is working with the Kogi Indian at the moment and they obviously have preserved a connection with the living world that we have lost a lot and I know that even in in Europe we were connected did much more than we think with the plants and and rituals and sacred world and dimensions we have a bit lost. So we probably like Stonehenge and all the sites in the world are demonstrating that we had a knowledge that was astronomic, cosmological and and energetical. Anyway, we need to reconnect with things, but at the same time, I have the feeling that we need to reintegrate old wisdoms and at the same time to reconsider everything we told ourselves in terms of progress and find a way to invent our access to a new level of humanity. I don’t know what it means, but it’s not going back to something we were. To me, it’s disenveloping ourselves from who we believe we are disenveloping. So, some sort of act of unlearning or or yeah, disenveloping. Let’s go with that.

Chris Parker: Yeah, it’s like going in pilgrimage, you know, it’s just getting rid of things and at the same time being looking forward to some some things. How can we invent some I’m not talking about inventing some technology. I’m going to say it clearly that I think that we need to find ways to access our own humanity up to another level and and that might be something that gives us this solidarity that is needed now interplanetary.

Aline Frankfurt: Yes. You just used the word access not create.

Chris Parker: Yes. So is that intentional meaning meaning that there is another evolution of humanity in existence that we need to access? That’s kind of what I feel as well, but I I just Yeah, I can’t articulate it.

Aline Frankfurt: That’s it’s because to to come back to to come back to what we said earlier, if the let’s say in the in the years 80, a guy wrote the Neuronal Man, so the neuronal man pretending that from the activity of our brain cells, consciousness was emerging. And this was the truth. Now hundreds of scientists have talking have talked about the post-materialist paradigm proving that our brain is a good filter and that when we disactivate more or less the filter through whatever we use meditation blah blah blah we expand the access to more what Akashic field consciousness information whatever Now the thing is that it’s obvious for us to say that the orchestra is not in the radio. We but we might change the frequency. Now I believe that post-materialist let’s say proto-truth the truth that this is the truth I believe in and it changes everything because it means that we access we don’t create but at the same time we also have our own unconscious whatever. So by the way and you know that sometimes we access much more knowledge than we can integrate in our own life. So we have we are living double lives as if we were more advanced on another on another plan and then suddenly we come back and we just jump on the person who who says something that we disagree with. So our wisdom and our deep essence is far beyond this little ego who is trying to exist painfully in this material world sometimes. And my question is when I say I mean an alchemist question bring spirit into matter and bring matter up. So we need to find ways to live this world as spiritual beings in charge of of letting life go through us and stop to be obstacles. But by the way I’m not making my whole food myself sometime needs a transaction I sometimes work with it’s complicated. So accessing is something and I believe also that inventing is something like daring a creative jump in our mind like Dr. He did eliminate needless blindness to me is wise but it’s also daring something as human being daring and it means something to invent a friend of mine is currently working with Pakistan from Brussels he’s a geek he’s an inventor is a and he said to me I’m inventing a a filter for water in Pakistan they don’t have water they are making it for me for me with me and now they say we all want that a filter for water at I think a fifth of the price it currently has on the market is inventing something. It’s not it’s wise but is also making a creative jump.

Chris Parker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there there is a a step into the new invited invited by a by maybe a big yes in there as well. is he is he motivated by a a very altruistic

Aline Frankfurt: No. No. at the moment and we we very very often talk about that. Is it shapership or is it money? You said for the moment I need to make money. Well, it can be both, I guess. But anyway, I’m not going to do it. I mean, he’s he’s doing it in a certain way. Yeah. But he’s he has invented glasses or whatever. He’s he needs he needs to make a business. But anyway, he’s doing it in a I think very respectful way. yeah, but the good way I mean another way would be and it’s not impossible to put that on a wiki open open wiki and make it

Chris Parker: just open source it. Yeah, absolutely. So in bit sadly in wrapping up how do you support leaders and entrepreneurs move into shapership like so if if someone’s triggered by this and they go to shapership.com or or or connect with you on LinkedIn and we’ll put all that in the show notes. how might you assist someone on this journey of discovery?

Aline Frankfurt: I think there is there is one question that might trigger a conversation which is the fossil flop of the mind is my my expression for for shapership. It’s to say at one point how do we feel that we need to dare to get out of a box which is not just the usual box it’s the paradigm box and how do we how do we make a shift from business as usual to business as the world needs. If there is an interest for that question, then I can propose a journey which is a structured exploration that helps people just make better choices, wiser choices. I’m not telling them what to decide, but the present is the future in the making every day. So now is the moment. And I I want to say there is something in my heart among the sentences. One group of women in Bolivia said, “Be careful about the present you create because it must it must look like the future you dream of. So if you feel that the present you create is the repetition of some old SOS so same old solutions and if you prefer the save our soul SOS then okay I think a conversation is worth having to enrich the people who are going to decide about your community of work how to challenge the narrative that you maybe not even notice and the limit meditations and open the space so that you will be well proud and and aligned with your with your own intuition that something needs to happen and be creative for good. You can be creative to just improve what already exists. You can also be creative to invent something that is far beyond that. And that’s a conversation which is a strategic one. We call that strategic futuring. And then I want to say one word because I’m currently creating a game. And a game means without me being there, a way to open the possibility for people to seriously play with their mental maps thanks to imagination and intuition through images sometimes without words. it’s not like an oracle, but it’s much more subtle than that. And I think that for companies it’s wonderful. For instance, there is an image that I created of a swamp with dinosaurs. It’s called best in the world jungle. Some of my customer they called they call me say we have a problem say okay let’s call let’s go to the zone in the map which is about strategy on madland. On madland is the world of massive assured destruction. They they say oh we are in this jungle and in the other land nomad land there is the best for the world forum and asked them do you want to be the best in the world or the best for the world say we don’t know crap about being the best for the world and we go go on and they start to laugh but no doubt mad land is where we are somewhere stuck and we may decide to change or not. We don’t have to. So I would say I’m I’m completely I’m an artisan. I’m a craft woman. I’m not a big institution. I’m too much at the edge myself to be in an institution. But I can help institutions very very often. McKinsey or other big consultant are there and they they ask us to go there to bring them what nobody else dares to bring.

Chris Parker: Yeah, I can imagine. Complete challenge. Yeah. And opening the freedom which is a word we rarely use. When will Madland game be available? When can we experience this?

Aline Frankfurt: I think in beginning 26 because we are now prototyping the mechanics of the game. Y and I had the first session and the people were lost for 20 minutes before they started to really play it. So we are correcting this and I’m but I’ll have an in in the following conversation with you. I think I’ll show you something.

Chris Parker: No, great. And if and if you need a prototype playing group, I can I’m sure I can. It sounds really fascinating. So, wow. Thank you for this, Aline Frankfurt, author of Shapership. You can find her at shapership.com on LinkedIn. I knew this was going to be a roller coaster of conversation and thank you so much for for playing playing with me and connecting with me. it was really a delight. Thank you so much.

Aline Frankfurt: Thank you, Chris. It’s a delight to speak with you.

Chris Parker: Thank you for listening to the Business Simplicity podcast. If this conversation resonated, please share it with a fellow leader navigating complexity. Visit ebullient.com to discover how we can partner to simplify your strategy, align your teams, and accelerate meaningful growth.