A Mason's Work

The craft at a relational level, that sort of, I guess we'll call it level two.

They're not really meaningfully leveled, but you get the idea.

The relational level of the craft is, speaks to a lot of the feedback loops that we engage

in to understand how the work is going, how the workmen that you're working with feel

about the work, what sort of norms and normative behaviors we have that are spoken or unspoken.

What's the culture like?

When we talk about the craft in this way, we're really talking about complex interrelationships.

We're talking about the kinds of things that are studied in organizational psychology or

in group dynamics.

But for our purposes, when it comes to how we can apply those, perhaps without all of that

sort of expertise in the background, we can really just start to analyze the interactions

that we've had.

Think about the way that the project or an effort that you would undertake as a group, where

it went sideways, where it was successful.

What were the things that you could have done to help better leverage the organization,

the craft itself, to help you achieve the overall objective?

This relational understanding moves us to that leadership space, where we have to be able

to both have a high emotional intelligence to understand the nature of the way we're interacting.

A very high sort of organizational intelligence, we've got that understanding of what each person

in the room is going to need to walk away feeling like they have been a part of the team

or part of the success.

We want to include and incorporate everyone in the process when it comes to understanding

how to best leverage the craft.

Learning everyone in the process does not necessarily mean making sure that everyone

participates in the same way.

When we allow our brethren to get involved in our work or when we allow our sort of

large officers to participate in planning or things of that nature, again, everyone's

got a different seat on the bus.

It's really important when it comes to that to be able to set the relationship up in

a way where everyone can feel valued as if they're contributing in a meaningful way

to the overall organization.

That includes yourself.

It's not always the case that you need to have or be the answer to all things.

You'll see that a lot in leadership training, management training, that kind of thing where

they talk about correctly leveraging the organization, giving out work in a meaningful

way, not over-taxing certain people that are super effective.

All of those kinds of things will come up as you start working and surfacing the craft

as a concept.

This is harder for some of our brethren that don't actively participate in a lodge.

As a solo practice, what you want to consider here is how we work with the fraternity as

a concept, with the sort of workmen as a concept.

Is there are there people that you can get involved with or reach out to that can help

you achieve your objectives?

Maybe they're not immediately in your lodge.

Maybe you don't see them on a regular basis.

But how can you offer them something of value so that they can, again, participate with

you in exchange or in a related context?

When we start talking about these things at a relational level, again, we're really moving

to this much, much broader scope and incorporating the ways of working required to not just kind

of self-manage, but manage in a group or in a relationship that includes also collecting

data and feedback along the way.

So when you have asked someone for help or you're offering to participate in some way, it's

important in this context to set the grounds of those relationships in such a way that

say, hey, listen, I offered you help.

What would it look like if I was successful in doing so?

If you at the end of the work said, hey, this person did a good job.

What would that good job look like?

This is all part of that sort of relational setup for effectively using the craft as

a concept to help you grow and evolve in advance.

As you pursue this, you'll find there are folks you will naturally gravitate to and managing

your preferences there so that you include everyone, not just your favorite people, is

also an important part of the conversation.

So with that, go forth and reflect on the craft as concept and I think you'll find there's

a lot of opportunity to develop and grow there.