At the systemic level, the Craft becomes a framework for understanding how groups build across time. This episode explores how collective work scales beyond individuals—toward lodges, communities, institutions, and generations. By linking the Craft to the Temple, we examine how long-range planning, multi-level coordination, and intergenerational stewardship shape the outcomes we leave behind. The systemic perspective demands altitude: seeing the Craft not only as workers, but as architects of the future.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Systemic Craft work requires thinking across generations, not just tasks
• The Craft and the Temple are inseparable symbols of long-range collective building
• Development moves recursively—systemic understanding informs relational and behavioral practice

💬 Featured Quotes

0:00:00 –0:00:08 — “When we look at the craft at a systemic level, things start to get very, very difficult.”

0:00:15 –0:00:23 — “We’re looking across the ways of working across large groups of people, large organizations, and how does that happen and how do we influence it?”

0:00:35 –0:00:42 — “When we talk about the craft in this way, we're almost forced by default to talk about another symbol in that conversation, and that is the temple.”

0:00:42 –0:00:49 — “The craft builds the temple. That's kind of the way it works, right? When workmen get together, they build against an objective.”

0:01:13 –0:01:19 — “We have to look at how we as a crew of people are creating the future.”

0:01:26 –0:01:36 — “Do then work backwards through the levels. What does this mean for how I interact with the people in my small group?”

0:02:21 –0:02:32 — “Moving up and down through the craft as a developmental sort of structure or as a scope structure more accurately will help you again better craft more meaningful outcomes.”

0:02:49 –0:03:05 — “We're really looking for what are the interactive, interoperative elements to make our temple, our dream, a reality.”

0:03:12 –0:03:19 — “What can we do to set the stage not just for the current iteration of the craft… but all future workmen on the temple?”

🔗 Explore Related Episodes

Cognitive Dissonance and the Work of the Craft

Explores the tension between current state and ideal state—mirroring the systemic Craft’s focus on long-range alignment and evaluating gaps across levels.

Building your Craftsmen’s Council

Focuses on organizing people and structures to support large-scale objectives, directly resonating with systemic coordination and future-oriented planning.

Beyond Titles: What the Craft Teaches About Leading Well

Examines leadership as a systems function—how influence, structure, and distributed responsibility shape the long arc of collective building.

Dynamic Inserts

Creators & Guests

• Brian Mattocks - Host