Do your ideas matter?

Leif Hansen writes this in a newsletter: “Are you like me in feeling that life is just too precious to waste time going to events where we’re talked at as if we’re merely disembodied information-processing machines?  I think most of us would rather just download those experiences and listen to them while driving, thank you very much!”

Johnnie Moore writes of  his “frustration with rooms of smart people listening politely to long winded keynotes and dire panels, as if they’re not actually capable of intelligent thought or dissent.”

He’s referring to a post by Jeff Jarvis which starts like this: “This is bullshit. Why should you be sitting there listening to me? To paraphrase Dan Gillmor, you know more than I do…But right now, you’re the audience and I’m lecturing. That’s bullshit.”

Are you seeing a theme here?

I think it’s time we recognised speeches, key note presentations, Q & A sessions for what they are – an anachronism from a past era. An era where the verb google didn’t exist, and where the media determined who and what we listened to. We are living in a different era – one that isn’t served by one-to-many ‘expert’ presentations, no matter how they are dressed up.

We need engagement, interaction, curiosity and as Seth Godin writes in Linchpin, to “solve interesting problems”, where ‘interesting’ is the key word.” These are the questions that google can’t answer.

Or as Tim Brown says in Change by Design – let’s ask questions that begin with ‘How might we…?’

Why make a big deal out of speeches, presentations, Q & A sessions? Surely if people want to listen, they can? Problem is, when captured, in person, at an event there’s no choice. Someone else has decided that everyone in the room should hear what so-and-so has to say. And maybe what they have to say is indeed interesting and relevant. The issue is around the paternalistic notion of someone else knowing what’s so important that everyone in the room should be held captive. If it’s a TED talk, that will only last about 20 minutes. However, I can download every TED talk and listen while I’m exercising, driving or sitting under a tree.

I’ve never been to a TED event but I can bet that the room would be buzzing after listening to a number of presentations – buzzing with people interacting with each other. I’m also betting many people would find the interaction stimulating.

So, how might we make best use of the amazing brain power of a group of people together in the same room?

And why does it matter? Let’s explore this question first. It matters because if we can’t engage a captive audience and encourage them to share their knowledge and ideas, how are we going to engage them in many of the wicked problems that beset us? We might be losing valuable opportunities to tap into the broader intelligence.

I’d like to further explore the notion of ‘keynote listeners’ and encourage greater use of processes like Open Space and World Cafe that enable conversations on which to springboard ideas. That means everyone in the room has to take some responsibility, and maybe that’s the real issue.

Richer

Scoff if you want. Having criteria to decide what I do and don’t do is actually liberating. Yeah, I know – it’s totally out of character, I’m sure such discipline is not something you would generally attribute to me. Nonetheless, I’ve been applying my criteria – and that is harder than it sounds – and very happy when I do. I may be poorer (in a money way of measuring) but I am much richer in every other way.

Here they are again:

• Can I make a real contribution? Is there a need for my skills? Will I make a difference?
• Will it stretch me? Is it edgy? Will it contribute to my continued learning?
• Is there an opportunity to build capacity, and transfer my skills, knowledge and enthusiasm to others?
• Will it enable me to make money and provide for the future?
• Is there an opportunity to travel to new or interesting places?
• Will I be with cool people, especially friends? Will I potentially make new friends, and build existing relationships?
• Will I have fun?
• Am I excited by the prospect?

Four, or more, and it’s a yes!

Getting out of the way

Andrew Rixon shared this quote with facilitators in response to a discussion about the failure of action planning.

“The goal for wu wei is to get out of your own way, so to speak. This is like when you are playing an instrument and if you start thinking about playing the instrument, then you will get in your own way and interfere with your own playing. It is aimless action, because if there was a goal that you need to aim at and hit, then you will develop anxiety about this goal. Zhuangzi made a point of this, where he writes about an archer who at first didn’t have anything to aim at. When there was nothing to aim at, the archer was happy and content with his being. He was practicing wu wei. But, then he set up a target and “got in his own way.” He was going against the Tao and the natural course of things by having to hit that goal.”

This sums up my own frustrations with goals, targets, action planning and what Johnnie Moore calls “commitment ceremonies”. The stress associated with ‘having to hit the target’ seems to take precedence over the actual doing and being.

As a facilitator I get in my own way when I delude myself that I can control what’s happening. I feel the stress when ‘people are not doing it right’ and  have to remind myself to let go, and to let be. And nothing drains the energy of a group faster than a superficial ‘action planning’ session at the end of an otherwise productive workshop where people are asked to shoehorn into a commitment they either don’t want or aren’t ready for. Can’t we trust people to do what needs to be done when the time is right? I suspect that monitoring and key performance indicators and milestones mostly redirects attention away from the real work.

Here’s an example of what can happen when you do let go.

This week I’ve been facilitating a workshop with aid workers who have been working with communities affected by a natural disaster. The time is now right to move from disaster response to community development, known as a transition phase. Day four of a five-day workshop: I randomly handed out a Visual Explorer card to each person and asked them to share with another person what they liked about the card, what the card reflects of their experience working with communities, and what is important to remember as we proceed from the workshop back into the field. After a few minutes I asked them to form groups of four and to continue sharing their insights about their cards. This is where it gets interesting.

When I invited the group to share their insights they told a story woven from the four cards that reflected their experiences and their hopes. It was surprising, insightful and moving. I had no idea this might happen and certainly hadn’t planned for it! Who would have thought such richness would come from a random, unplanned activity?

This didn’t result from me working harder or thinking more or planning more – just the opposite. Instead of being oppressed by the Tyranny of Effort, I simply let go of the need to plan where it might lead and trusted the participants to do whatever work they needed to do.

This also reminds me of another quote about catching up with your own shadow. The only way you can do that is not by running faster, but by stopping and resting under the shade of a tree.

Perfectionism

Dan Pink has a post on perfectionism, that adds another dimension to thoughts I’ve been riffing with Johnnie Moore and David Robinson around what we’re calling The Tyranny of Excellence.

One of the principles of improv is to ‘be average’ – to give yourself permission to stop worrying what others think, do what you do, and allow yourself to shine. David describes it as ‘putting down your clever and picking up your ordinary’. I wrote about it here. This nearly always gets a strong reaction – either ranging from “Yes! At last.” to “Oh, no, that can’t be right.”

Here’s some recent research that Dan cites:

According to research reported in this Miller-McCune article, perfectionism comes in two varieties: adaptive and maladaptive. And one of the key determinants of the type of perfectionism someone displays is whether the quest for perfection is “motivated from an inner urge or an outside push.”

…if you’re pursuing perfection because of pressure from others — parents, bosses, peers — that’s likely to take you down the path of dissatisfaction and reduced well-being.

The Tyranny of Excellence  sets us up to fail. It oppresses us by demanding we be creative, strive for excellence, make the right decision – even the best decision – to not be ordinary. It can be both internally driven, by that small voice telling us we’re an impostor or not ‘good’ enough, or externally driven by feedback and judgement. Is it any wonder that it’s easier then to just do nothing, to give up trying to meet such unreachable standards? And here’s the rub. What is ordinary to me, what I do really well because it is ordinary (to me) may very well seem extraordinary to you (because it’s not ordinary to you).

So it seems it’s a good step to aim for perfection if it’s what you want, not to appease others. And maybe it’s also worth considering the idea of ’satisficing’ rather than ‘maximising’ as described by Sarah Wilson.

Here’s some of what she wrote:

Then there’s this idea of “satisficing”, a portmanteau of satisfy and suffice, coined by an economist. Satisficing involves making decisions by first selecting criteria that matters most to you, then going with the first option that ticks all such boxes.

Thing is, most of us are “maximizers” – we put off deciding until we’ve examined every possible option, which makes life not unlike a bottomless purgatorial pit. I’d argue our culture encourages us to maximize, to believe a perfect decision exists; it justifies the enless choices consumerism chucks at us. But – quelle irony – research shows satisficers actually make better decisions than maximizers, and are happier to boot.

Seeing what’s right in front of us

Ideas, and thoughts are rarely linear. Makes me wonder why we try and capture them that way, why we struggle to make order out of chaos. And why we focus on what might be, sometimes avoiding what’s happening right in front of us.

Dave Snowden has written about avoiding reality in favour of a vision. And Johnnie Moore has a good summary here. In my experience, many people, when describing a preferred future simply project the present anyway, making the future bigger and shinier.

So I was interested in this report from Haiti from Tales From the Hood blogger J. In a post called A Measure of Humanity, J. explores the dilemma between planning for the long-term reconstruction of Haiti and providing shelter for people right now. J. writes about this dilemma in a way that brings it into sharp focus. No abstract concepts here. Just human lives.

More than any other emergency response than I have ever personally been part of, the earthquake response in Haiti has been plagued by people telling us to think about the long term now.

I mean, on one hand, who in the world would argue? It’s a total no-brainer. Who would argue with the experts who say that we must plan now for the long term? Who ever would say that taking a long term view to the reconstruction of Haiti is a bad thing?

But I have to get this out there: The earthquake happened one month ago, yesterday, and there are still people sleeping outside, under bed sheets. Maybe we could actually deal with some of the immediate needs before holding conferences and meetings and drawing up detailed plans for the “long term”?

Will I, Won’t I?

You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you have to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are. (Fred Rogers)

It’s taken me a while to get around to this, and as time is not on my side, it’s well overdue – my own criteria for what I want to do in the world. The inspiration comes, of course, from Patti Digh and her book Life Is A Verb.

So here’s how I’m going to choose. And if any project, activity or work meets four or more, then it’s a goer. If not, I’ll probably pass, thanks very much.

• Can I make a real contribution? Is there a need for my skills? Will I make a difference?
• Will it stretch me? Is it edgy? Will it contribute to my continued learning?
• Is there an opportunity to build capacity, and transfer my skills, knowledge and enthusiasm to others?
• Will it enable me to make money and provide for the future?
• Is there an opportunity to travel to new or interesting places?
• Will I be with cool people, especially friends? Will I potentially make new friends, and build existing relationships?
• Will I have fun?
• Am I excited by the prospect?

Easier?

It’s easier NOT to challenge. It’s easier to go along with the way it’s always done. At least you can say it’s ‘tried and true’ – even if it doesn’t work. If you try something new, or different, or radical and it doesn’t work, who’s to blame?

It’s easier to play safe, to NOT take risks and to be the person everyone expects you to be. It unsettles people when they see another side to you.

It’s easier, but is it what you want to do?

Celebrating emotions

There seems to be way too few opportunities in my life to really, truly explore emotions – mine, and the those of others.

Today in the Playback Theatre workshop I’m taking we moved on to ‘moments’. In Playback, moments are emotional vignettes – the way someone might be feeling right now, or an experience from their day or week that had strong emotional aspect. The director surfaces the key emotion underpinning the experience and the players, play that emotion back using sound and movement creating a moving tableau, or in playback-speak, an emotion ‘machine’.

And this is one of the reasons I enjoy Playback so much – the opportunity to vicariously experience a range of real emotions, either as a player or even an audience member, and to tap into my own emotional responses. Even complete novices can do this – I think because we’re tapping into the essence of what makes us human. We experience life through our emotional responses. To deny these emotions is to deny our experience, to diminish ourselves.

There’s not so many opportunities to do this as an adult. It seems to be OK for kids to express their emotions in a BIG way – rejoicing in a discovery, railing at unfairness, excited anticipation or disappointment. Think of how children you know express these emotions. Then think how you do. What’s the difference? Why is there a difference? Does it matter?

Another reason I enjoy Playback as a form is that the emotions explored encompass the gamut of human experience, not just the positive ones. This gives Playback an authenticity and grittiness that is almost visceral for the audience. And certainly for the players.

Introverts Rock!

I like this presentation on a number of levels.

I can relate to the content! The internet has been a boon for me. I think there’s a lot of advantages in being an introvert, but being thrust into a room full of strangers isn’t one of them! And let’s not talk about sweaty palms at the thought of face-to-face networking. (We’re not going to discuss my choice of work which keeps thrusting me into rooms full of strangers, okay?)

And I like the friendly, hand-drawn style. It’s a reminder that there are many ways to do Insanely Great slideshows (sorry about the blatant plug, but a girl’s gotta make a living!) And the suggestions are helpful and reflect my own experience.

Connection and intimacy

I like this summary of how the internet enables us to stay connected. It’s also a good follow-up from my previous post. No surprises, but a good reminder of how the work landscape has changed in such a short time and how individuals are streets ahead of organisations. No surprises there, either!