Touring with the band

While watching this excellent trio of talented Quebecois musicians known as Genticorum I was musing the nature of collaboration. Each of these musicians is no doubt talented in his own right, yet together they can do so much more. I saw this time and again over the last few days watching various bands perform. I saw them looking out for each other, building on each other’s strengths, creating something together than they couldn’t do alone. It reminded me of the challenge of working alone – of looking for others to collaborate with and the fun, energy and creativity that can emerge; the difficulty of explaining that to clients; and the expectations that, of course, musicians collaborate, but facilitators don’t need to. This facilitator prefers to be a band member rather than a solo performer.

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.

Messy

Forms, flow charts, matrices, systems diagrams, models – all are designed to help us make sense of this complex, messy world we live in. We assume that messy can be ordered, that wild can be tamed, that we can predict cause and effect. Sometimes we can. If machines are involved, usually. When humans are involved, everything changes. Messy is normal. Get used to it.

Peace

Peace.

It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.

It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

(Unknown)

More on breaking patterns

So consider the role of training other facilitators, or indeed, training others in our own profession, whatever that might be. Is that not also about patterns, if not breaking them, at least exploring new ones? How do I (the one delivering the training) make sure I’m not just reinforcing my patterns?

BTW, I believe breaking patterns is good because it encourages us to look at alternatives and to grow. Humans have always reached for the unatainable, explored the unknown and invented new ways. We can’t all be explorers and adventurers – or can we? Maybe we can be explorers and adventurers in our own area of expertise.

Sometimes the hardest part about exploring is leaving the port. Letting go of the way we’ve always done something to make space for a different way. Imagine the monkey bar – hard to get any movement unless you let go of the bars. I’m pondering what I need to let go of, and I think it’s my need to be seen as competent. What is it you need to let go of?

I explore by reading blogs, and books, and doing improvised theatre and trying to be (mostly) open to new experiences. Scary sometimes, but worth it. I also find adventure in working with others. You?

Letting go of The Hero

While Johnnie Moore was here this week, we’ve been riffing this idea of ‘putting down your clever, and picking up your ordinary’. I’ve also written about it here and here and here.

It’s also known as ‘be average’ and emerges from improv theatre. I know I have more work to do on this because I consistently forget it. Most recently, the evidence is here. Here’s part of what I wrote just a few weeks ago:

“That feeling of ‘not good enough’ is just SO hard to shake. There’s a handful of draft blogs, unfinished and unpublished. And don’t even start me on books! Ideas pop into my head and just as quickly I discard them. Where does this self-editing begin, I wonder? I know I’m not alone. And I know that the world needs all our ideas – good and bad, possible and impossible, those that will stick, and those that will dissipate. I wonder how we can support each other to share our ideas, to be brave enough, bold enough, instead of *not good enough*?”

For the past six months I’ve been taking part in a coaching class with Patti Digh and David Robinson. I missed the last four on-line conversations, so one day when I had some time to myself I listened to the recordings. There was some talk about feeling like a fraud and believing that everything that needed to be done, or said, had already been, well, done or said. The crux of it being: ‘what can I add?’ This story that David Robinson told really stuck with me.

“We were talking about the Law of Polarity, that is, believing that there are only two points and how that can freeze you. That it’s them or me, or it’s right or wrong – when actually all of these things are inter-related, you only know dark because of its relationship to light, you only know the things you know because of their relationship to other things.”

This led to one of David’s collegaues telling his own story.

“For a vast portion of my life I was really invested in the Hero Syndrome which meant, if you believe in the poles( aka  the Law of Polarity) then there has to be an Anti-Hero. The more I invested in the Hero, the more I grew the Anti-Hero. And what I was trying to get away from was the Anti-Hero, so I kept invested in the Hero. Ultimately, after diminishing myself and my work in a number of ways – eg the perfectionism that comes from believing that you have to be a Hero and the tide that rises inside of you that says, ‘I’m not’ (the Anti-Hero, that you make enormously powerful by investing in the Hero), I recognised that what I needed to do in order to defeat and let go of the Anti-Hero was to let go of the idea that I needed to be a Hero. And suddenly all these choices opened up – I didn’t have to save the world, I didn’t have to be Pablo Picasso, I just have to do what I do, and in doing what I do there is no more Anti-Hero. I no longer empower it. I don’t have to be ‘good enough’ or ‘not good enough’ – which are versions of the Hero and Anti-Hero.”

David then explained how this was manifest as the improv theatre principle: putting down your clever and picking up your ordinary.

“The way to really be present and powerful with yourself is to put down the idea that you need to be right, that you need to be brilliant, that you need to BE anything, AND in fact what you need to do is to pick up your ordinary, because the thing you have labeled as ordinary IS what makes you special, it’s your most powerful, most potent gift, it’s where your talents are, and yet it is ordinary to you. You think everybody has it. You deny the very thing that is your most potent gift. So this is all about not investing in the Hero so we can let go of the Anti-Hero. Letting go of ‘good enough’ so that ‘not good enough’ has no power.”

Something to say

That feeling of ‘not good enough’ is just SO hard to shake.

There’s a handful of draft blogs, unfinished and unpublished. And don’t even start me on books! Ideas pop into my head and just as quickly I discard them. Where does this self-editing begin, I wonder? I know I’m not alone. And I know that the world needs all our ideas – good and bad, possible and impossible, those that will stick, and those that will dissipate.

I wonder how we can support each other to share our ideas, to be brave enough, bold enough, instead of *not good enough*?

There’s a bit of an action meme on the web right now. (BTW, I didn’t plan this blog post so I’m relying on my memory – apologies to everyone I should link to.) JFDI, inspired by Nike – ‘just f***ing do it’; lots of New Year resolutions about stopping planning and doing stuff; entrepeneurs who are successful are those who act, even without all the information they think they need. Etc. Etc.

Then there’s the not-doing meme. More conversations, thinking before acting, slowing down. Etc. Etc.

The problem (for me) is that I buy in to both of these. Does this mean I’m flakey? Agreeing with one point of view, and in the next breath, agreeing with the opposite? Is that the problem? I’m seeing them as opposites – this OR that – the way we see so many things in life, when I should be seeing them as pieces of the whole. The trick is to KNOW when to act, and to KNOW when to stop. And that’s impossible, that knowing, so it’s easier to do nothing at all – not thinking and not acting.

So it comes back to my earlier question: how can we support each other? To act when it’s time to act (note – not the *right* time, just time) and to slow down when it’s time to slow down. To have conversations? To get going? To muse? And to do something? Preferably, together.

PS: Happy 2010! I’m looking forward to sharing the journey, whatever it is and wherever it takes us, with you.

Possibility

Maybe it’s the time of the year – long days, warm evenings, sitting about with a bottle of wine, chatting with good friends. End of the year, beginning of a new one. Is it any wonder that ideas abound? That anything seems possible?

I was listening to Sir Ken Robinson on the radio today. He was asked about ‘lucky’ people – what makes some people lucky? He said it’s about seeing opportunities, rather than barriers. Whatever makes us lucky, I feel incredibly lucky – to be living right now, to be able to work in different countries and with amazing people, to have really good friends just around the corner and on the other side of the planet, to be able to use skype to pretty much talk to anyone, anywhere, any time, to have people who love me and support me, to live in a beautiful part of the world, to make enough money to be satisfied and not so much that I’m obsessed, and to have opportunities to take advantage of all that.

So I want to thank you for the part you’ve played, and to wish you a Happy Christmas or joyful holidays or just a relaxing break. And I’m looking forward to a lot more conversations, new and enduring relationships, and everything that flows from that.

Where’s Viv?

This post is prompted by the question posed recently: “Has Viv dropped off the planet?”

Well, no… not really. I’ve been on holidays – that’s vacation in America-speak, so that accounts for me being quieter than usual in the blogosphere and elsewhere. I like being unavailable, off-line – although my partner would definitely disagree, saying I’m addicted to email and blogging and facebook and twitter and whatever else is going around.

But I guess there’s a bigger question than the obvious. And isn’t that what we facilitators do? Look for the question behind the question?

So to partly respond, I want to share my favourite Armando Diaz quote from the recent Applied Improv Conference at Portland. He said, “If you have a boring life, you’ll probably be a boring improvisor.”

So, I’m trying not to have a boring life!

And, yes, I have shifted my focus – from groups of people to individuals; from where I might be expected to show up to, well, anywhere else. And I’m looking for the latest iteration in my career. So if the question is “Has Viv dropped off the planet?” the answer might be “Nope, but she’s still looking.”

Ways of knowing

Way back, when I did my Masters, I took a subject called Ways of Knowing. I think. Maybe I made that up. I DO remember lots of talk about knowing. I DO know it’s been of interest to me ever since.

Scientific, evidence-based knowing is one way of knowing. There are others. I’m most interested in ways of knowing that become a part of me – not just a cognitive, intellectual understanding, but a down-to-your-toes and end-of-your-fingertips type of knowing.

There’s a few things I’ve been exploring that I can still only grasp cognitively. When explained to me, I can nod, and think, ‘yes, I get that’ – but I don’t really. Not to the point where I can recognise it when it leaps out at me, or others.

Here’s one I came to understood eventually: ‘the action is in the interaction’ (this I learnt from Paul Z Jackson and solutions-focus). I sort of understood it – intellectually anyway – until one day it just clicked and I actually FELT a new understanding. It’s no longer just a glib phrase, but a deep understanding that I can live and share with others.

And here’s two I’m still struggling with.

‘Split intentions’ and ‘liminal space‘.

Many have tried different ways of explaining – and I’ll keep exploring, because one day, I hope, these will just  ’click’ too, and I’ll really *get* them. Why do I bother? Because I think both concepts are interesting and helpful in understanding how and why, we and the world, works. And because I’m curious. And maybe a little bit stubborn. And I’m interested in different ways of knowing.

Post-script: Patti Digh and David Robinson introduced me to both these concepts – so I hold them responsible! And in the absence of being able to sit down with them and have a long conversation, here’s the next best thing. Patti and David are hosting a free teleclass later this week on split intentions. If, like me, you’re interested in this, and can’t make the teleclass live, by registering you’ll be able to listen later. That’s my plan. Go here to register.