Actions and cycles

Chris Corrigan has an interesting take on the old saw of "talk versus action". Here's part of his argument and I recommend the whole thing:

People often make the distinction between talk and action, largely in my experience as an objection to the amount of time it takes to be in conversation around complex topics. It seems that with complexity the conversation is endless and can go on forever. And almost by definition, that is true. That can be a very frustrating experience if you consider the action – reflection process to be a linear one in which we spend time figuring out what we are going to do and then go and do it.

This reminds me of a chat I had with Chris when he was over earlier this month.

We talked about how people get attached to models like the Kubler Ross grief cycle, as if in life we just do our grieving in five discreet stages. We don't. We usually go through the cycle repeatedly and not necessarily in a predictable order. We're also complex creatures within a complex system, so our cycle for grieving is disturbed by all the other things going on in our life.

Much the same goes for any model that attempts to define too closely the "logical" order in which human organisations should go about things.

I think Chris' post offers at least a more sane perspective, that allows for emergence.

We?

I had a great breakfast conversation at the weekend with Chris Corrigan. He recalled a group meeting with a wise elder in Hawaii, where one of the participants asked the wise one (and I'm paraphrasing), "How can we embody more of the feminine wisdom in our group."

The wise man stared for a while and then said, "Who is this we?" and basically challenged the participant to make "I" statements and ask "I" questions, instead of trying to speak on behalf of the group. As Chris tells the story, the participant hesitantly complied, and had to speak from a smaller and more vulnerable place when he asked "What can I do..." etc.

I'm guessing you've been there yourself sometime, observing this kind of "we" language and perhaps indulging in it yourself. I know I have. It has the seductive quality of making us sound more powerful but in many ways makes us less so because we become disconnected from our own experience.

Chris and I also talked about times were the shift in the other direction can be empowering too. In some contexts, the shift from "I" to "we" language can indicate a willingness to work together, to negotiate within relationship. As I indicated in my last post, there are pitfalls in hoping for precise control with words.

Chris came up with some handy jargon which I've been reflecting on. When we say "we" but aren't really connected to the others for whom we claim to speak, that's a dissociative we. And if it comes with the tone that suggests connection and sensitivity, we could call the associative we. So we've got more than the Royal We now.

Returning to Hawaii, the elder did then offer the participant one piece of advice that was archetypically blunt and riddlesome. He said: "Hum."

That made me laugh, but then I got to thinking about its wisdom. Hmmm is potentially a response that says, I'm thinking about what you said, and how I'm responding to it. It recognises that there is a boundary that separates us but it is permeable not solid. That's where we get to play with what's I and what's We.

Going deeper

My mate Paul Jackson challenges the language used in questions like "what really matters?"

...in one discussion we were asked,‘Why are you here?’ and later ‘Why are you really here?’. The best answer I was given was that ‘really’ makes it more dramatic. Which may be fine, but this drama comes at a price

He's picking up on some of the language used in the recent Art of Hosting event he and I went to in Ireland, and it's certainly made me think. I think it's very easy to have some desire for a "deeper" conversation but be quite clumsy in the way we articulate it and "depth" like all words comes with its own luggage. My request for you to go deeper may easily feel like a status play on my part, as if I know some mysterious depth that you don't, or won't, go to. Perhaps what would be more useful would be for to make a more subtle, and perhaps more vulnerable, statement about my experience that opens an enquiry rather than potentially setting up an inquisition.

I had to reread this line by Paul a couple of times, and I think it was worth the effort:

If we take emergence seriously and consider ‘systems thinking’ a worthwhile lens with which to view and describe, then it may be useful to drop this rather conflicting language of ‘really’ and ‘essentially’ and so forth. Realist and essentialist language gives the impression that our descriptions of what we are emergently contructing are somehow inadequate or that the way to improve upon them is by looking further for what is ‘real’ or ‘essential’.

There is a shadow side to sophisticated talk about complexity. Whilst we can easily congratulate ourselves for understanding things are complex, there's usually some shadow need for it to be reduced to something that it isn't. Thus claims to understand the "deep structure" are actually pretty dodgy. The subtext of some complexity gurus is basically: complexity is wonderfully mysterious but I understand it so much better than you, you'd better do as I say. We get the idea that no one can be in control, but we leak out our emotional desire for someone to be.

I think there's a big trap here for facilitators, one that I know I fall into from time to time. In the moment, we think we have seen something the group hasn't, and we sit there either portentously waiting for it, or pushing for it... and not noticing the status position we are now playing. One of the warning signs is that this is usually an effortful position. As I say in that link, it's where we cross from enthusiasm to obsession.

Having said all of that, I personally quite liked the "really" elements of the questions in the particular context of this event. Maybe I was in the mood for a bit of drama. But, as ever, we easily forget how language doesn't quite tie us together in the ways we think it does.

Improv and aliveness

Michelle Holliday has written a splendid exploration of the deep value of improv.

..the true promise of improvisation is that it helps us move beyond a mechanistic paradigm to one that honours and embraces life. It literally holds the key to being less rusty and more fully thriving and alive. And paradoxically, in becoming more fully alive, we become more effective according to all the measures that the mechanistic paradigm holds dear – especially in our organizations.

Kudos to Belina Raffy for inspiring her.

Disrespectful, disruptive innovation

I am not a particular lover of Ryanair, and I think of myself as pro-Europe. Nevertheless, I throughly enjoyed this video of Michael O'Leary being fabulously irreverent to his hosts at a Brussels innovation conference. There seems to be a rather large and solemn innovation industry which lacks what Leary has in spades: the willingness to be very disruptive.

Check out his conference bio too, another well deserved sideswipe at the standard portentous approach.

Hat tip Fluffy Links, who are probably right in saying he'll never be invited back. Via this tweet from @sznq

Tit for tat

Daniel Wolpert's TED talk explores the exponential nature of tit for tat (or eye for an eye). We underestimate the force we generate when striking others. So when we think we retaliate in kind, the other experiences it as an escalation. They return with greater force, and so it goes on. He's talking about physical force, but it applies to insults too, I reckon.

Which explains a heck of a lot about human conflict.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan

The Three Tyrannies

I just wanted to create a post that pulls together Viv's and my thinking about the Three Tyrannies. These are a sort of shorthand we use to explore what leads meetings towards stuckness and dissatisfaction.

The Tyranny of Effort kicks in when people cross the line between enthusiasm and obsession. It's the experience of trying too hard - and the easiest way to bust out of it is to notice that it's happening to us. More here.

The Tyranny of the Explicit is what happens when rules and procedures become counterproductive. By trying to get everything written down, we think we're creating more certainty and safety but risk losing the flexibility that makes us human. It's like trying to hold sand in our hand by squeezing... squeeze too much and you lose more than you keep. More here and here.

The Tyranny of Excellence is where the perfect becomes the enemy of the good. Our efforts to guarantee success trip us into an orgy of criticism, of self and others. We need to be able to step back and see the reality beyond our judgements. More here.

Edge territory

Harold Jarche reflects on Tom Gram's post Everyday Experience is not Enough. Tom argues:

No one in their right mind would argue that experience is not a powerful teacher, or that our most valuable learning occurs while working. But it’s pretty broad generalization don’t you think? Some experiences must be more valuable than others for achieving learning and performance goals.... Indeed research in developing expertise has shown that not all experience is created equal. Years of experience in a domain does not invariably lead to expert levels of performance. Most people after initial training and a few years of work reach a stable, acceptable level of performance and maintain this level for much of the rest of their careers.

He uses this graphic to capture the point:

Ericsson K.A., "The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the Development of Expert Performance” The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (2006)

Self-directed learning can be fantastic because it acts on high levels of intrinsic motivation but without space for useful feedback and reflection, it can lead to a real plateau in performance.

When I'm doing training I go very light on theory and methods, and very heavy on exercises, practices and simulations. I also attempt to set up feedback to be constructive and generative and not excessively judgemental or definitive. I think this makes it easier for the learner to stay on their edge: that area where they are encountering failure or frustration, but learning and keeping going. What keeps them engaged and motivated is the experimentation to find their own answer rather than attempting to comply with some externally provided sense of what is correct.

(Viv points to why the edge is such an interesting place.)