I enjoyed Annette's latest post, On lessons to be learned from worrying... [UPDATE: quoting Adam Philips.] Annette's always thought-provoking on things like this. (This is a woman doing a PhD on Disappointment in Organisations - what a great topic for a dissertation!)
Worrying carries quite a strong taboo, so I like the idea of rehabilitating it as Annette seems to suggest. I also like her interest in styles of worrying. I think a lot of what we call planning is really just the socially acceptable face of worrying. That's great in some contexts; in others it becomes a bit miserable - we'd do better to acknowledge anxiety and not try to fix it.
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Comments (2)
Oh I wish I could take some credit for that post but (once again) it's Adam Phillips who has a way of turning the most ordinary things on their heads...but you're right about planning (particularly strategic planning) which is all about the socially acceptable face of worrying in my view which means that it's all about optimism really isn't it? And then of course there's the tyranny of being too optimistic and hopeful...
July 21, 2008 09:28 Permalink for comment
That resonates with me a lot. I often write about accentuating the negative - by which I mean worry about the things that are clearly wrong and about which people complain and eliminate them.
I don't belive it's a restrictive and conservative method and I contend you'll be left with something much better than you started with while you've avoided all the nonsensical hyper optimism of blue sky thinking and the back-covering that entails.
July 22, 2008 12:22 Permalink for comment