Hat tip: Tim Kastelle's tweet
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Hat tip: Tim Kastelle's tweet
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Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2921.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.
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Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2920.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.
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Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2919....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 priceHe'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.
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Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2918...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.]]>
Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2917.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
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Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2916.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
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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.
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Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2914.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:
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.)
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I liked Tim Kastelle's recent post of the value of gumption in innovation. It's a rich topic but I'd summarise my sense of gumption as the capacity to keep going in the face of adversity, imperfection and setbacks. It's about accepting, and perhaps transcending, failure but it's not a denial of it.
Another way to think of this is to separate failure from floundering. We flounder when we over-react or repress failure.
So organisations flounder if they set up procedures and practices that appear to be about excellence but are more about being in denial of our variability and complexity as human beings. Efforts to make meetings a guaranteed success quite often just lead to the repression of doubt or criticism.
As you probably know, I'm as massive fan of improvisation theatre and its exercises. They provide a constant practice in noticing things aren't working but carrying on. We can learn from the friction but we don't delude ourselves it won't be there.
The risk is that we set impossible standards for ourselves and then get demoralised by not reaching them. The demand for perfection makes us hypercriticial and we fail to appreciate what we are actually achieving. When we lose that sense of reality, ironically, we're more likely to fail or perhaps to give up altogether.
This is what Viv and I call the Tyranny of Excellence, illustrated above.
And Viv explores it more here.
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Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2912.Novelty disturbs and repels – no wonder it’s so hard to get our great new ideas across.Machiavelli was in the same territory:
… nothing is more difficult than to introduce a new order. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new…]]>
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Over the past few weeks I've done a fascinating course in clowning skills, run by the delightful Carol Thompson of Nose to Nose.
I love work that takes me to edge of my comfort zone - I end up exhausted and challenged, but with a big appetite for more. That's really my idea of the place we go to learn and grow.
Some people think this must be a course in being foolish and operating squirty flowers. It's not like that at all. I experience it as a very stripped back and challenging form of improv. When you're performing in clown mode, you constantly realise that your efforts to make the audience laugh often fail. What becomes fascinating is noticing the things, often accidental, that do generate a laugh.
What actually works is hard to capture in words, but being authentic is a wordy pointer in the general direction of truth. The practice of exploring what does and doesn't create connection is challenging because it touches on very primal stuff around our need to belong.
Another exciting aspect of the work is how we become aware of a kind of field in which the clown and the audience play. So often, watching a scene unfold, the audience has a very clear sense of what they want to happen next. When the clown does that obvious thing, it can be remarkably satisfying. As Rob Poynton pointed out to me a while ago, people then laugh not because of some clever bit of scripting, but because of the satisfaction of feeling really present to something true (more on that here.)
It's easy to dismiss clowning as mere foolishness or "just play". That attitude is easily taken to any form of disruption - and therefore innovation. Being serious is about committing to trying things out and risking failure. Being solemn, in this context, is a bullshit version of serious that's actually the opposite of being truly engaged in the struggle.
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Tim Kastelle spotted this wisdom from Ira Glass. Makes big sense to me.
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Trackback URL for this entry: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2907.I've noticed that collaboration seems a lot easier to talk about than to do and this article looks at some of the issues. I largely agree with his first reason for difficulty:
Failure to recognize the complexity of group thought. When we think that communicating and producing outcomes en masse should be just as easy as doing so individually, we tend to negatively judge the slower pace and additional processes required for collaborative activity.Many objections to group process seem to come from impatience. The critic argues, sometimes fairly aggressively, that there is a perfectly simple and better way to do this and is annoyed that this obvious solution is being ignored.
This is based on two, equally doubtful assumptions:
1 That the critic's way is actually better and...
2 Even if 1 turns out to be true... that everyone will instantly see the critic's wisdom and accede readily to the alternative process. Of course in the real world instead of accelerating we end up in another loop of confusion.
I am reminded of the "perfectly simple" reference in this Python classic:
(A wise therapist would often argue that a great many relationships crash around issues of pace, which are confused with other stuff and therefore never really addressed.)
The article makes a number of plausible points about what else makes collaboration difficult. They make a lot of sense but I'm cautious about taking any of them too literally. For instance, this comment:
Multifocusing. As individuals, we can attend to only one item at a time. Groups can multifocus and this capacity can make it very difficult for all individuals to track what’s going on. This is why effective collaboration requires that all relevant inputs are heard by everyone and recorded for all to see.This sounds very sensible but is in some contexts a recipe for a logjam of diagrams and postit notes.
Groups operate in very complex ways and the idea that everyone must be in explicit agreement doesn't actually match up to practice. We end up in a tyranny of the explicit.
For instance, one organisation I know laboured long and hard to get "everyone" to agree to some list of values or a mission statement. It was a lot of work and they were very pleased to get there. Only, now they're complaining about who people aren't living up to the statement they agreed to. At some level, they're stuck in a loop of moralising and missing the dangers of linguistic conformance.
I think brilliantly performing teams are often getting quite different results for different people. This comes out often when I debrief an improv game like "1 to 20". Essentially, a clump of people have to count from 1 to 20 where one person can't say two numbers in a row, and if two people speak over each other, they group has to start again. It's harder than it sounds but usually they get there in the end. Then we debrief and people will often confidently explain the strategy that they devised and assumed everyone else was following. They're surprised to find that often no-one else was following the master plan. Debrief further and even in this simple game, you find people optimising for all sorts of different experiences.
And just as brilliant performing groups are doing really complex stuff, so in their way are the really terrible ones.
I think we're talking about flow states which can be evoked but it's hard to explain how and what works one day won't work the next.
So is collaboration difficult? Well, only on a bad day. When you're in flow, however you get there, it's easy. Control, now that's the really difficult one.
(I will be happy to engage in a conversation with any really obsessed Monty Python fan about the tile I've given this post.)
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