The power of noticing small things when facilitating
Transcript of this video:
I remember that when I was a young adult in a job that I absolutely hated, and I was really distressed about it, I think I was visiting home, and I was in bed and I was having a conversation with my dad, who sat at the end of my bed and said something like, “Well, it’s a steady job, “and sometimes you just have to grit your teeth.”
He said it to me through clenched teeth. And I guess I’ve had, ever since then, a bit of an aversion to approaching life in a clenched teeth way.
And I guess I prefer to approach it more by raising my eyebrow. And I was thinking of that story the other day after my friend Mark Bloomfield told me something that I think he said he originally got from the writings of Isaac Asimov, who said something like, that the real point of innovation isn’t the “Ah-ha, eureka,” Archimedes moment.
It’s the moment where someone goes, “Huh? What?” Notices something small and metaphorically or literally raises a quizzical eyebrow.
And I know when I’m facilitating some of the best work I do, is not these grand, is not grand interventions on my part, it’s when I notice something almost missable. Out of the corner of my eye, almost out of earshot.
Or maybe I just notice a small shift in myself, and I inquire after it, and I ask, “Ooh, what’s that bit of laughter about?”
And I often learn something really useful. And I think a raised eyebrow approach to innovation or change might be more natural and more human.
It might allow us to see change as something that we assist in happening, rather than something we must vehemently be driving. And I think such an approach might make better use of our natural resources. Both our human resources and those out there in the world, which after all, are finite.
And we might find that it allows us to have better relationships with each other, so that the process is satisfying in itself.
Photo by Dex Ezekiel on Unsplash
