hammers and buckets
The conversations I like to be in are about helping people to join together in enlivening ways to learn, grow as humans and work for a better world. What pains me is when I see an alienating social experience where people are regressing, bored, isolating, checking out and acting out. To know what I mean, think back to school (or maybe yesterday at work:) , as boredom and alienation thrive in institutions. However, pain motivates people to do something differently. So, often, I am called in to problem-solve – to fix the pain in a system and design an experience like a conference, an organizational change initiative or a social ritual, where it is perceived that something has not gone quite right before. Helping to fix the pain is an opportunity to begin to effect some transformation in the organization or community.
Ironically, the problem-solving that brought me to the situation often runs amock in the system. Hammers and buckets are brought out, where no hammers and buckets are needed. Now, problem-solving as a technique has its place, but it is used as a method far more than is appropriate, when learning, human growth and systemic change in an organization or community are what is desired…. Even in a situation that works beautifully!! Often, a situation doesn't need the fixing force of a hammer or the containment of buckets, but that's what get used anyway. Hammers come in the form of content experts, models, tools, theories and controlling behaviors. Buckets come in the form of increasing control measures, more oversight, siloing people into functional and topical boxes.
I also have my favorite hammers and buckets. I'm very fond of them and I think they work. But, life is too complex for templates. So, the problem-solving I prefer is limited to critically identifying undesired patterns in a system to determine what difference is desired. Beyond this, I shift my thinking into an ongoing "relational creative" process, not a critical problem-solving mode. "Collaboration is more of an art, not a science" (Tapscott and Williams, Wikinomics). To imagine what I would as a social designer and facilitator, I first look with the client at what are the goals and vision for the future, the situation, who is involved, the space and the time, the resources available to then together create a social design. And then using the design as an initial structure, facilitators show up in the present moment to make creative relational choices.
The pattern of "I gotta fix this" arises when people feel out of control, want to feel more influential, and/or are in pain. And in a complex fluid creative situation, the need for control will come up. Particularly, for managers and organizers who are real good hammer and bucket makers. So, I then see how I can help leaders and facilitators to feel more interconnected, become aware of their influence and increase their sense of self-efficacy. When people feel both more connected to what is around them and confident in their ability to make creative choices, they then have a higher tolerance for ambiguity and are more likely to make choices that are good for the whole.
In our hearts, I believe that humans want education and work to foster the experience of creativity and freedom, not control. Learning and growth need respecting, nurturing, connecting, playing, noticing best practices and doing more of that. Social design is an improvisational art craft. And, as with any craft, there comes a little hammering and bucketing. A little. Life is not a problem to be fixed. Life is to be embraced.