Tools for Thinking & Feeling &
Imagining & Considering together,
so when we Act, we can do so
with an Understanding
of the Larger Whole….
dedicated to the Collective Imagination Practice community
may this serve the larger work…
The heresy of welcoming initial solutions,
and the value they bring
“Initial Solutions” have gotten a bum rap. A common thing we hear, when it comes to group work, is “let’s not jump to solutions…”
There’s a huge misunderstanding behind this conventional wisdom. Yes of course, we don’t want to “jump to a decision”, before we’ve even understood the situation, and before we’ve considered various perspectives, and before we’ve invited creativity in, and welcomed our imaginations to come in and play….
Of course. Yet “initial solutions” are NOT decisions. Instead, I’ve found that in practice, it can be helpful to consider people’s BEST CREATIVE EFFORTS TO DATE, with whatever limited information they’ve had, till now…
So yes, I know. This appears to be going against everything that Roger Fisher, the founder of “interest-based negotiation”, wrote. Yet I’ve heard that Roger was actually a very open-minded person, who appreciated learning from practitioners, and who was very willing to continually update his models…
Based on that, I have a hunch he’d at least be open to hearing the following true story…
It was after a protest, right after September 11th and before the U.S. started bombing Afghanistan. A few of us activists had gone to a nearby coffee shop for tea. Someone suggested that this might be a time to talk about what it was that we DID want, instead of what we didn’t want… what would be a long-term vision that this handful of us could get behind?
Just as the guys were starting to gear up to play “king of the hill”… you know, who can offer the sharper critique of another person’s idea… a woman among us suggested that it would be lovely to share our visions, and that one way we could do so, was to go around the circle, and listen to each one…
The guys reluctantly agreed, sheathing their verbal swords, and we began to go around the circle. Only a gentle reminder was needed, after the first person took their turn, that we would get a chance to respond afterward… right now, we wanted to hear each person’s vision, first.
The further we went around the circle, the more the energy shifted from “wanting to poke holes” to slack-jawed amazement. When the last person finished speaking, someone said, “Wow!!! I thought we were going to have a lot of disagreement… but actually, I think our different visions are all actually quite compatible…”
Now the point I am making here is not that we are all going to always agree right away, if only we sit in a circle and pass around a talking piece. Life is not so simple…
Yet my experience has been that there is usually a lot less disagreement, once each person has had a chance to share their dream… and to have their dream be heard… especially if they feel that their dream has really “landed”, with at least one other person…
Also key, is to find a way to rein in the desire to score points by “poking holes” in another’s vision, and instead, to invite folks to redirect their energy, into sharing their own vision. (More on this, in parts two and three.)
Sometimes, as the circle host, when we are inviting each person to share their vision, all we need to do is listen intently and nod when someone finishes, to let them know that they’ve been heard. Other times, we may want to actually say “thank you” after someone finishes… or even, reflect a sentence or two of what we’ve heard, depending on the circumstances.
And now I want to suggest that “dreams” or “visions” have some similarities with “initial solutions”: in each case, it’s someone’s best creative effort to date, to contribute to the shared situation we are in.
Yet when we are in a structured situation where we are asked to follow a linear path — either the “waterfall methodology”, or “interest-based negotiation”, or any of a number of linear problem-solving approaches — we are usually asked to save our “initial solutions” until the end; until we have all “agreed” on a shared definition of the problem, and/or, until we have all “agreed” on set criteria that a shared solution would need to have, in order to satisfy everyone. Only after that lengthy process, are people invited to “get creative” and share their solutions…
I get that there’s a positive intention to this schema; the purpose is to invite people to “let go” of the initial solutions with which they walked into the room. However, here’s where another story may be relevant…
This one is the old Aesop fable about the Wind and the Sun, where the Wind wants to challenge the Sun to a contest about who is the stronger one…
And so the Wind proposes the following challenge: See that little girl walking through the forest? Which one of us do you think, can make her take off her coat?”
“If you must have a challenge,” says the Sun, “be my guest. Why don’t you go first…” And so the Wind begins to huff and puff, attempting to drag the little girl’s coat off of her, but the more she blows, the more tightly she holds on to her jacket…”
Finally the Sun takes pity on the terrified girl, and says, “Ok, my turn now…” And you can well imagine the end of the story; in a few minutes, the relieved girl notices how warm it is, and willingly takes her coat off…
In a similar way to the Sun, our community of practice has found that the best way to “help people let go of their initial solutions”, is actually to listen to them… to make sure that they are listened to, that their solutions are heard and welcomed; as the host or facilitator, we see it as our responsibility to make sure this happens.
And, if others in the room find themselves chomping at the bit, it can be helpful to remind them that each person will have a turn to be heard…
and also, that often our criticism of another person, can be most helpfully understood, as our own leadership, wanting to emerge…
Questions as a magic wand, the tenderness of creativity
and the shadow side of bursting bubbles
“If you had a magic wand… “
“If money were no object…”
Or, my favorite when working with groups that are heavily consensus-oriented,
“If a well-chosen committee agreed to meet for 6 months or 2 years or however long it took, and at the end of that time, they came up with a recommendation that you were secretly delighted by…
what would it be?”
At the same time,
CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION,
to all would-be sorcerers’ apprentices:
If you work with a prompt that invites participants’ creativity, you will need to make sure that there are enough guardrails in place, so that participants won’t just make it a sport, to pop one anothers’ bubbles. If that starts to happen, many participants will start to withdraw from a game that is no longer fun.
Participants will quickly learn that creativity is not safe in the group,
or at least, not safe for anyone who is not jockeying to be an alpha.
People will become VERY cautious about bringing out their imaginations…
And indeed, that might be a fair description of where we are now, in our current society. As Edwin DeBono wrote, we tend to engage in an over-abundance of “black hat thinking”, way too early on… when the green shoots of initial creativity need sunlight in order to grow, and instead tend to wither and die too soon when drenched with withering critique…
Welcoming creative tension, by receiving concerns with care
So here’s the conundrum:
So many folks in the past have retreated from real conversations about political differences, because of a distaste for combative arguments.
On the other hand, we don’t want a situation of “group think”, where people don’t feel safe to voice a perspective that is different from that of others.
So, how can we balance these two things?
An atmosphere where everyone is heard with respect, AND,
an open climate where everyone is welcome to share unpopular perspectives?
I’m always curious about new and different ways to square this circle… and, I’m also happy to share what I’ve found, that can be effective.
But first… a true story about geese, that I recounted in an earlier Linked-In Article:
One interesting model for democratic leadership comes from nature — specifically, geese in flight. When geese migrate, they form a V-formation that reduces aerodynamic resistance. The goose at the front is the “designated leader” who is bearing the brunt of this work — yet this role is not fixed. When the leading goose tires, it moves to the back of the V-formation, and another goose seamlessly takes its place. The leadership role is functional, dynamic, and shared.1
Ok, so now that you understand about geese: imagine for a moment that the geese are sitting, not flying. And that the role of the “lead goose” is not to break down the wind resistance, but instead, to make things easier for the rest of the flock, by LISTENING to what each of the other geese is saying.
So now, when someone has a concern about someone else’s idea, the “lead goose” can say something like,
“Ok, so you have a CONCERN… that means you really care about the group’s well-being, and you see a danger with what this other goose has proposed. So I hear you really CARE…
Would you be willing tell me, what your concern is, instead of directing your comment at this other goose? They’ll still be able to hear it, even better than if you were honking it, right in their face… it’s a funny thing about how geese are built, we don’t tend to listen very well, when we feel we are being criticized!”
Funny thing is, we’ve found that this works with people, too… not just geese…
After we hear someone’s concern, we usually invite them to share their own solution. It’s usually so much easier to simply “poke holes” in others’ ideas, rather than to risk sharing our own… yet we see our role, as making it as safe as we can, in the room, for each person to share their creative ideas.
Of course, we can’t be responsible for what happens outside the room, so we need to be clear with folks, that we can’t guarantee “safety” in that sense…
Where to from here
If you are drawn to experimenting with these principles and practices, I’d love to hear any stories about what you learn in the process.
You can also get in touch with me through the “Co-creating Desired Futures” website, at https://www.co-creatingdesiredfutures.net/ , where some of us are sharing this way of working together, on a grassroots level.
Wishing you all the best, in your practice of evoking collective imagination, for the benefit of all beings!
With much appreciation,
Rosa
- Adapted from “Beyond the Tyranny of Structurelessness: Democratic Leadership as Secure Attachment.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beyond-tyranny-structurelessness-democratic-secure-rosa-98ejc/
