Community – Page 10 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

July 7, 2021

Atomic

With a few exceptions, atoms don’t like to be alone.

They prefer to join with other atoms. They can’t help themsleves, they’re just built that way.

If they stick to their own kind, together they make an element. A useful building block. When they combine with different atoms, they create a compound, generating properties none of the constituents have on their own.

Almost all the interesting things in our varied world are the result of atoms combining with atoms that are different from themselves, repeating the process until something durable emerges.

Inter-connection with different others is our natural state.

We can’t help ourselves, we’re just built that way.

Atom by atom.

June 21, 2021

Acumen

Acumen: Sharpness. The ability to get right to the point, to the heart of the matter.

Acumen is something Jaqueline Novogratz obviously has in spades, because she realises that the people at the bottom of the pile have it too.

And that the best way them to help them is to enable them to apply it to help themselves.

Bottom up, ripple out. That’s the way to do it.

No need for you to be there.

June 18, 2021

Work/play

Why do we enjoy playing Dungeons and Dragons?

Because we know the rules. We know the world we’re operating in. We know our own capabilities. We know there is randomness, provided by the dice. And we know that the people we’re playing with know all that too.

Within that framework, each one of us can play freely with the skills we’re given and the attributes we acquire. We can collaborate, go it alone, or switch between the two. If we’re Dungeon Master, we can even change the rules.

Nothing is predetermined, there’s room for the unexpected, yet everything is coherent. It’s a safe space enclosing the perfect balance between constraint and freedom, between box and creativity, between process and play, between community and individual.

Life can’t be like this.

But work can.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

June 4, 2021

On kings and forgiveness.

Seth wrote a very interesting blog this week on Monarchists.

“As Sahlins and Graeber outline in their extraordinary (and dense) book on Kings, there’s often a pattern in the nature of monarchs. Royalty doesn’t have to play by the same cultural rules, and often ‘comes from away.’ Having someone from a different place and background allows the population to let themselves off the hook when it comes to creating the future.”

I agree, but I think the whole thing is more subtle and interesting than that.

Kings ‘from away’ could act in ways that were totally unacceptable to the native population – in order to create change. Sometimes, they were even asked in.

Beyond that though, those same Kings were contained and constrained into a purely formal role. They became figureheads, cherished, personally pampered but essentially powerless over the society they ‘ruled’. They didn’t administer the results of their change and they certainly didn’t take over resources. The original population carried on as custodians of the land, society and cuture, as before.

That was the point.

A stranger king enabled a system based on shared authority and collective, consensual decision making to radically change without breaking itself apart. You could almost call them a scapegoat rather than a king. Nowadays we’d call them a consultant.

The challenge then, is not merely to be prepared to ‘put yourself on the hook’ to lead change that will make the community uncomfortable, but also to forgive those of your peers who do it for you.

April 21, 2021

Rescuing babies

Sometimes, all it takes to solve a new problem is to revisit an old technology, applying the best of the new technologies we’ve developed since we last used it, to make it work far better than last time.

Sail Cargo is one such solution, using ancient technologies in a 21st century way.

Another is Homespun/Homegrown – where the old textile town of Blackburn will grow and make it’s own jeans using the even more ancient technologies of flax and woad, alongside some thoroughly modern manufacturing, marketing and distribution methods.

Babies don’t have to be thrown out with bathwater.

You can fish them out first, and help them grow up gracefully.

April 15, 2021

The wrong day

I shared a post on LinkedIn this week about World Kiss Day.

It turns out I got the day wrong. Apparently it’s July the 6th.

Hey ho.

I still think this film clip is worth sharing, and watching, from one of my favourite ever films:

April 13, 2021

Blind man’s buff

Working away from the office has been uncomfortable for many people. Not least leaders.

We’re so used to the panopticon of open plan, together with the richness of non-verbal communication that enables ‘management by walking about’ – the ability to dip in and help where it’s needed with feedback and encouragement.

Remote working has made leading feel like a game of blind man’s buff.

It feels like we should become more like old-fashioned managers – telling people what to do then trying to assess where they really are through regular progress reports or software. None of these things tell you what you really want to know – whether people are struggling, or have misunderstood what’s required, or are simply missing something – all the things you used to be able spot really quickly when everyone was together in the office.

It’s an interesting problem, that existed long before before lockdown and work from home. What do you do when people struggle but don’t ask for help?

For some the answer is more surveillance, and more checklists. For others it’s mandating a return to the office. But I wonder if framing the problem differently might work better?

What if we looked at our people as students, rather than workers? What if instead of asking ‘How do I know they are where they should be?’ we asked ourselves ‘How do I know they are learning?’.

The answer to that question would I’m sure lead to a different way of organising how teams are supported.

And from my experience we could do worse than look at how Akimbo does it.

March 5, 2021

An antidote

Here’s an idea to cheer yourself up.

Reach out to someone you haven’t seen for years – an old colleague, a school friend, a fellow hobbyist – for a catch-up.

Chances are it will work wonders.

For both of you.

Thanks to John Hakim for doing that for me today – it was like old times. We’ll be doing it again soon.

March 2, 2021

Money

Money is a human construct, representing a promise to pay. That’s all. No matter what it’s made of – shells, gold, base metal, paper, bytes – as long as the promise is good the money is good.

Money doesn’t make the world go round. Promises do that.

And we can never run out of promises.

February 26, 2021

Contact

Lately, I’ve been creating and organising an archive of my blog posts, articles etc. At the risk of sounding narcissistic, it’s been interesting to see how my thinking and my expression of that thinking has developed over the last 5 or 6 years. Some things haven’t changed though, and I think you’ll enjoy this extract from 2018:

“What struck me this week was the idea explained in this video, of ‘sawubona‘, of really acknowledging each other as fellow humans when we meet, along with Seth’s discussion of how industrialism has squeezed out the opportunities for doing this in our modern lives and businesses.

Last Sunday I was wandering around the shoes in my local T K Maxx, when a gentleman asked me for help.

“Are these women’s sandals?”, he asked. Then he explained that he was buying for his father in India, who has had an operation and needs loose-fitting sandals to walk about in.

“Well, yes I’d say they are, but for what your father wants, they are probably OK.”

“I need a size 7 really, but I can’t find any in the men’s section, maybe these will have to do.”

10 minutes later, we’d found a men’s sandal in the right size style and colour, and I’d found out he was a bus driver with a degree in politics and economics. I’d learned about corruption in the Indian health service, and we’d given each other a little hug.

Sawubona. We had seen each other.

I’m fascinated by systems and processes. Not industrial ones, human ones. That run like clockwork, but with space for Sawubona.

No – they run like clockwork to create space for Sawubona.“

Just the other day, taking myself to a different Co-op for my weekly shop, and walking back the long way via several independents, I discovered that even in the time of Covid, Sawubona is possible and more precious than ever.

It’s certainly something I’d hate to lose when things get back to ‘normal’.

Thank you for taking the time to see me.