Rob: I think that something that activists really need to
think about--the whole idea that beneath the surface things are happening, that
growth is occurring--preparing for a sudden burst of growth that doesn't happen,
sometimes, until much later. I really
like that metaphor: growing bamboo. I love it actually.
Peggy: I know that has been helpful to me,
particularly when you're working on something as ambitious as, "What does it
take to change a social system?" That's
not something that happens overnight. You can look back to any great movement
and see an occasional burst of radical shift, followed by years of incremental
changes in course corrections.
And then, I think the next section of the
book sits in the middle ground at about a 10,000 foot level, and it's a set of
principles that say, "Okay, if this pattern of change, this disruption,
differentiation coherence, is something that you can predict, what are some
principles that help up work effectively with that, as we think about going
about our daily lives, or if we're planning some kind of interaction?" And so
these principles for me, grew out of the work I've been doing in organizations
and communities, bringing diverse large groups of people together and the
science of emergence like this idea that "no one is in charge," have taught us.
And there are five of those principles and the first one is the notion of
"welcoming disturbance," and this goes back to what I was saying earlier. Since
disturbance is the doorway to change, rather than fighting it, resisting it,
etc, the more capable we become at being present to what shows up, getting
curious about, "Okay, what does it have
to offer and what can we do with it?" It becomes an entryway into possibility,
and curiosity becomes a tool, and actually feedback that I've gotten from folks
as they've run into the book is, just that idea of welcoming disturbance can be
life changing.
Rob: It's interesting. I mentioned to you in our email
exchange, back in the late 80s, I came up with this anatomy of positive
experience, which was a series of stages and steps to go through and one thing
a friend Gary Schwartz, the professor of the University of Arizona has talked
about, is this idea of being prepared for the unexpected.
Peggy: Yep.
Rob: And I think that's what we're talking about here.
Generally, what I've written about is if you want to be prepared for moments
when you encounter situations that you didn't plan for. And you want to have in
your mind a way to deal with it--a set of instructions for yourself. I've given
myself permission when I encounter something I wasn't planning on to break out
of the ordinary, to break my routine, to stop where I was going, to readjust my
schedule, and to just stop and interact.
Peggy: I think that's a terrific example,
because that disruption becomes the doorway not to resistance, but the doorway
to creativity and we get there by doing exactly what you're saying: break a
habit, do something different. And so one of the notions that I think of, one
of these principles is based on the idea, "Be a Pioneer." And it's partially
because [of], in all of the experimentation, it accelerates the feedback. So,
where we find out, "Well, that didn't work," or "that did!" we want to do more
of that.
So, the lots of experimentation, lots of
breaking old habits, trying things new, and coupled with what we do, who we do
it with. So, back to the notion of "No One in Charge," one of the ideas is to
encourage random encounters. Go talk to people you don't usually interact
with. Show up in their world and do some
listening and observing and learning as part of that experimentation. Invite
them to play with you. And there's a notion in one of the processes that I've
worked with: appreciative inquiry of improbable partners, because it's very
often at the intersection of unexpected partnerships that breakthroughs occur.
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