The Bamboo Project

Working Intentionally

Last week I had a really energizing phone conversation with one of my Career Clarity Campers, someone who has  jumped into the activities with both feet and is swimming joyfully in the experience. 

One of the things I've told the Campers to do is to pay attention to their work experiences, to identify what inspires and energizes them and then to look at how they can bring more of that to their work.   Essentially this is asking people to work with more intention, rather than letting work happen to them. 

This Camper has embraced the idea wholeheartedly, spending the first 30-40 minutes of his day thinking about what he wants to have happen, given the calls, appointments and goals he has for the day. For example, he's identified having more meaningful conversations as being an important value for him, so each day, he looks at how he can listen more carefully, dig deeper in discussions and provide really meaningful follow-up to people. 

He also uses this  morning time to hone in on what's really important for him to get from his day. He's looking for "what's REALLY important?" and finding that frequently it's nurturing connections, building relationships and spending his time on helping people make a real difference.

 He tells me that starting his day this way is energizing and inspiring and that the good results he's seeing are encouraging him to continue the practice even when that little voice inside him says he's should be jumping into email or some other more "productive" activity. 

What's interesting to me is hearing how working with greater intentionality is creating greater intensity for him. He told me that he's "reconnecting with the pleasure of his work," even having entire days where his work felt more like leisure and fun, rather than something he's getting paid to do. 

The tasks of his job have not changed. What is changing is HOW he does his work and, more importantly, how much of his true self he is bringing to that work. The more he focuses on what he wants from the experiences he's having and the more he approaches his work with an idea of creating a different experience, the more engaged and inspired he's feeling. 

 Essentially, the more intention and creation he brings to his daily work, the better it's feeling to him. 

I've found for myself that working more intentionally and focusing each day on what I want to create in my work has great payoffs. Even on those days where I'm having to respond to what other people want from me, I try to bring my intentions for what I want to create to those interactions. It makes a difference. 

So how intentionally are you working? How does working with intention change your experience of your work? 

"Take Yourself to Work Day"

For years, we've had "Take Your Child to Work Day." But lately, as I listen to people talk about the false selves they bring to jobs that feel pointless, I'm thinking that we need another day--"Take YOURSELF to Work Day." 

On this day, you would have the joy of bringing the real you to work. The day would be focused on discovering and sharing each other's gifts, removing our corporate masks and creating real conversations and connection with each other as human beings. 

We would start with individual greetings and being made to feel welcome as people coming into a new space. It would be clear that we were valuing each individual person for their individual selves. Anything that made it seem like we are interchangeable cogs in the machine would be strictly forbidden. 

I'm thinking this day would include some of Peter Block's great questions for the Gift's Conversation including:  

• What is the gift you currently hold in exile?
• What is it about you that no one knows about?
• What is the positive feedback you've received that still surprises you?
• What is the gift that you have that you do not fully acknowledge?

There would be no discussion of what we need to "fix" or "improve" in ourselves, no conversations about our deficiencies. Instead, we would celebrate each other's strengths and assets, the possibilities that are at the heart of who we are. 

We would also discuss the gifts we receive from our co-workers, including asking and answering questions like:

• What gift have you received from another in this room?
• What has someone in your group today done that has touched you, moved you or been of value to you?
• In what way did someone here enage you in a way that had meaning for you?

Each person, as he or she heard what is appreciated about him/her, would only be allowed to say "Thank you. I enjoyed hearing that." There would be no downplaying of their gifts, no "I couldn't have done it without you."Just a heartfelt "thank you." 

On this day, we would not be exhorted to be "professional," but would, instead, be required to be real and authentic, including sharing our emotions about the things that are important to us. We would be encouraged and supported in feeling joy, sorrow, confusion, and any other emotion that comes with being a fully engaged human being. The only emotion that wouldn't be allowed is apathy. 

Part of our day would be spent having conversations about the things that actually MATTER to us--the stuff that brings us joy and the stuff that keeps us up at night. Each of these conversations would be received with acceptance and curiosity, not judgement and criticism, because each is part of the real human experience. What matters to us is part of what defines who we are. 

We'd end the day by committing to bringing more of ourselves to the work we do. Not in the sense of pouring our every waking moment into work, but instead, bringing our own unique gifts and humanity to work with us every day.  This includes having the space to NOT work so that we were able to stay in touch with those gifts. And we'd commit to supporting our co-workers in the same endeavor. 

Of course, ideally, this wouldn't be confined to a single day. But even that one day could make a huge difference, don't you think? Frankly, a day structured like this is a day I would happily bring my daughters to, as well. 

Are You "Stuck" or Just Resting?

Tomorrow, I'll be starting a 7-day course on getting unstuck for people who may be feeling like they're getting nowhere fast. (Note--there are still slots available if this is you, so you may want to sign up.)

As I'm pulling final pieces together for the class, I'm thinking about the "frames" we set up around being stuck--the stories we tell ourselves when we find ourselves in this situation.  Often it's the stories themselves that are keeping us stuck. 

Probably the biggest story we tell ourselves is that we are, in fact, stuck.  Just look at some of the synonyms for "stuck":

• Trapped
• Caught
• Burdened
• At a standstill
• Without ideas
• Up against the wall
• At your wits end

The more I say "I'm stuck," the more real these feelings become for me. All I can think of is my "stuckness," which means all I can think of is how trapped, burdened and caught I am in my situation. And, of course, the more trapped I feel, the more I resist that feeling. But "stuckness" is like quicksand. The more we resist it, the more it pulls us downward. Not exactly a recipe for moving forward is it?

The other thing that happens when we think of ourselves as "stuck" is that we immediately start beating ourselves up for it. If you listen closely to your internal dialogue, you'll hear that little voice saying "Well you SHOULDN'T be stuck. What kind of person gets stuck? No one else is stuck--it's just you. There's clearly something wrong here and you SHOULD do something about it." We start judging and berating ourselves which, ironically, only makes us feel MORE stuck!

So what happens if we change the "frame"? If we stop seeing seeing ourselves as "stuck" and think of this pause as something else?

If we look at our lives as a journey, traveling on a path, then we know that in every journey there are times when you need to stop and rest. Sometimes we choose those moments, but sometimes those moments choose us. In any journey, there's the time you decide to stop for something to eat and there's the time that you get sick because you've been going too hard and have to stop for a few days. It's just how life works.

We also know that in any journey, if we look at a particular moment in time, then it feels like that moment goes on forever. But in reality it doesn't. Eventually we start moving again. We never stay in one place. You've been "stuck" before, but you didn't stay there forever. You always moved on. That's also how life works. 

So what happens if I stop telling myself that I'm "stuck" and start telling myself that I'm just resting right now? What if I just accept that for whatever reason, I'm not ready to move forward? There's nothing wrong with me, I'm not a "bad" person because I'm not ready to move. It just is what it is.  

If I think of myself as "resting," one thing I can see right away is that I can CHOOSE to rest.  I automatically feel better because I'm not trapped into this place where I'm at today. This isn't a burden. I'm not up against the wall. I'm choosing it. In this case, choice is a wonderful thing. It can instantly make us feel better. 

Thinking of myself as "resting," is also restorative and nurturing.  We need rest in our lives, so maybe this rest that I'm taking is necessary. Maybe the very thing I need right now is this rest. Maybe I can use it to take a closer look at my situation and see what it's trying to teach me--how can I learn from this place that I'm at right now? 

Finally, if we think of ourselves as "resting," then we can stop beating ourselves up so much for being where we're at. We can be kinder to ourselves and stop the negative self-talk that ends up making us feel more "stuck." We can just say to that berating inner voice, "I'm resting right now. I need this.  Leave me alone." 

I'm not saying that changing your story from "stuck" to "resting" is going to instantly change your life, but it does open up more opportunities for new ideas and action. It can give us the space we need to see another way. It can also show us the choices we have in this situation where we feel stuck, including the choice to look for new stories to tell about where we are. 

This is a strategy I've used several times in my life over the past year for both personal and professional situations. It has opened up some major doorways in my thinking and really transformed how I approach those moments in my life when previously I thought of myself as "stuck." 

So what happens if you stop thinking of yourself as "stuck" and start leaning into "resting"? How does it change the possibilities you see? And what other stories do you tell yourself when you're feeling "stuck?" How could those shift too? 

We Have a Leadership Problem

"Leadership" has been on my mind lately, maybe because of the many conversations I have with people about the "lack of leadership" in their organizations.  It also came up in the comments on my recent post on "Managing" People.  Everywhere I go, people are talking about "leadership." 

But I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the last thing we need right now is more leaders or even better leaders. The entire frame is fundamentally flawed. 

The Problem with "Leadership"

When we talk about "leaders," implicit in the notion is that there are going to be "followers." There is a power dynamic in the idea of leadership that is often unexamined and that makes it virtually impossible for us to address the complex issues that lie before us. 

Leadership has an heroic quality to it. It implies that a leader can save us from whatever situation we find ourselves in. It puts the onus on the leader to find answers, divine the way and to move us along that path. The leader determines the course of action and we decide if and how we will follow. 

In our mythology of the leader, they are lone gunslingers (or maybe a team of a few), riding in on their white horses to save the day. They are the saviors, the heroes, the dragon-slayers. They are exalted and somehow different from ordinary mortals, imbued with special powers and skills that the rest of us can only wish we had. 

Some leaders are better than others at inviting participation in their leadership. Certainly this is better than a dictatorship. But still, at the heart of any notion of leadership is a fundamental power imbalance where the leader wields power that followers do not. 

This is its fundamental flaw. "Leadership" mark some as "special" while others are not. 

Even when we pay lipservice to the idea that we are all leaders, we secretly know this is crap. The very word "lead" means that someone is in charge and others are following.  We may not want to admit this is true, but it is. 

Why Do We Love Leaders?

We love having leaders (even when we chafe against them) because it relieves us of any responsibility or accountability for where we are or where we want to go. I can sit back and blame what's happening on "a lack of leadership." I can operate from my stance as a helpless victim of the leaders who will not lead or who lead poorly.  We see this at work all the time--the people who want "leaders," but then who blame the leaders they find for not being sufficiently heroic in saving them. 

And for those of us who aspire to be leaders, there is that secret wish that we will be the hero. We love leadership because if we become leaders, then it casts us in that mystical glow that comes with our status as leaders. We see ourselves as participatory leaders--and maybe we are--but still, as leaders, we are "the ones in charge." 

Lately it seems to me that we are workshipping at the altar of leadership  because we are desparate for new solutions and ideas. If we can only build leaders, then we can all be saved. We are like children, looking for our parents to swoop in and save the day. Leaders are the heroes and we are looking for them to rescue us. Or we are looking to BE the heroes and do the rescuing. 

But this is a damaging, disempowering way of operating in the world. All this worship of leaders and leadership merely perpetuates a dynamic of savior/victim. It makes it harder for those who feel that they are not leaders to contribute their strengths, ideas and gifts to the collective good. And it causes us to expend energy on all the power struggles that go with this idea--who's the leader, who isn't, how does the leader preserve his/her special status as hero, how do the rest of us respond to that? 

From Leader to Citizen 

I think we need to retire the words "leader" and "leadership" and begin to talk differently about how we are working. "Leaders" are about hierarchy and if we are working in a dense collection of networks now, we cannot look to "leaders" to solve our problems. 

We need to find a different way of talking about what needs to be done, that engages all people in the work. I like the word "citizen," which to me implies that we have rights AND responsibilities in the communities where we operate--including responsibilities to participate in contributing to the collective good. 

What would happen if we stopped talking about ourselves as "leaders" and developing our "leadership' and we started talking about ourselves as "citizens" and what it means to be good citizens in our world?  How could that change the ways we interact and the solutions we find? 

Some Thoughts on "Managing People"

I've been thinking lately about our focus on "managing" people. I spend a lot of time with front-line supervisors in various capacities and they are obssessed with how to control people's behavior.

The discussions are of two basic types--How do you get staff to do the things you want them to do? How do you STOP staff from doing things you DON'T want them to do? There are variations, of course, but only in the details. Mostly we are talking about carrots and sticks and, for me at least, the conversations devolve into a sort of "how do we herd the cats?" kind of thing. It's animal husbandry, not working with people. 

There's a lot of frustration in these conversations--on both sides. The supervisors are frustrated that they can't control people's actions. And I'm frustrated that they are so focused on control. 

Here's the thing. Anytime we are focused on "managing" something, we are really talking about controlling it.  We want to control the outcome AND how people get there. We often want to control people's reactions, too. Not only should they do what we want them to do, they should like it, no matter how ridiculous the expectation. 

But no one likes to feel controlled. I think it's something innately human. The reason we talk about "the Terrible Twos" is because even children resist our attempts to control their behavior. Children resist by kicking and screaming. Adults tend to resist in less obvious, more passive/aggressive ways. But they are still resisting. 

This is why. Control is about power. When we "manage" people, we are exerting our power over them, but pretending we are not. People know this. They are not stupid. They know they are being manipulated and they don't like it. 

There was a time when employees were more willing to accept this kind of arrangement, when they felt like they got something from the deal--"If I submit to your "management" of me, in return I will receive a paycheck and some meaningful guarantee of ongoing employment." But that contract is broken now. It becomes harder to submit to control when you know that it's really a form of servitude, not a choice you've made to exchange your independence for a paycheck.

I think that people are becoming harder to "manage," not because they are spoiled or entitled (as I've heard many managers say), but because on some fundamental level, they know that they are getting the raw end of this deal and they aren't happy about it. Employees are afraid to resist in more overt ways (they still, at least, want that paycheck), but deep down they know that the contract has been irrevocably altered and they are not interested in such one-sided exchanges. 

 How to get out of this impasse? 

I think that we must first understand and accept that "management" is another word for "control." While I can control inanimate objects--financial and physical resources--I can't control people. I can try, but in the end I won't get what I want. And I'll exhaust myself in the process. 

We have to give up the notion of control and accept that we live in a world where many things are uncontrollable--especially those things that have to do with other people.  We can become resilient and able to deal with what life throws at us, but we cannot control how and when the ball comes over the plate. To believe otherwise is to live in a world of illusion. 

To work effectively with people, we need to take a different approach. We cannot manage them, but we can create space for them to do their own work. We can help them tap into their own innate motivation by helping them find autonomy, mastery and purpose in the work that they do. 

I also think that we have to bring humanity back to work, understanding and accepting that we are working with PEOPLE, not machines and that people have feelings and baggage that they can't just check at the door.

We don't want emotions at work, because they are messy and sticky and, well, uncontrollable. So we tell people to be "professional," which really means, "Keep your emotions to yourself, please, because I already feel like the world is uncontrollable so the last thing I need is you adding to that burden." But what we create, then, is a culture of repression and when we repress our emotions, they are going to come out somewhere, usually where we least want that to happen. 

Ultimately, I think that this post is a plea for us to remember that we are working with people, that our institutions (including our workplaces) should exist to serve us, not the other way around. We want work to be this antiseptic, controllable place, devoid of human messiness. But it is not. It is a reflection of our very human selves that we should embrace, not resist. 

What bothers me most about these issues of control is that they divide us from one another, creating an "us vs. them" culture. It's sad. And also unnecessary. 

What I think is this: If we worked harder to understand and embrace our humanity at work, we might find that our concerns about control evaporated. If we worked harder at understanding and working with each other as human beings, not machines, we might find that we're all  in this together. 

Announcing a Virtual Knowledge Cafe on Social Artistry

Yesterday I posted on how to make your career dreams come true. One of my dreams is to work with people from around the world to explore the concept of social artistry and how we can use the skills of the social artist at work and for learning.  So I'm going to make it happen. . . 

Announcing: The Virtual Knowledge Cafe on Social Artistry

Brent MacKinnon and I are organizing a 9-week Knowledge Cafe that we plan to run online, starting February 20, 2012. 

It's open to anyone who's interested in learning with us about the skills and talents of social artists and who wants to explore how social artistry might fit into their professional practice.

We'll be adapting David Gurteen's Knowledge Cafe model and Bo Gyllenpalm’s Virtual Knowledge Cafe as a learning framework.

A few things you should know:

• There will be no instructors, no learning objectives and no formal curriculum. The group will work together to decide on the topics we want to explore, based on our interests and passions. Each of us will take the lead in directing the learning through the questions we ask and the knowledge and resources we share. If you are looking for a formal course in social artistry, we are NOT the group for you. 

• We are building this plane while it's flying. We will be providing an online "home" for the Cafe and some basic structural framework, but the content and practices we develop will evolve as we go through the process. We think this is an exciting, interesting way to learn about a topic like this, but it can also be a little challenging for people who are used to more "polished" products and structured learning. If you participate in the Cafe, be ready for some messiness. 

• We have no idea of the outcomes for the Cafe. We're hoping that the Cafe can be the start of a Community of Practice for people who are interested in social artistry. We're thinking there's a possibility that through the Cafe we might identify some cool projects or ideas to work on together. But we really have no way of knowing what will result from the Cafe. And we're OK with that. If you join us, you will need to be OK with that too. 

This is an experiment in using some of the tools and techniques of social artistry to learn about social artistry. As with all experiments, it has the potential to be a rousing success or an abysmal failure. But either way, we will learn something from it. 

If you're interested, check out our course invitation here and sign up here. 

Here's to learning together!

Two Steps for Making Your Career Dreams Happen

I'm at the end of Week 1 with my Career Clarity Camp and we're heading into Week 2, where we'll start to turn our career visions into some meaningful action. 

One thing I'm realizing as we go through this process is how often we sideline our dreams. We worry that we may fail in our efforts or that we will do something stupid or embarrassing. Sometimes we wait around for someone else to go first. We can also consume ourselves with activities that SEEM like they're moving us forward, but they really aren't. 

Here's what I've discovered in my life. If you want to make a dream happen, there are two things you need to do:

1. Acknowledge your dreams without shame or judgement. 

Too many of us are ashamed of our dreams. We feel like there is something wrong with us for wanting what we want.

A lot of people I work with, for example, are creative, artistic souls and they judge themselves for wanting more beauty, freedom, connection and  joy in their professional lives. These are typically not valued at work, or we pay them lipservice, so people get the message that these are frivolous desires. Nice if you can find them, but not practical. 

Have we all really bought into the notion of our society as simply a vast machine for "productivity" and "return on investment," such that wanting something more soul-filling is frivolous? I'm afraid that we have, based on the shame and judgement I see in people who say they want something more. 

And it is this judgement--both internal and external--that holds people back from really pursuing what they want. They hear that they must be "practical" and "realistic," which really means that they must give in to a culture that has lost sight of its humanity at work. So they do it, because it's expected, but they are dying inside. 

So the first step in making a dream happen is to embrace it, to love it and accept it without reservation, judgement or shame. You must name it and claim it for you to move ahead. 

2. Make them happen.

For those of us who have finally embraced what we want as necessary and worthy, the second step is to make your dreams happen. That sounds obvious, but it's not. Too many of us wait for someone to come along who will say "Hey--I hear you have a dream. Let me make it a reality for you." If you want to talk "unrealistic," that's where we get into trouble. 

To make a dream happen,  you will have to move it. You have to take risks. You have to experiment and explore and be willing to fall on your face. You have to accept the dark side of creation and be kind to yourself in that process. 

You also have to be willing to take the lead and be in charge, to put yourself out there in the world and be willing to be identified with your dream. You have to talk to people around you, let them know what you're dreaming. You'll be amazed at what comes your way when you are finally acting from a true place of acceptance and inspiration. 

Making your dream happen isn't an event. It's a process. It's doing something each day that moves you closer to what you want. It's a series of steps you take, one foot in front of the other, until you arrive at your destination. There will be stumbles and missteps, but the journey itself will be far more rewarding than staying in place without dreams. I promise you that. 

Accepting your dream and then acting on it--that's all it takes to make things happen. So simple, yet so hard to do. . . 

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My 7-Day Getting Unstuck Course starts January 31! If you're feeling stuck and need some help moving forward, you can sign up here. 

 

A Conversation Manifesto

I believe in the power of conversation.

I believe that when two or more people gather together to talk about what really matters to them, the most amazing things can happen. 

I believe that revolutions begin with conversations around a kitchen table or in a living room or on lunch hour or at a coffee shop. Big change comes when we are willing to engage with the important questions. 

I believe that as human beings, we are built for conversation. It is how we learn as babies. Our first societies were formed through conversations around a fire. Our greatest institutions began as conversations about what could be. 

But, I believe we've lost faith in the power of what conversation can do for us. We've lost sight of how our conversations can shape who we want to be and what we create in the world. 

I believe that the solutions to our problems, the inspiration we need to build the institutions relationships and communities that are important to us, lie in our ability to engage in conversations that matter.  Conversations about what's important to us will nurture us and help us grow individually and together.

To this end, we need to re-claim our human legacy, our ability to engage with each other around our desires and passions and our vision of what could be. 

We need to make time for important talks, to make space in our lives for real conversation about our most pressing questions. 

We need to grow and encourage meaningful discussions where ever they crop up. They are happening. We need to join and support them and spread the word to others so they can join too. 

We need to provide safe space for ourselves and for the people around us to talk about the things that are most important to us. We need to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable and to help others be vulnerable too. 

We need to ask more questions and listen more deeply. We need to seek first to understand, rather than to be understood. 

We need to be the sparks for challenging, inspiring, engaging talk, willing to ask the hard and important questions and to provide honest and authentic answers.

We need to be comfortable with the messy, wonderful process of truly engaging with each other around what is important to us. 

We need to use conversation for good, not for evil.  We need to stop conversations that divide us--from each other and from our humanity.

We need to use conversations  to re-discover our common vision and re-define the Common Good. We need to use them  to find our gifts and to bring them into the world.

We need to use conversation to rebuild our connection to ourselves, our relationships with family and friends and our larger communities. 

Conversation is our human birth-right. It is what defines us and shapes us as humans. "Words create worlds" and we need to use our conversations to build a better place for us to live. 

Are You Sharing Positive Impact?

In the past few days, I've had some amazing conversations with people about how things I've written here have affected them. Since having a positive impact is one of my most important values and motivators, hearing from people that what I write here makes a difference to them is tremendously rewarding. 

What occurred to me, though, was how often we DON'T tell people how something they've done has positively impacted us. We may be quick to point out where a screw-up or problem has occurred, but how often in the course of a work day do we stop someone and tell them of the positive impact they've had on us? 

I've been observing in myself, lately, my tendency to somehow withhold this information from people--to not take the time to express my appreciation for the gifts they give me in the form of insight or support. I'm great at thanking them for resources ("hey--really appreciate that link!"), but not so great at saying things like "I've been thinking about our conversation earlier and let me tell you how it helped me with something." 

I've been trying to be more intentional about acknowledging these gifts and engaging people in thanking them for the positives they provide in my life. More specifically, I've been trying to thank them for the impact their insights or wisdom or ideas have on me. I'm trying to take it deeper than just "hey, thanks for sharing," to show them the positive effect they have on me. 

Doing this has helped me build more positive work relationships, but it has also helped me to better see the positive forces at work in my career. By reaching out and letting people know that I appreciate their efforts and their gifts, I am more aware in general of the strengths and talents of the people who surround me. It has created a strange and wonderful "energy field" around me, a virtuous cycle where the more I acknowledge gifts, the more easily I can see them. 

I also realize, based on my own experiences with people sharing impact with me, how motivating it can be to hear that what you do makes a difference to someone, that it really matters. This is powerful stuff and it's what is missing in a lot of people's work lives.

I know a lot of people work in places where they feel invisible and unappreciated, where their efforts seem to go into a deep, dark hole. But we could start to make that feeling go away, simply in choosing to interact differently with each other. We could do a better job of reaching out to people who have a positive impact and letting them know that, for us at least, who they are and what they do really DOES matter.

Imagine the shifts we could start to make at work if we did this. I'm not talking in a generic, "You matter" kind of way. I mean specifically and authentically, an intentional act on our part to connect with the impact that people have on us and to share with them how important that is to our lives. 

I think we'd be surprised at what we could make happen if we did. . . 

The Dark Side of Creation

Via Robyn Jay, a wonderful post from Harriet Wakelam on the "dark side" of creativity and how our participation in social networks may help or hinder that process.

First, Harriet puts her finger on something I've experienced myself:

I have recently been through one of those 'life reinventions'.  Unlike the current 'sexy' portrayal of creativity the process was absorbing, consuming and sometimes dark and scary.  During the process  I switched off from my networks. One minute I was talking, the next I was disconnected. 

It was however a rich and a valuable time, productive and exciting, if challenging and complex.

I love how she calls out the "sexy" portrayal of creativity that is so ubiquitous online. Rarely do people share the "dark and scary" parts of creativity. As Harriet points out, we are most likely to see just the finished product--the result of the creative process:

I have always thought that networks are non-linear.  Am I wrong though, are they very linear, our online social places being,  not places where thought can evolve, but a place to report the results of the thinking process?

There is no word, no hash tag, no convention for being present but processing.  If you are not 'present' then you are 'absent'.  

I have seen very few people I admire talk about the dark spaces of the creative process. 

My question: are our online networks missing an important facet?  Are they 'safe' enough for  emergent thoughts, or do we do our 'composting'  alone only presenting when we have visible evidence of growth...?           

Seems to me that would be a sad place falling well short of our expectations of ecosystems...

There are issues that I find interesting  here. First, is the nature of the creative process itself, with all its complexities and "dark and scary places." When we are going through career transformation, the process is very similar, in part because we are creating new selves. 

The second is the impact that social networks have on this process, particularly as they become more a fact of life for so many of us as we pursue our creative and career work. 

The Dark Side of Creation

In my own experience, creativity has consisted of two types of processes. One is active and more social. It includes  gathering information, reading, asking questions, interacting with other people, creating products and processes and blog posts. It is the productive, doing side of creation.  This is the side that we see online all the time. It has been enhanced by the ready availability of networks and people from around the world. It is the "public face" of creation, the side that we all see and admire. 

But there is another side to creativity that is not so action-oriented. I like Harriet's use of the term "composting," for that's what it is. It is a gathering and churning of bits of organic matter, half-formed ideas and thoughts, an inability to really put them together into anything that feels right for public consumption. In those times, my head will swirl with bits and pieces of connection and ideas that never seem to coalesce. It's a stew of  . . . something. . . but what it actually is, I don't know. 

I find that in those times, I am impatient with myself. We are such an action-oriented culture, so concerned with turning creativity into a commodity. If I cannot count on something actionable or valuable coming from the creative process, then why do I even bother?

These are the times when I tend to withdraw from the world, to cut off my conversations and connections. Partly it's because I need the space and time for the thoughts to just germinate. Partly it's because there's something almost shameful about not being able to "produce."  And we are a society that values what people can do. 

Yet in my experience, creativity and transformation is like pregnancy. There is a gestation period, during which it looks like you aren't doing much, but HUGE amounts of growth and development are occurring inside. Of course, we aren't able to observe a growing belly to tell us that work is happening, so it's harder to accept gestation as part of this process. There are no visual cues to let us know that something is developing. 

But eventually, you will give birth. There will be a product or a process or a new you that emerges. That is when you will receive the congratulations. You have produced something.

Without the gestational period, though, you would have nothing. And how often do we stop that gestational process or try to push it along faster than it should go, simply because we are impatient to have something to show for our efforts? 

Social Networks in the Creative Process

Harriett asks what role social networks can play in this process. Are they a place for us to be able to share these quieter, gestational moments in the creative proceess? 

In the end, it isn't about the technology as much as how we are using it. In my experience, because of the public nature of social networks and the fact that there's such pressure to build that "personal brand," we are reluctant to share with others those times when things are not so clear and perfect.  What will people think of us? If I share confusion or half-baked ideas, will it look like I don't have my act together? If I try out different ideas of myself that aren't part of that "personal brand" will I seem fragmented or confused?

I would love a world where our participation in online networks could more realistically and effectively encompass our humanity. Where we didn't feel that we had to portray ourselves as always being "together." Where we could feel more comfortable exposing our vulnerabilities and half-formed thoughts without fear of judgement from others. 

There's a saying I've heard that goes like this:

We judge our insides by other people's outsides.

I think online social networks exacerbate this problem. Everywhere I turn, there are people who seem endlessly inspirational and chipper,  full of energy and quotes and general awesomeness. To share those moments when I'm in the darker aspects of creation, when I'm questioning myself and what I believe. . . that can feel incredibly dangerous. 

I do think we have a choice. Technology is a tool and we can choose to use our networks to support or hinder our humanity. We can use technology to connect to other people who get that creativity is complex and isn't always about being able to produce the shiny new product or person. It's full of dead ends and weird ideas and things that don't pan out. It's also full of self-doubt and self-recrimination. Even, dare I say, shame.  

Using our networks to support us in the darker sides of creation takes courage and a willingness to be authentic. It requires us to be vulnerable. And it requires us to reach out to others, to show ourselves and to accept others when they are willing to show their own vulnerabilities. 

We can use our networks to support the gestational parts of our creativity and I think that we should where it makes sense. Sometimes we will need the quiet moments of disconnection to get clear within our own minds. But there are also times when it makes sense for us to share those half-formed thoughts and ideas with others. We just need to find and create that safe space where it's allowed. 

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