{"id":2148,"date":"2016-05-09T06:01:06","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T13:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/?p=2148"},"modified":"2016-05-09T13:54:16","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T20:54:16","slug":"rubber-bands-and-the-art-of-visioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/2016\/05\/rubber-bands-and-the-art-of-visioning\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubber Bands and the Art of Visioning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Reaching<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.<\/div>\n
\u2014F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack Up<\/em> (1936)<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My mentor, Doug Engelbart<\/a>, was a visionary and a doer. When he first embarked on his career as an engineer in the 1950s, only a handful of computers existed \u2014 expensive behemoths controlled by stacks of punched cards. Doug had the audacity to envision a world where everybody had access to computers, where they could engage with these devices in real-time using graphical, interactive displays, and where all of these machines were connected to each other.<\/p>\n

His ideas were so far-fetched, he spent the next 20 years battling detractors and disdain<\/a>. That didn’t stop him from making his vision a reality, which he unveiled in 1968 at an event that would later become known as the Mother of All Demos<\/a>. While he wowed everyone in the room that day, it turned out he was still yet another 20 years ahead of his time, as the technologies he demonstrated that day didn’t become widespread until the late 1980s.<\/p>\n

Doug permanently instilled in me the importance of thinking big… then thinking even bigger<\/a>. Thinking big requires thinking long-term, because big things take time.<\/p>\n

But he also showed me that whatever you imagined also had to be realistic. As crazy as Doug’s vision for computing seemed to be in the 1950s, he knew it was possible. His ideas around display technology came directly from his experiences as a radar engineer in the Navy during World War II. Furthermore, he had spent some time studying the rate at which computing technology had been advancing \u2014 Moore’s Law<\/a> a quarter of a century before Gordon Moore<\/a> had articulated it as such \u2014\u00a0and he knew that it would be a matter of time before scaling effects would make computing technology both powerful enough and affordable. “A matter of time” happened to be four decades, a long time for sure, but well within the realm of possibility.<\/p>\n

Finding the right balance between big and possible is the essential challenge of effective visioning. Doing it well requires the ability to shift back and forth between radically different perspectives without getting dizzy and losing your orientation. The challenge for practitioners is figuring out ways to support this dance between big-picture thinking and cold, hard pragmatism.<\/p>\n

None of this is easy.<\/p>\n

Getting Real<\/h2>\n

Last year, I helped support an innovation process<\/a> for Forward Together<\/a>, an amazing social justice organization based in Oakland. I led a cohort of staff and funders through a four-month Collaboration Muscles & Mindsets<\/a> training in preparation for the actual experimentation process, which was led by Rebecca Petzel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rebecca kicked off the process with a two-day workshop<\/a>, where participants rapidly brainstormed and refined ideas. We invited several guests who brought different perspectives and helped stretch what our cohort had previously thought was possible. This resulted in lots of energy, inspiration, and great, creative ideas. Everyone was in high spirits after the first day and a half.<\/p>\n

Then Rebecca told the participants it was time to get real. She put up several large, poster-sized calendars, and she asked people to get out their personal calendars so that we could flesh out the plan for testing the ideas.<\/p>\n

As people looked through their calendars, you could see their shoulders slump and their spirits deflate. Everyone was busy, and they were having trouble seeing how any followup would be possible. One person after another voiced this same concern loudly and clearly. It was like an avalanche of negativity.<\/p>\n

I was taken aback. I had expected folks to get real, but I had not expected complete demoralization. After a very low-energy discussion, Rebecca and I huddled about what to do next. I had been scheduled to review some of the muscles and mindsets work we had done, especially for those in the room who hadn’t participated, but I wanted to scrap the exercise. “They need more time to work through the roadmap,” I argued.<\/p>\n

“They need to review the mindsets and all the work they’ve done the past four months,” insisted Rebecca. “It will remind them of what’s possible.”<\/p>\n

Rebecca was right. The first step in my Muscles & Mindsets program is for the participants to identify a core set of productive mindsets<\/a> that they aspire to have, as well as the corresponding less productive mindsets that they want to shift. As it turned out, four of the five shifts they had chosen seemed to apply to this exact scenario:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Feeling stuck<\/span><\/strong>
\n“I\u2019m scared of the unknown and would prefer to avoid it.”<\/td>\n		\u21d2<\/td>\nInnovation<\/span><\/strong>
\n“When I walk into the unknown, I\u2019m going to learn and grow. I don\u2019t know what the answers are, but I\u2019ll figure them out by trying things.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Not enough time<\/span><\/strong>
\n“I don\u2019t have time for anything more than what\u2019s in front of me.”<\/td>\n		\u21d2<\/td>\nSlow down to speed up<\/span><\/strong>
\n“Slowing down will help me make better choices and save time.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fixed reality<\/span><\/strong>
\n“There aren\u2019t enough time or resources.”<\/td>\n		\u21d2<\/td>\nFlexible reality<\/span><\/strong>
\n“If we think outside the box, we\u2019ll see ways to create time and resources. To do that, we need to be conscious of power and equity.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Me<\/span><\/strong>
\n“Everything depends on me.”<\/td>\n		\u21d2<\/td>\nWe<\/span><\/strong>
\n“We\u2019re in it together. I don\u2019t always have to be out in front. I need to be compassionate with myself so that I can be supportive of others.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Reviewing these helped our participants become viscerally aware of how quickly they had snapped back to the very mindsets they had been working hard to shift. That relieved some of the anxiety, and we were able to end the workshop on a strong, hopeful note. Still, it was a stark reminder of how simply bringing people together and giving them an inspiring, one-off experience is not sufficient to move people on an ongoing basis, especially when faced with everyday realities.<\/p>\n

Stretching the Rubber Band<\/h2>\n

My friend and colleague, Kristin Cobble<\/a>, is skilled at getting people to a hopeful place and supporting them in staying there, and she strongly influenced how I approach visioning. In addition to sharing many specific techniques, Kristin introduced me to Robert Fritz’s<\/a> rubber band metaphor, which has become a central principle for how I think about this work.<\/p>\n

In short, a powerful vision is both inspiring and grounded. Think of it as two poles: Where you currently are and where you want to be (the vision). Fritz asks that you imagine a rubber band stretched between those two poles. The goal is to create just enough tension so that you feel pulled along by the vision. If the aspiration is too wild, the rubber band will stretch too far and snap. If it is too conservative, then the rubber band will lie there, limp.<\/p>\n

Most visioning processes fail in one of two places:<\/p>\n