|
Home | Login | Recent Changes | Search | All Pages | Help
SessionOne005Innovation from Chaos: Harnessing Creative Solutions from Uncertainty
It is often said that change is the only constant. If you accept this observation then you are also probably aware that with change comes a good deal of uncertainty. Chaotic surroundings and a desire for certainty often accompany uncertainty. At least until things change again. The innovative solutions that transform a set of circumstances from confused to controlled are born from this chaos. By understanding the concepts of the change model and accepting its inevitable phases we can plan to innovate. We can use our innovations to achieve higher levels of performance and satisfaction. Brian and I have been having a lot of fun evolving our ideas for this session. Uncertainty has visted us once or twice. Chaos may be easy to identify and not always easy to move beyond. Our use of the Satir Change model focuses on Chaos and in finding the Transforming Idea which leads to the next phase - Learning and assimilation. We realized how Roger von Oech's books (A Whack on the Side of the Head and A Kick in the Seat of the Pants) have influenced our thinking about problem solving in difficult times. Von Oech discusses four types of creative stances to problem solving - warrior, explorer, judge and artist. We hope to be set up situations where you try out approaches and see what works for you. As an interesting aside, von Oech's creatives stances seem to have an interesting relationship to the four temperments derived from Myers Briggs types. I have notes from this session:
This was a terrific session. I found it especially useful to see how strongly I reacted after I realized what Becky & Brian were doing. Why does the Artist posture sound like the Distractor communication stance or Jiggling from MOIJ? How do they differ? Is the Artist focused directly on the task; the Distractor completely unfocused; and Jiggling a Congruent person pretending to be a Distractor to add a Foreign Element? Are they three intersecting sets of positions? (And does my looking for a pattern confirm my MBTI measurement as INTJ?) And no, I'm not joking, just struggling with the ideas. Thanks, Mike. MOIJ and communication stances are both ringing a distant bell in my head, but very distant indeed. Can you remind me where they come from? (The major reason I went to the tutorial was to fill in missing vocabulary.) Makes sense to me to try to see how things fit together - Becky said she and Brian were trying to see if the postures fit to MBTI. Comparing things to see similarities & differences is a big part of learning for most of us. I could see an INTJ looking for patterns, although I can't remember if they are known for it. It just fits. MOIJ was mentioned in the tutorial (it's on the laminated sheet) and the J, jiggling, was mentioned in passing a number of times during AYE. I've found MOI in Weinberg's Becoming a Technical Leader which I bought at AYE, but I have yet to find the J in the first three chapters. I keep looking at this on my lunch break, and remembering that my laminated sheet is at home. But I did find reference to MOIJ in a copy of Choose Again (Dec 2000) that I picked up at AYE. That gave me the high level and what the words are. Based on that article alone (which is all I have to go on), Jiggling sounds like adjusting how something is done to fit you personally. I would be very curious to hear what you find in the book. I am intrigued by the image of a congruent person pretending to be a Distractor (I am taking this work at face value) in order to introduce a foreign element. I can easily imagine many people I know grinning quietly inside while deliberately introducing a foreign element - either you or I, for example. The imp in me loves it. My mother calls it being a shit disturber. But it can be congruent. Isn't that often what Change Leaders do? Sherry, jiggling is a little different. It's basically an intervention to get a stuck system unstuck. It does introduce a foreign element (or tries to), but with no particular outcome in mind except to get minds or bodies unstuck. Complex systems tend to get stuck for no identifiable reason, and jiggling gets them unstuck by no identifiable method. - JerryWeinberg Thanks, Jerry. I am going to need to do some reading about this. It sounds interesting. - SherryHeinze Mike and Sherry- I love this exploration from brian's and my session. We were wrestling with the intersections of vonOech's ideas, MBTI and MOIJ. We decided that there isn't a one-to-one mapping, but there is an overlap. The way we saw it (at last discussion) was as if you took two circles cut into quarters for the four different roles/preferences. Overlap them and then twist the top circle an eigth of a turn. Now one role for one model is overlaid onto two parts from another model. This puts the elements of warrior and artist, for instance, over a jiggler: Taking action and provoking a different way of thinking. We were thinking that this seems to work with EAJW (vonOech's model) to MBTI or MOIJ. This was fun to think about these models and ways to integrate techniques and ideas from various creative thinkers. I would be very interested to see where this discussion goes and what Jerry and others think about a fusion of perspectives. Re jiggling: Jerry is correct that there is no identifiable method for jiggling, but after observing how I jiggle and how Jerry jiggles, I can guarantee you that we don't jiggle the same way, or therefore produce the same intervention. Neither is better or worse, they are different. Sherry, you've jiggled me with the horoscope stuff. Mike, you jiggled me back at a previous employer. I can't remember the context, but I remember walking away from you thinking, "Oooh, that's a different spin on the problem." I think of jiggling as something I do with reframing, although the reframe may be enough of a jiggle. Let me make this slightly more concrete :-) I was recently working with two people in the organization who were both convinced that they had a complete handle on requirements. One person did GUI-based prototyping. The other person used shall and must statements in the form of functional/non-functional requirements. They needed to work together, but they were both stuck. I jiggled the functional requirements person by asking, "If you weren't bound by how you define requirements, what could they be?" I didn't have an answer, but I was sure he could get to an answer if he could get unstuck. For the GUI-focused person, I said, "Hmm, there's more to your requirements than the GUI, right?" They were so stuck on their positions, they couldn't get back to their principles. The questions were the jiggling they needed to get unstuck. In this case, I think I helped the people reframe their problems and solutions. The reframe was the jiggle. In other cases, a jiggle can be a solution the people in the system haven't considered, not another question. -- JohannaRothman Thanks, Johanna. There's nothing like an example. SherryHeinze May 20, 2002 Back to NewSessionDescriptions
Updated: Monday, May 20, 2002 |
