“The secret of life is to have a task, something you do your entire life, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is–it must be something you cannot possibly do!”

So, what does this mean for our collective work? I think it invites us to remember this perspective in our planning and design work together. That we each of a deeper passion and inspiration that we are bringing to the project, and often we aren’t even entirely clear about what this is. I’ve spent the bulk of three decades exploring this ‘task’ of mine and only recently has it become more clear to me that my deep motivation is to help create more of the sublime and extraordinary and transformative in life. And that my particular focus for this work of mine is in the arena of Sustainable Development and Ecologically Oriented Restoration.

Becoming more clear about my own ‘task’ or calling allows me to feel much more congruent about how I can help others and the kind of help I can offer. It also makes it easier for people I may work with to have a sense of whether my approach to what they think they need may be a good fit. And in working on project planning, we can have an eye out for the particular gifts and visions that each project team member brings. Then coming up with ways to invite more of these ‘gift’s to come to life is part of the art of really good facilitation.

Along with a history of the commons I plan to write a parallel analysis of how we have imagined the creative self. We have a long tradition that takes creative work to be the fruit of individual genius working in isolation. Henry Thoreau in his cabin is the American type. But might we not as easily say that the creative mind is itself a kind of commons? A remark that Goethe made toward the end of his life gives a sample of a more communitarian tradition of artistic self-imagining:

“What am I then…? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless different individuals, by innocent and wise ones, people of intelligence and dunces. Childhood, maturity, and old age all have brought me their thoughts,… their perspectives on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name of Goethe.”

In his essay, Created Commons, Hyde explains that he “takes Goethe’s image and applies it to Thoreau to show how, despite his fabled independence, we would not have his work were it not for the remarkably rich community and communal institutions that surrounded him in Concord.”

I think this is at the heart of extraordinary sustainable development work, the brilliance of collective composition. This is not easy to create as there is a tendency in group work to focus more on differences and limitations. But to create a space where project teams can also focus on our individual and collective insights and possibilities can make an ordinary project sing.

]]> http://chazkingsley.com/2010/02/the-sublime-and-collective-creativity/feed/ 0 http://chazkingsley.com/2010/02/balancing-need-to-know-with-unknown-possibilities/ http://chazkingsley.com/2010/02/balancing-need-to-know-with-unknown-possibilities/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:31:10 +0000 Charles http://chazkingsley.com/?p=359 I have been talking with a couple clients recently about creating community brainstorming sessions to see what ideas could be discovered for projects the clients have been working on. I had suggested that there was little to lose and if one good idea came out of the discussion, it would prove very valuable. The cost of pulling this sort of thing together would probably be less than $1000. I couldn’t understand the clients lack of enthusiasm for the idea. Then in talking with parts of the client teams, it came out that the clients wanted to have a better sense of the answers and direction first.

I felt disappointed at the lost opportunity for the clients and me for a bit of work. But I also had a renewed appreciation for the desire to ‘know’ what one is doing or wants before having conversations with broader stakeholders. I’ve seen this in working with city planning bureaus and developers and myself, that there is a resistance to communicate when there isn’t a clear sense of knowing and progress. How do we balance this want to know first with the possible opportunities of engaging in open ended communication that invites discovery and insight and relationship building. I laugh as I know how true this is for me, even in this blog. That I ’should’ communicate some clear insights and knowledge and then I feel shy to share confusion and doubt and ‘unknowing’.

No matter how much experience I have with finding value and insight from being open to the questions and not knowing, I still fight with the internal voice that wants to know and be on top of things. It seems worth bringing  more awareness of both of these sides in all of us and the projects we work on. Because it does seem like we need both the knowing and the not knowing to create things in our life that are truly special. The ‘knowing’ stuff helps us get things done. The less familiar ‘not knowing’ is usually where the mysteries and insights and deeper creativity hide out, waiting for the opportunity to be discovered.

This film reminds me of  my own life and of work I do with clients. One of my primary visions, with myself and working with others, is being to appreciate our own complexities and the richness of what it is to be human. And that there are rarely easy answers. And that we are filled with paradoxes…. that we love and we dislike; that we feel optimistic and despair, that we can be productive and stuck; and that we can feel confident and inadequate. So much in our lives and culture suggests there are obvious answers, usually in the product or service being offered. My experience suggests that life is far more mysterious and surprising and our very complexity is at the heart of what makes life so rich. The hard work  is of discovering more of all of who we are ,what we deeply care about and that we can never fully know any of these things. But the fun is in the exploring and uncovering the underlying potentials within ourselves, our relationships, our homes and our work and then finding enlivening ways to express ourselves.

I’d love to hear from any of you about other films that you feel have gotten to the heart of this carnival of life.

First person gets to  the more we can be present to what we are experiencing in the moment, we can be present to richer possibilities that can emerge. Almost like the spirits of our own inner landscape can only reveal their guidance when we can be very in touch with them in the moment. As much as I love stories and sharing ideas, I get really jazzed when I can dive deeper into the experience in the moment. This can drive some people nuts, who just want to get on with life, I suppose. Maybe this can feel like too much work. It’s one of the things that drew me to depth psychology, one arena that totally supports being in the moment and learning from these experiences.

I have been writing about my own philosophy of ‘Facilitation Arts’, I also am owning up to how much I am motivated by the sublime. Not to marginalize everyday life, but to stand up for that which is unique and distinct and often just below the surface in each of us. This includes for me the art and music and food and places I bring together in my life . Also, the relationships and dialogues that we create together. I have this belief that there is a natural impulse in all of life to evolve toward beauty and the sublime, even the world in a grain of sand, as William Blake said. My role and passion is to help be a catalyst for these little evolutions in myself and my surroundings.

This first person gets at some of the heart of good facilitation for me. Listening past the debates and challenges in ourselves  and projects and listening for what is below the surface and wanting to emerge. That if we pay attention, there is this wisdom in us and groups that can create work that is special and that will more deeply engage people and endure. And to me this is also the heart of ecology, creating outcomes that have character and uniqueness and that will endure.

Reflection: Notice places you or a project you are working on is not being personal enough, that is focusing on big picture or little details without tapping how the people really feel about what is happening. It can be risky at times sharing our very personal reactions and desires in the middle of projects, yet it can be very helpful and powerful.

An example of this form and content dance is an ecological community restoration project. We have had a diverse group of ’stakeholders’ working together for the past seven years to lead a ‘green street meets main street’ project. No one knew it would take this long and there have been many times where people have gotten worn down and wondered if we would ever get this built and if so what would this look like. I’ve found one of my primary roles on this project has been to keep this very diverse group strongly connected to our core intentions around creating both a ‘green’ street and ‘main’ street. The trick is we don’t know exactly what this looks like or the forms it can take. But what we have been able to do is explore all sorts of possibilities and come back to our core intention and see if it fits, if the possible forms are congruent with the shared vision we have.

This is a delicate dance as we need both the intentions/values/visions and the forms/structures/shapes that give our goals expression. But, remembering and being true to our core and allowing forms to evolve is great accomplishment. I’m reminded again of my favorite principle around strategic planning, create a plan and hold it lightly.

Reflection: Think of a challenge you are working with and notice where you may be getting sidetracked by over emphasis on what things should look like? Then you can notice how coming back to your core intentions and goals as the foundation can help you reimagine future possibilities

So we are having some sort of debate, I use this word loosely here, in this country on health care reform. When I can get some distance from the strong emotions I feel over the cynical level of criticism of much needed reform, I find it fascinating to watch and learn from how this ‘project’ has been maanged. It seems Obama made a strategic decision to let Congress take the lead in creating proposals for reform after watching Hilary Clinton’s more White House vision led effort fail in the 90’s. Obama laid out a few broad goals and seemed to hope that inviting Congress to take the lead would be more effective approach for reform.

Hindsight is usually easier and it seems that a middle ground may have been more effective. Rather than relying on Congress to craft the plans, Obama could have taken a much more shared leadership approach and worked directly  and upfront with Congress to craft the details of the vision and plan. We now have a situation where it is hard to tell who is in charge or providing real leadership and it has made it easier for critics to create more havoc, like town hall meetings turning into spectacles rather than deliberations. An aside, having town hall or any meetings without a clear sense of a goal or objective leads to frustration.

This same dynamic is in play with new developments, whether a home project, a neighborhood commercial development or a city project. The projects that I see go well are where the leader is working closely with the staff to provide guidance and reflection and ownership. Projects that end up less satisfying are usually where there has been a more one sided planning approach taken. Either leader/developer/city dominated or responsibility given to the implementors with little leadership collaboration.

An example is where a developer comes to tell a neighborhood what they are going to do and are disappointed with often less than enthusiastic responses. Or when a developer wants to collaborate and look to neighbors for input but are not clear with neighbors about the goals and limitations and limitations of what can be changed. What has worked well is getting clear with the developer ahead of time goals, limits and expectations of working with the neighborhood and communicating this clearly to the neighborhood in meetings to continually invite the most helpful feedback and also not leave people disappointed with dashed expectations. I think we can continue to learn from these experiences and I can only hope that Obama can do the same to save a critical reform agenda.

Reflection: Notice a project that you are working on and see where being ‘collaborative’ is marginalizing some much needed leadership. Even begin to imagine how you could model some of the leadership that is needed, regardless of your role in the project.

I’ve just finished devouring the second season of the AMC series Mad Men. For those who haven’t been graced with this beautiful show, it’s set in the early 60’s around an ad agency and the unfolding histories of civil rights, women’s rights, cold war, and morality and truth. Two observations about the show that was created by Matt Weiner who was one of the key folks involved in the Sopranos.

One, we have in this series an example of the higher octave of what television entertainment is evolving, complex characters  and relationships  the history of the times. These can be explored over the course of years in these series and get at nuance and subtlety and richness that wasn’t possible in the same way in two hour movies or plays and even in novels. The examples of this that I have found the richest are the series Deadwood, Six Feet Under and The Wire. Each in it’s own way explored an arena of life or time in the sort of depth and time and paradox that counterbalances the short attention span media bites that many lament.  This applies in development projects. There is resource pressure to stay close to the surface and just get things done. Yet often we can lose touch with the nuances of what will make this project matter to us.

The second aspect of ‘Mad Men’ that moved me was the richness of relationships the series explores. So often dramas rely on either a strong story or strong characters, but ‘Mad Men’ does a beautiful job of depicting the complexity and humanity of relationships in work and love that is masterful. And for those of us who work with groups and cultivating richer collaborative efforts, this show is a lovely reminder of how difficult and challenging effective collaboration is. We have to pay attention to the subtle signals and psychology’s at play. One of the most effective means I have found is go to where the most energy in a group is. Not necessarily the loudest, but where you can feel real strength, usually in someone suggesting a surprising possibility that can easily get missed if we are not paying attention.

I consider Mad Men essential viewing and education, like looking in a mirror sometimes  at things we don’t always want to see in ourselves. Highly recommended.

Reflection: Where in your life may you not be fully appreciating the subtlety and complexity and richness that is playing out? How could you do a better job of savoring the complexities and paradoxes in your life right now that can contribute to a more savory experience?

A recent Sunday Oregonian had a nice piece on Portland based design firm Ziba Design and the firm’s  evolution over the past twenty five years. What felt intriguing and relevant was the idea from Ziba founder Sohrab Vossoughi saying (consumer) culture has entered the ‘Age of Meaning’ with consumers craving a connection to the things they buy, that the mass economy is over. I would extend this to people longing for a deeper connection to themselves and life around us.

I notice in people I work with in city agencies or small businesses or local developers the challenge to be unique and express real character. There is so much pressure to conform to what is known in today’s tight economy and shrinking budgets and staff. And yet, it will  be those who express uniqueness and even eccentricity that can stand out with a grounded integrity to what they most value that seems to be rewarded over time.

The Division Street Green Street meets Main Street revitalization project has been an ongoing learning laboratory for the tension between unique visionary plans and the pressures of stretched city staff and not enough money that can dilute the possibilities that exist. This is not just another example of aspirations meeting reality, to me it gets at the more fundamental issue of what really has ‘meaning’ for us in our local neighborhoods and how do we support this.

Despite civic goals of city agencies, they are also very large and complicated human organizations that struggle to create meaning in their programs with we citizens as customers. One of the biggest challenges we have faces in our seven year efforts on the Division Street project is to clarify who is responsible for what? What seems to have worked on projects is to have a very robust shared understanding of core values and framework for a project. And then allow a great degree of openness in what forms these values can take.

Reflection: Notice some place you may feel frustrated and see if there are ways that you may be compromising your own values and beliefs to conform to some others expectations. Imagine small ways that you can begin to start to stand up more for the values you care about .

Why is it that almost all design magazines and staging look and feel so soulless? I’ve just seen some pictures in the Sunday Oregonian from the upcoming Street of Dreams tour that features penthouses in a few of the recently built condo buildings in the Pearl in downtown Portland. In each of these $1 million dollar plus offerings there have been designers contracted to decorate the spaces. And while they are each technically well designed, they  lack soul and a sense of being emotionally moved by the spaces. And isn’t this a big part of what we want in our homes, to feel embraced and to feel good???  It seems such a lost opportunity. Where we could be giving people the experience of spaces with deeper design character.  Instead, most designs and shops offer up the latest styles that celebrate the surface of things, which by it’s very nature is transient and less enduring.

Alain De Botton writes eloquently about this in ‘The Architecture of Happiness’, that homes can represent our deeper desires for ourselves and life, the things we most value. In my own design practice I strive to create spaces that people feel good in, that have personality and character. One key lesson I’ve learned for making spaces more enchanting is to have the space (home or work) include only things you really love. This is actually part of deeper ecological thinking, that if we invest in only that which we really love and that moves us, we will consume less and surround ourselves with what inspires us and nurtures us. While this sounds relatively simple, it’s both very challenging and rewarding.

Reflection: Are there places that you may be putting more energy into how popular something is or how it looks without having given enough thought to how much you really love it? This reflection can apply to most all areas of our lives. Notice the aspects of your life that you deeply love and imagine what qualities may be shared in these loves that can inform you in the future?