We talk a lot in the arts about being "accessible" -- which tends to mean open and available to many different people. The assumption (and often the experience) is that a lot of artistic work is difficult to approach and challenging to engage, whether in the content itself, or in the places and practices we share it. The frequent reaction to "accessible" is that it means "dumbing down" the work, making it less rich, less complex, and less unique so that more people will consume it. That leads conversations to an impasse. … [Read more...]

One of my favorite moments in any planning or strategy meeting is when someone looks suddenly resolute, and says something like: "You know what the problem is? The problem is that we don't have a system to [do or decide or develop the thing we're talking about]." … [Read more...]

When faced with stress or dramatic change in our environment, we humans have a tendency to conflate things in our thinking -- to bundle two or more separate ideas or issues or observations into one. It's a coping response when the universe around us gets more complex or shifts faster than we can process. … [Read more...]

I haven't been able to assemble many words since November, so I'm grateful for those who have. On the one hand, thoughtful rhetoric and reasoned language seem increasingly discounted and disdained as core values. On the other, talk seems empty when focused and persistent action is so clearly required. … [Read more...]

I've offered a few posts recently on the craft and qualities of language in advancing purposeful work. Torbert et al's "four parts of speech" described the different colors on the palette of a well-crafted conversation. Schein's four forms of inquiry added detail and depth to one of those types of speech. But to me, the most essential and the most often missing aspect of any productive conversation is the frame. … [Read more...]

Most of us have been admonished from an early age to "think before you speak." But it turns out that speaking doesn't work that way. Studies in psycholinguistics (Smith and Wheeldon 1999, for example) suggest that humans routinely dive into spoken sentences without a plan for how they will end. We do some basic preprocessing of the opening phrase, and perhaps some sketching around how it might end. But otherwise we're constructing the sentence as we say it. Just notice yourself speaking at some moment today, and see what you do. … [Read more...]

In my last post, I shared four forms of speech (Torbert et al) that define a richer and clearer palette of conversation in meetings (or in life). The two I find most absent or abused in purposeful conversation are inquiring and framing. So I wanted to dig into each of them in turn. … [Read more...]

With a new academic year now begun, I'm noticing again how odd and awful meetings can be. People of strong intellect and good intent, when gathered over an agenda (or a lack thereof), so often get lost in weeds and hand-wringing. Words are spoken. Heads are nodded. And you leave the meeting without knowing what exactly you discussed or decided. … [Read more...]

It can be comforting when a solution or a path presents itself to you as the obvious choice. When you feel comfortable moving to the next problem or question without even thinking much about the one at hand. Problem is, if you're crafting something extraordinary, that obvious, unconsidered choice can also be damaging. It's often drawn from habit, from ritual, from previous assumption. And great organizations aren't built from habit. … [Read more...]

My favorite books about writing are really books about thinking, and crafting those thoughts into powerful, public form. So, whenever I'm in a thinking thicket -- as I was for the development and delivery of my aesthetics/entrepreneurship course this past semester, "The Art of the Arts Venture" -- I look for insight in books about writing. … [Read more...]