You’ve all experienced the family meal that turns into a political debate. Sometimes it’s good, colorful, brightened by laughter and red wine flowing freely. Sometimes it ends badly, and we say: “never again”. We try to convince, it turns into a joke or an insult. But no one is ever convinced. In any case, no one is ever convinced in the moment, as if it were mathematics, 1+1=2, we won’t be convinced, we know it. We are never convinced. We allow ourselves to be convinced. It’s us who decide, through personal reflection, introspection, to take this idea into consideration, or not. But no one ever convinces us, we allow ourselves to be convinced. It’s us who decide.

Organizations, people, don’t go where they don’t want to go.

Force?

Sure, we can force them. Well yes. It’s still the simplest. They just have to go there, where we want to lead them. We decide for them. It’s easy. Restful for the brain. Politically we know what this is called. For organizations it allows them to be mediocre. Many believe that’s sufficient. Perhaps it is?

Convince?

Between forcing and convincing with insistence, when you’re on the side of power, the difference is small. But between convincing and forcing we’ve already crossed an important boundary. We begin to grasp that the choice, that the decision lies on the other side. But it remains ambiguous. We imagine that by bombarding the other with irrefutable arguments they can only yield. It’s like a battle where we don’t convince the other but just defeat them. As if we had understood that the other has the decision but in reality we still deny it. As if the other still has no say in the matter.

In the subversive “Rules for radicals”, Saul Alinsky tells the story of the Mexican government which, in an altruistic gesture, for the good of the people, decides by decree to return to their owners, free of charge, all sewing machines held in pawnshops (lending institutions on collateral). Everyone applauds, is happy. Three months later all the sewing machines are back in the pawnshops. The moral: even good cannot be imposed.

Without personal reflection work, without introspection, there is no progress. This is what Saul Alinsky expresses by writing:

“Education has to be used in every possible sense as an educational mechanism, but education is not propaganda.(…) Without learning process, the building of an organization becomes simply the substitution of one power group for another.” — Saul Alinsky, Rules for radicals ¹

By forcing, by trying to convince, we substitute one organization for another, without consciousness, by imposition, by propaganda. It’s necessary to have a learning process, personal reflection, an education. Education whose etymological meaning is “to guide out of”.

Even today, suddenly when I see that I’m trying to convince, I know that I’ve taken the wrong path.

Thus the real question, whether it’s political discussions during a family meal, or transforming an organization², is: how do we spark this introspection?

How do we spark this introspection?

Inspire

Remember that we allow ourselves to be convinced. The movement comes from the person who will seek what they desire. They pull toward themselves, we don’t push them, and if we push, they take what they want. One way to do this is to let others pick from you what they see and what they desire, you don’t push, you offer. It’s up to you to embody what you believe in, and to inspire. This allows you to do, to be in action. And to be a sort of source for those who wish it (it’s also your responsibility to make explicit the necessary coherence between your different actions).

You enable this introspection in the other by embodying your narrative. They see you act and project themselves, compare themselves. They’re free to allow themselves to be influenced. Like the mirror effect that Matthew Lieberman evokes:

“If you see someone hammering a nail, the areas of your brain related to that activity are awakened; stories provoke a mirror effect” — “Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect”, Matthew D. Lieberman.

This is a form of mentoring. The person compares their story to yours, and can draw inspiration from it.

Generate a sense of urgency?

Another way to spark introspection is to create a sense of urgency. “Things can’t go on like this”. This is what we find in John Kotter’s proposals on leading change. Whose point #1 is:

“Generate a sense of urgency”. — John Kotter

We easily link urgency and insecurity, sense of insecurity, of fear for the entity’s survival, for oneself, for employment, for acquired benefits, etc. In my view, fear is never a good advisor. We rarely make good choices under the grip of fear. Good choices are made by desire, by want (notably because then there’s no regret). If this sense of urgency is imposed, pushed from the outside, it becomes an urgency, an insecurity difficult to live with, not positive. If it’s born from introspection it can be positive, like for example that of Simon Wardley, who lost, will change his destiny with a momentum born from a sense of urgency.

“I asked one of my juniors what they thought of our strategy. They responded “seems fine to me”. My heart sank. (…)I still hadn’t a clue. I was an imposter CEO! I needed to learn fast before anyone found out. But how?” — Simon Wardley, Wardley Maps, Chapter “on being lost”³

Generate a sense of safety?

The second is to feel secure enough to try things, to have the space to allow oneself this reflection. Feeling secure enough is the opposite of a sense of urgency: nothing is at stake, I have nothing to lose, I could go back if needed. This is what we find in the “modern agile” version that tries to rejuvenate the agile manifesto and which indicates:

“make safety a prerequisite”. — http://modernagile.org/ ⁴

The search for a sense of safety is thus easily understandable: by freeing constraints, stress, fears, we let desire, want, a space for questioning reappear. They can express themselves because they are secure. This opens up experimentation.

In my approach I will therefore seek to embody and do what I believe in, hoping to inspire. And I will question myself on how to make the people I work with feel secure to give them this space necessary for their own experimentation and reflection.

…Except at family meals, you’ll have understood.