The lost art of imagining ten ways you can get to Berwick…
The extended family Drake has spent the last three weeks touring the many glorious beauty spots, beaches, and astonishingly good ice cream makers spread across the wilds of Northumberland.
In the past, keeping the kids entertained on such long journeys was always something of a chore – after a while, even the well-worn game: “give me ten ways you can use a paperclip… peel an orange… get to the moon…” starts to lose its lustre.
But in these days of mobile phones and noise cancelling earbuds, the only thing trying to come up with ten different ways to do anything is the satnav calculating the route from Bamburgh to Berwick.
Which is a shame really. Because the ability to come up with new ways to reach the same destination is one of the most valuable skills we can ever develop.
We live in a world that’s changing. In more ways and at a faster pace than we’ve ever known before.
And while the destinations we’re collectively aiming for might be the same as they ever were: a just world, one in which people are able to live the lives or love the ones they choose, in harmony with the nature around them or without fear or prejudice or structural barriers, or whatever variant of that vision we personally hold dear; the best route to achieving it is almost certainly different now than it was fifty, possibly even five, years ago.
It may be that the best way to preserve historic buildings and artefacts is to keep people interested enough to pay to visit them, buying scones and tea along the way. But that may not always be the case.
It may be that guide dogs will always be part of the solution for helping people live well after losing their sight, but it isn’t the only way, nor is it always the best way even now, and is even less likely to be in the future.
Just as it may be that the best ways to help older people remain active and connected, to help younger people develop a stake and an active role in society, to help people build new lives after tragedy or trauma, might all look different now than they did in the past, and may well be different again in the future if they’re to cope with the scale of the challenges and build on what we’re learning day by day.
Far too many of us fall in love with our solutions. For a whole host of reasons, especially in the passion-driven sector in which we work, we become deeply attached to the way we do things now; to the interventions we’ve always used; the life-changing services we’ve provided for years.
Even though there may well be at least another ten ways you can achieve those same outcomes, some of which may well be faster, better, cheaper, more profound.
And we tend to think of our bold new strategies as THE route on the map, the one we can plan in advance, launch with a fanfare, then follow for years.
Even though the road network around us is changing every day, and what we really need is the ability of a satnav to scan ahead and to continually recalculate as we go.
We all like to think of ourselves as creative, of our organisations as innovative and forward thinking.
But really, when was the last time your team came up with ten different ways you could create that world your vision statement describes?
And when was the last time you put serious time and energy into exploring and evaluating some of the myriad emerging routes that could take you more quickly towards your desired destination?
No doubt we can all come up with ten different reasons why we can’t do this stuff as a matter of course: money, capacity, governance, funders…
The challenge for leaders though, is to find the ten ways you can.