Getting out - or hiding inside?
(Pam) It's my job to collect observations and apply them to our work for inspiration - which in it's simplest form is keeping your eyes open, and more complicated - it's about sensing culture as it is and how it changes. I'm finding it hugely hard to do what should be the most enjoyable part of my job. I have to be outside, experiencing life, culture, art, people as much as possible. I have to avoid sitting at my desk checking emails. And yet getting outside, ignoring the endless admin and meetings attached to my role is the hardest part.
Why is it easier to hide inside - is it because that's where you have a measure of control (whereas outside you open yourself up to the knowledge that you know nothing?). Anyhow, I'm amazed that I find it easier to check emails! must have something to do with habit, yes?
Why is it easier to hide inside - is it because that's where you have a measure of control (whereas outside you open yourself up to the knowledge that you know nothing?). Anyhow, I'm amazed that I find it easier to check emails! must have something to do with habit, yes?
posted by ROInnovation at 5:37 AM
2 Comments:
I think the problem is that "getting work done" is equated with sitting at your desk, in front of your laptop. If we viewed field trips, external stimuli, play and socializing as progress or part of the working day... people would feel less need to stick to their desk (cause, if I'm not perceived to be working, how will I ever get that promotion?)
So, how do you create a culture that views "getting outside" and productive? One client I worked with had their whole team (about 10 people) get out for a field trip EVERY Wednesday afternoon in the summer months. They'd go to the museum, the zoo, the coffee shop for a couple of hours and observe. They could bring notepads, but not laptops. They would debrief the next morning in a 30 minute meeting... what they saw, learned, insights, ideas, etc.
What else can you do to create a culture that supports "getting outside"?
Just read a great Malcolm Gladwell article that was relevant to your question... http://gladwell.com/2002/2002_12_02_a_snl.htm
One excerpt: What were they doing? Darwin, in a lovely phrase, called it "philosophical laughing," which was his way of saying that those who depart from cultural or intellectual consensus need people to walk beside them and laugh with them to give them confidence. But there's more to it than that. One of the peculiar features of group dynamics is that clusters of people will come to decisions that are far more extreme than any individual member would have come to on his own. People compete with each other and egg each other on, showboat and grandstand; and along the way they often lose sight of what they truly believed when the meeting began. Typically, this is considered a bad thing, because it means that groups formed explicitly to find middle ground often end up someplace far away. But at times this quality turns out to be tremendously productive, because, after all, losing sight of what you truly believed when the meeting began is one way of defining innovation.
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