By Meredith Bowden
A problem with considering “The Future” is that it needs to compete with “Today.”
And Today is messy.
We are working on critical problems with long-term implications and no obvious solutions. The problems themselves keep changing and are tied to each other so that “solving” one problem here creates two more problems over there. There is often little to no agreement about what should be done, or even what we are aiming for!
WHAT IS A COMPLEX MESS?
Complex Messes are challenges (individual, organisational and societal) that arise due to the fact that the world is changing rapidly and becoming increasingly complex. These challenges don’t seem to respond to traditional ways of thinking and doing things. These are situations where we really don’t know what is going on.
Often at the core of a complex mess is a tension with which we are grappling – change and stability, self and collective, present and future, principles and pragmatism, and comfort and challenge, among others.
On top of that, we’re just hanging in there. We are busy. And time-poor. And exhausted. Whether or not this is a true, or new, phenomenon doesn’t really matter. This is how we perceive ourselves and our situation. And it influences how we act and the decisions we make.
Then there’s the small matter of working with others. Despite being social creatures, we seem to be losing confidence in our ability to relate well with each other. Conversation is a dying art, and worse, is not even really valued, by and large. Perhaps because we’re busy and focused on being efficient we are impatient. We are not prepared to slow things down enough to connect with people at a deeper level. BTW, we can’t even be bothered using actual words anymore, TLDR. SMH.
So, we are really caught up in the problems of Today, and we don’t have much headspace or energy left over for dealing with The Future. But what we are doing (or not doing) Today is creating The Future, whether we like it or not. Whether we’ve thought about it or not.
WELCOMING AND ACCEPTING MESSES
So, what do we do with a mess? We tidy it up of course, make it go away! From a young age we are taught that messes are bad. Can’t you just hear your mum yelling “What a mess! Tidy that up!… Is that a mouse?!”? I’m sure she never said, “What a mess! How glorious! You should take some time to sit in that.”
But in the mess is potential. In the mess is possibility. In the mess is freedom.
So rather than trying to tidy up the mess, brush its hair, clean its teeth, put it in its best clothes, we need to make friends with the mess as it is. It is not going anywhere any time soon. We can waste a lot of energy trying to push it out the front door, only to find it sneaks in through the back door when we’re not looking! Instead, we need to invite it in, offer it a cup of tea, sit with it, and look it in the eye.
ON BEING STUCK AND GETTING UNSTUCK
Making room for the mess, and resisting the urge to tidy it up, doesn’t mean we do nothing. We do need to engage with the mess, to try to make things at least a bit better. We need to make small interventions that cause the mess to shift and change shape, to reveal the potential and possibilities contained within it. This requires energy and companionship.
But sometimes the complexity of the mess overwhelms us, we don’t have much information, we don’t know which way to turn, or what to do. Like a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness, we can feel stuck, unable to go backwards or forwards. It can be paralysing.
So how do we get unstuck? Well, Winnie-the-Pooh got stuck by eating too much honey while out visiting. So, the solution for him was clear – wait. And while he waited to get thin, Christopher Robin read Sustaining Books to comfort him. Sometimes we do need to wait – allowing time to pass can reveal new information. But we don’t like waiting these days, we are impatient. Everything is urgent and important, and we are so busy. Waiting is especially hard when things feel precarious.
Mostly, waiting is not the best response to being stuck. When we’re stuck, it is usually more useful to take action. But in complex messes, we’re not often sure how it was that we became stuck, and we are less sure of what we need to do to get unstuck. Solutions elude us. And sometimes if we wriggle, we find that we just get more firmly wedged.
A POCKET GUIDE TO GETTING UNSTUCK
Here are seven (not necessarily linear) steps to help you get yourself unstuck when you are tightly Wedged:
1. Acknowledge you’re stuck
Acknowledge that you are, indeed, stuck. Simply say out loud “I’m stuck.” If you don’t acknowledge it, you won’t know how you need to respond. (A side note here, when we are dealing with complex messes, we are never, like a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness, literally stuck. Usually when we are stuck, we are only feeling stuck, an important distinction).
2. Anchor yourself
Slow things down. Stop what you’re saying and doing. Connect with the present moment:
Change your breathing – slower and deeper.
Press your feet into the floor.
Stretch or gently move your body.
Notice any thoughts and feelings that are floating around. Don’t judge them.
Tune in to your physical indicators – heart rate, gut, tension.
Notice the world around you. What can you see, hear and feel?
Connect with your values. What is important to you?
3. Go somewhere awe-some
Go somewhere “awe-some” for new ideas and perspectives. No one gets inspired to get themselves unstuck when they are in a white room full of computers and desks. What inspires you? Where do you experience awe?
Many people find awe in the natural world. Perhaps by the beach, or a river, or a pond. Or a mountain, a paddock, a forest, a local park. Or even your tiny balcony with a tiny pot plant garden. It could also be in the built world – a heritage building, an architectural café, your loungeroom, a fountain, or a gallery.
4. Focus on what is in your control
A large part of feeling stuck can come from a feeling that we are not in control in some way — we feel powerless or helpless. The hard pill to swallow is that most aspects of a complex mess are outside of our control. We can’t control what other people say, do and think, we can’t control government decisions, we can’t control budgets and resources, we can’t control our feelings, we can’t control the outcome of our actions, we can’t control The Future.
But there are some things that are always in our control — what we do and say, the choices and decisions we make, our mindsets and attitudes, our responses to what happens to us. We need to have a laser-like focus on those things that are in our control as these are the keys to getting ourselves unstuck.
Find an attitude that helps — acceptance, kindness, hopefulness, playfulness. Then assemble the best possible action from that place.
5. Set your intention
When we are stuck in a complex mess, we need to set our intention based on our values and purpose, do something, and then regularly check in with whether what we are doing is in line with our intention. We can set our intention for:
How we want to show up.
Our relationships with others.
Where we put our attention.
Our attitude or mindset for engaging with the problem.
How we respond to stress and pressure.
The quality of thinking we bring.
What we are willing to contribute.
6. Connect with others
We can’t get unstuck on our own. We need other people to help. When we’re on our own, we can get trapped in our own perspective. So, if we want to get ourselves unstuck, we need to talk to people we wouldn’t usually talk to. We need to have conversations that are different to our usual conversations, conversations that create a line of flight — an escape from the status quo (Deleuze in Raynor, 2013).
When we have conversations with others we can build on each other’s knowledge, make connections that otherwise would remain hidden, challenge our perceptions and beliefs, think of things that we never could have come up with on our own, see new options and possibilities.
“In dialogue, new meaning is under constant evolution and no ‘problem’ will exist forever. In time all problems will dissolve” (Anderson & Goolishian, 1988). We are not trying to find solutions, but understandings. In conversations, problems may not be fixed or “solved,” but can be evolved and “dis-solved” as they acquire new meaning and understanding.
Remind yourself, “there is another way of looking at this.” Then intentionally create conversational spaces that enable generous listening and deep connection.
7. Do one thing
The “proper response” to paralysis is to do one thing (Setiya, 2022). Start where you are and take one small action in the general direction you want to head. While not solving the problem, you may get the system moving, hopefully making things a bit better than they were before.
If you don’t know what to do immediately, improvise. Do something based on your skills, knowledge, experience, and values (Van Hennik, 2018). Then trust emergence — as the Persian poet Rumi said, “as you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” By doing something, the conditions are created for the next thing to reveal itself. Then you can work out what next step to take as the world changes around you.
In this present moment, right now, what is one small step you are willing to take, that is in line with your values and intention, that will reveal the next step, that will get you unstuck? What is one small action you can make that will take you towards the future you want to create?
REFERENCES
Anderson, H. & Goolishian, H.A. (1988). Human systems as linguistic systems: Evolving ideas about the implications for theory and practice. Family Process 27:371-393.
Raynor, T. (2013). Lines of flight: Deleuze and nomadic creativity. https://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/lines-of-flight-deleuze-and-nomadic-creativity/
Setiya, K. (2022). Life is hard: How philosophy can help us find our way. Penguin Random House, UK.
Van Hennik, R. (2018). Practice based evidence based practice: navigating complexity in feedback-informed systemic therapy. https://uobrep.openrepository.com/handle/10547/623318
Meredith Bowden is a futures and process consultant and registered psychologist based in Melbourne, Australia, with over 20 years of professional experience. She works with people and organisations to help them move through the complexity of transitions, toward a better future. Meredith is cohost of the Complex Mess Community (www.complexmess.com.au). She holds qualifications in Strategic Foresight (Masters), Psychology (Honours) and Early Childhood Education (Graduate Diploma). Contact Meredith at: meredith@talkingfutures.com.au, or www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-bowden
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