Archive for “Emotional response”

Ever been in a meeting where everyone is sure they’ve tried everything, and nothing works?

And nothing will ever work?

And it’s everyone else’s fault?

Sure you have!

Tempered radicals and other internal change agents face this kind of situation alot.  So do external consultants, activists and coach / facilitators.

“The eco-champions meetings I go to are a real groan fest!”

When I was faced with this heartfelt description in a training workshop, we spent a bit of time coming up with ideas.  But I was sure there must be some even better approaches than the ones we suggested.

So I posted a question on two great forums: AMED (the Association of Management Education and Development) and IAF (the International Association of Facilitators).

The useful suggestions from fellow facilitators, coaches and OD (organisational development) professionals gave me a lot of chew on, and the result is this article.  It was first published in the environmentalist, and has also been reproduced in the IAF Europe newsletter.

Your own experiences and suggestions are very welcome!

Not groaning,

Penny

I’m finding it hard to listen to the news or read about the Copenhagen meeting, except through the fractured glimpses from other people’s blogs. Reminds me of peeping at Dr Who through my fingers from behind the sofa.  Can’t watch properly.  Can’t look away completely either.

These are the ones I’ve found particularly interesting :

• George Monbiot – taking a very big picture on how we, as a species, divide into types about climate change, and showing very eloquently why this is so hard.

• Living on Sunshine – the title of this blog alone is enough to raise the spirits, and with its provocative strapline “how old will you be in 2050?” (personally, 84, if I get there) reminds us old folk that if we’re not going to lead, we’d better get out of the way and let the youngsters do it.

• Mark Lynas – surprisingly optimistic

• Jonathon Porritt – sounding comfortable (if that’s the word) back amongst the activists and campaigners.

Will someone tell me what happened when it’s over?

I work with this great mentor, called Hilary Cotton.  She’s coached me over a long period of time, and her insights and support have been invaluable.

In our last session, I was describing the development of this website, and how the process that the web development team took me through obliged me to think really hard about what I do to help clients and to develop my field.  (Thanks Jonathan, David and Matthew!)

I mentioned the challenge that I have set myself here – for all my work to contribute to real change for sustainable development.

The work that needs doing is the work of transformation, and that’s where my passion is.

But, maybe inevitably, it isn’t where all my work is.

Some of the work clients ask for is a bit more workaday – more about being a bit better in today’s context, than co-creating a transformed future.

And I was feeling uncomfortable about the incongruence, to the point of wondering if I should change the text on the page.

Thanks to Hilary’s incisive questions, I had an insight: I was disappointed that not all my work is transformational, and I was letting my disappointment get right in the way.

The incisive questions technique leads you to identify limiting assumptions and replace them with liberating assumptions.

Here’s the liberating assumption I came up with, which is also a reframing of my emotional response:

If I knew that respecting my disappointment will lead to understanding better the opportunities for transformation, I will pay it proper attention and be unafraid of it.

So here’s the reframe: I can view my disappointment as a phenomenon, and be curious about it and what it teaches me about transformation.

I feel disappointed in what I’ve been able to do in this piece of work.  That’s interesting.

And more, I can respect my disappointment, as a useful companion which can remind me about what I value and what my ambitions are.

Hello, Disappointment.  What can I learn from walking with you, looking you in the face and studying you for a bit?

And then I can bid it goodbye, and try on another attitude.

I’m going to look at this another way: with curiosity about what will happen, gratitude that the work was brought to me, and openness to what might emerge from it.

And I won’t be afraid of being disappointed in the future.

So I’m just topping up on today’s environmental news feed (my feed of choice is The Guardian, a nice little app that even a web dilettante like me can add to their Google home page) and two stories stand out and demand a closer look.

The first states, “Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes“.   The second say, “CO2 is green”, which is less self-explanatory.  In fact, it’s an astonishing TV ad running in the US aimed at scuppering a cap-and-trade bill – thanks to Leo Hickman for picking this up in his blog.

What I notice is that while reading them, I get that creeping feeling up the back of my neck and round to my jaw, and the sinking in my shoulders.  I’m physically cringing.  Not very much.  But it’s there.

And which had the biggest cringe effect?  I can’t be certain, but I’d say that CO2 denialists make me more unhappy than the Met Office’s truly dire research.

So I wonder: what can I learn from this?

That I’m more comfortable with things which reinforce my existing world view, however awful?  Perhaps.

That we need to pull together now and use all our considerable intelligence and organising power to avert the worst and prepare a soft landing, and that I’d rather the US pro-CO2 lobby would ‘get with the programme’.

I’m happier owning up to that as a reason!

The other thing I notice is that these cringe-related feelings are not empowering and motivating.  What I plan to do now is

• forget I read either story,
• remind myself of some of my reasons to be cheerful,
• review my to-do list, and
• plunge into productive work.

Does that make me a denialist too?

A recent report by the American Psychological Association, featured in the New Scientist, brings together some of the evidence and theory behind the ‘positive thinking’ approach to communicating about climate change.

It goes something like this: people will block up their ears if you tell them the scary facts and make them feel bad.  Instead, discover what already motivates them and makes them feel good, and use that knowledge to promote the new behaviours you’d like them to adopt.  You might not mention the climate change links at all.

The areas picked up the NS article are:

• social networks
• immediate feedback
• competitive instincts
• fitting in with the crowd

I’m very excited that this kind of psychological analysis is seeping into the world of technical experts and physical sciences.   How have you been using psychology to help engaging people more effectively?

At a gathering of friends, new and old, over Easter, I’m asked, “What is it exactly that you do then, Penny?”  After a few fumbling attempts to explain,  they get it. Their responses, though, are telling:

“Yes, because I just wouldn’t think about climate change at all if I didn’t have to.”

“It’s just too depressing to think about.”

“And too frightening.”

“And you just feel overwhelmed. The more I know, the less I feel able to do anything about it.”

Those are the responses of my friends.  As professionals in our field, however, what is our duty to our clients? What do we do with their feelings of fear, depression and powerlessness?

An ‘every-day’ response might be to rescue people from their feelings, so as to spare them (and our) discomfort.  “It’s OK, I’m sure we’ll get through it, there’s nothing to get upset about.”

But I think that as professionals intervening with our clients, or active citizens helping to run grass-roots activities, that’s not sufficient.

The work of people like Joanna Macy and Mary-Jane Rust can help us.  It can help us to understand the causes of despair.  And it can help us to honour it without being disempowered by it.  So we can confront that depressing thought and begin to make a path of our choosing.

This is a slide show that I gave to the EABIS Colloquium in 2008.  It presents the results of a survey I conducted of organisational change agents, and asks how we can better support ourselves, and each other, at a time when we’re getting better informed (and many of us more anxious) about the sustainability crisis.

There’s also a paper and a  journal article (originally published in Greener Management International) that accompany the slide show.