Proceed Until Apprehended

That’s funny. My title made you think I was going to tell you about all the subversive things I’ve done to make the government system inoperable…. well, sorta. I’m going to detail what I saw, at least in part, from my experience in the public service.

I’d like to provide some reflection on my seven years spent in the Saskatchewan Public Service. It was a period of tremendous growth and maturation for me. As the province’s largest employer, it represents the experience a lot of Saskatchewan people receive, or will receive, so here’s my take on what you’ll see.

There are two pretty distinct groups of people working in government. The distinguishing point, in my opinion, is how an individual interacts with the numerous boundaries the bureaucracy presents. Some people see these boundaries as porous and bendable, and others see them as air-tight and immovable.

There are written rules for when you’ll show up, when you’ll take a break, when you’ll get a performance review, how you’ll provide advice to decision-makers, how you’ll request bereavement leave… the list goes on. Then, there’s unwritten rules, like how you’ll dress, or what kind of message you’ll leave on your phone, what your out-of-office email message will say, where you’ll park your bike, there are even some unwritten rules for what are reasonable excuses for calling in sick.

The first, and most significant, choice government implicitly invites you to make is which group you’re going to be in. Most make a non-choice to follow the rules. However, now that you’ve read this far, you’re no longer eligible for the non-choice. You’ll have to choose. If you choose that government boundaries are rigid, congratulations. You’ve just gotten a job that will ensure you and your family are fed for the rest of your life. Mission accomplished.

That choice, however, requires you to accept assignments that appear pretty much meaningless, misguided and sometimes demeaning. If you’re OK with accepting that someone else knows better than you, even when you’re doing more thinking, researching or interacting on the topic, you’ll do fine with this.

My experience with government is that approximately 80% of employees choose to blindly follow the rules. It’s not that everybody starts this way, but they have to keep choosing, everyday, and government has a way of wearing you down until you accept the boundaries. Then you don’t have to choose anymore.

Even in this environment, 20% of individuals don’t accept the bureaucratic expectations. They choose to push, prod and break the boundaries. They work for change.

There’s different levels of investment to the work done on the 20%. Some work on the periphery, away from bread and butter issues. It’s a little more comfortable there. They can fight for changes to regulation 32 C of the Labour Standards Act, and feel proud that they fought the good fight… and no-one bit back.

Others try and strike right at the heart of the organization. They say, “12,000 public servants are working at half speed. We need to change the way we organize and engage employees.” It’s a herculean task given the amount of bureaucracy and control they’re confronting.

It’s in this environment that I worked for seven years, and it had three stages for me:

Stage 1 – Crash Course in Analysis

My amazingly brilliant supervisor demanded more and more from me during this time, and I wanted to get better. I got what I suspect was Masters-level training in creating concrete, credible and compelling solutions. It was a very beneficial relationship… for me, certainly, and I hope for my boss. That training is the foundation for the thought process I apply every day.

Stage 2 – My Attempt to Dent the System

My supervisor moved on, but the timing was impeccable. I was just starting to want to take on more ownership. Ownership not just for the work, but ownership for how I created my own brand and value in government. I challenged boundaries and had some success, primarily in helping others see their relationship with the boundaries. I also had failures. Lots of them. But they were mine, and I learned from them, so… success.

Stage 3 – My Burnout

I had built what I felt to be a healthy, productive little “shop,” an oasis in the bureaucracy, where people were responsible to be thoughtful and practice ingenuity. It was far from perfect. There was lots of growth left to pursue, but time ran out. New leadership brought new direction, and I found myself starting back near the beginning, so yeah, failure. I didn’t do what was necessary to lock in the changes I’d made.

I don’t know if you can “lock in” progress in government. (I don’t know if what I did was progress. If you like this blog, maybe it was.) I left the public service without knowing how to lock in what I’d done. I acknowledge this limitation. I think this was when I knew it was time to leave. I didn’t have the appetite to start again and rebuild what I believed in, and even if I did, I didn’t know how to sustain it when a more senior person’s philosophy didn’t jibe.

Here’s then, what government gave to me. If you’re a recent graduate or considering a career change, you can use this as a checklist to determine if government is right for you:

• Significant investment in my ability to produce quality thinking and advice
• Practice at managing and leading people
• Practice at building a grassroots cultural change
• A near-militant commitment to challenging status quo environments
• Pessimism for the future of all governments
• An innate sense of a bureaucrat’s motivations

I welcome your thoughts, especially if you’re a public servant in Saskatchewan or elsewhere. I tried to write this without pessimism, but I’m not sure it’s possible. Some other perspectives would help round it out.

I’m forever grateful for who I became through my public service experience, but mostly because of how it served as a motivation and a foil for me to grow up and away from it.

We were talking about boundaries at work, and my colleague likened it to the “invisible fence” that shocks his two new puppies if they venture too far. They are inclined to sit pretty far back from even where the shocks begin, looking forlorn and whimpering.

We do that at work, too. We readily structure boundaries around our role, boundaries even more restrictive than the ones we are asked to accept.

“It’s too bad,” I said, “that one of your puppies doesn’t go get shocked anyway. That would be a great life lesson.”

“That actually does happen,” confirmed my co-worker.

Turns out, these two identical dogs behave in very different ways. They both struggle with the boundary, of course, but one of them pushes into the “shock zone” anyway, irritating their neck and scratching themselves raw. Guess what happened? It’s priceless. The puppy that pushed the boundary got the collar taken off. That puppy got to run free. Guess that boundary wasn’t so firm after all. Good thing he checked. 

For our own sense of well-being and happiness, it is a necessity that we test our boundaries, at least once in a while. Changing the seemingly unchangeable external factors of your situation can be done, or at least significantly influenced, by you. You have to be willing to ask/test/challenge/disobey.

Another note: The boundary-pushing puppy also figured out that the “shock” only lasts for a ten foot distance. With a full head of steam and the willingness to endure a quick zap, he’s spending his whole day outside the fence exploring the neighbourhood. I like this dog.

Commenting on a previous post, Chris asked me about my “mentor network.” Specifically, he asked,”How you selected it and nurtured it and what you seek to get from it and also contribute to it?”

A number of years ago I set up a network of individuals that I wanted to remain connected to even though I wasn’t going to be working with them on a regular basis – a mentor network.

Just a point about mentors – I think your supervisor or boss is sort of an “obligated” mentor. They should be coaching you, developing you and paying attention to your needs. However, they don’t always do this, and if they do, it’s only part of the coaching story. You’ve got to presume their loyalty lies with the organization, not with your personal growth. Sometimes you need some perspective from a different filter. Having a supervisor as a mentor certainly doesn’t hurt, but it’s not the complete package I would feel comfortable with.

With a desire for a diversified network, I identified three individuals that I appreciated and knew I could learn from. They had careers and roles that were pretty close to my definition of success.

I had worked with a couple of these individuals. Another, I had met once through doing informational interviews – I was simply curious about different career options and set up a meeting. I got a good vibe and knew he would be a good mentor for me.

As you’ll see in the letter below, I had some particular skills I wanted to grow, and I identified potential mentors that I felt were “best in the field” at these skills. They didn’t have to be a perfect model of what I wanted to be, they just had to have some strengths that I wanted to learn more about.

I established with my employer that I was starting the program and got approval to take time off of work each month for the meetings. I called each of my desired mentors up and asked if they would consider mentoring me. I didn’t ask them to decide on the spot. I said I’d share a letter that outlined my intentions.  This is what I shared:

Dear XXXX,

Re: Personal Mentoring Program

In the past six years, since I completed university, I’ve attained more from my career than I had ever envisioned. I’m happy with my success, but I’m at my best and most fulfilled when I’m growing. I’d like some help surpassing what I see as a potential plateau. I’d like to regroup, do some planning and some strategizing for the next phase of my life, and I’d like your help.

Let me show you what I mean. I hope to improve, among other things: 

• My ability to balance work and family
• My value in the employee marketplace
• My leadership skills
• My perspective and knowledge of Saskatchewan, Canadian and World industry and politics
• My salesmanship, both within a company and outside of it

This engagement clearly benefits me, providing me with:

• Access to your experience and knowledge
• Your guidance on the practical matters of the day
• Your guidance on the strategic direction of my career
• Clarity on steps I can take to improve my value in the marketplace

But I believe it also benefits you through:

• The personal reward of seeing someone successfully move on a planned career path
• Networking, both through my current and future contacts, increasing your influence and visibility
• Opportunity to share the things you’d wish “someone had told me at your age.”
• Perspective and enthusiasm from an “up and comer”

The minimum commitment I am asking from you would be for a monthly meeting at a time of your choosing. I have arranged for time to be allotted from my work schedule for our meetings, so any time of the day that is suitable for you will be suitable for me.

During this monthly meeting, I envision you sharing your experience and knowledge with me, as I would likely have prepared questions for you. The first meeting would include such questions as:

• What has been your career path?
• Was it through planning?
• Was it by choice?
• What do you credit your success to?
• What are the things that make a career fulfilling for you?
• Has your education been useful?

In subsequent meetings, we could discuss strategies for success, and actions and plans that should be incorporated to achieve career goals.

In addition, each meeting would be followed up with a summary of our conversation, for your records and for review at our next discussion.

The meetings suggested are a proposal. If you are willing to participate in this protégé/mentor relationship, I’d like to work with you to make sure that the meetings are an efficient and effective use of your time.

I believe there are other things that can take place in a mentoring relationship, and perhaps I leave these for discussion: 

• Using my skills or perspective to help you with your business needs
• Increasing my network by introducing me to your network
• Thinking of me when you’ve got a community activity that requires energy, enthusiasm or my skill-set
• Keeping in contact through email and phone conversations

Thanks for your time. The development of this program will benefit me greatly. I hope that it will benefit you, as well. I intend to build a happy family, a successful career and relationships that will last a lifetime, right here in Saskatchewan. I hope that you can help me fulfill that dream.

Please contact me at xxx-xxx to let me know your thoughts on my initiative. If I’m on the right track, perhaps we can arrange a time for our first meeting.

Thanks,

Nevin

Certainly, this isn’t the letter I’d write today. For one, I no longer have the gall to call myself an “up and comer.” I would also try and manage my apparent fascination with bullet points. I cringe a little bit at what I wrote and how it’s written, but I do like some notions I seemed to have at the time.  For one, I didn’t think anyone would say no to somebody saying “I think you’re successful and I want to learn from you.” They didn’t. For another, the idea of having a sustained, direct relationship with these individuals felt like it had long-term potential to create mutually beneficial opportunities. I think that’s come to pass, as I go to work for one of them in two weeks.

The relationships have morphed over the years. They aren’t nearly as formal as they once were. The key to sustaining a mentor relationship? I only have my experience, but this is it: I have in my calendar a regular reminder every six weeks – set up a lunch with your mentor. I don’t ignore it.

The Chinese bamboo tree doesn’t grow upwards until the fifth year after the seed has been planted. For four years, the seed is watered and cared for with seemingly no results.  It’s roots are growing, but you can’t tell. In the fifth growing season, the bamboo grows upwards at an incredible rate, reaching it’s mature height of 80 to 90 feet in just three or four months.

There’s a lot to be said for having a willingness and a commitment to do things even if they don’t show immediate results. Arguably, that’s a definition for leadership – even if the payoff is so far off as to be unimaginable (and perhaps, impossible), you do the right thing.

I like to picture the bamboo farmer patiently, deliberately, even lovingly watering the spot where the bamboo seed is planted. He knows his investment of care and time will be returned, but there’s more to it. A four year commitment without results is about the journey. It’s about the process of watering and caring, not the resulting tree.

My own bamboo shot up this week. I have accepted a job with iQmetrix. They’re beyond progressive, they’re wildly successful and they’re putting me to work right here in Regina. I’m ecstatic to be joining them in a role that suits me to a T, Manager of Employee Development.

I feel like I do many things that won’t ever pay. I blog, I volunteer for my kid’s school and I tell my bosses things they don’t want to hear. Except these things did pay. They paid when I did them (because it felt like the right thing) and now they’ve paid with a career-changing opportunity.

There’s no doubt my passions and my commitment to honesty played a significant role in my appeal to iQmetrix. Meeting with leadership in my new role, it’s immediately apparent that they actively seek those behaviours, and I naturally fit. No pretending. I’m going to an organization that desires truth, desires honesty and encourages individuals to challenge convention.

I’ve been told many times I’m too much of an idealist. Wait ’til you see me now that I’ve been validated.

Invitations are exciting things. We’re so pleased when we get them. Someone thought of us, someone cares.

Not all invitations are good for you. For some, we need to be wary. These invitations ask you to solve problems, provide answers, make decisions and define the course. It actually presents itself like any other invitation. People are deferring to your wisdom. They value your input. They want you to join the party.

That feels nice, and it feels nice to accept the invite, swoop in and make stuff happen… except this invitation has strings. Accepting this invitation establishes that the inviter doesn’t do the heavy lifting, the invitee does. The inviter doesn’t need to think through the issue, make a plan or take responsibility for the breakdown. They just have to flag you down and point to the flat tire.

Accepting this invitation creates a relationship where you take on responsibility for the outcome. That’s all well and good if it’s your role, but if you’re trying to get others to engage in the work, this invitation creates a sustainability problem. The responsibility you’ve just taken with such mastery and confidence was taken from someone who was gingerly holding it, hoping they wouldn’t have to do it themselves. You just took them off the hook. They learned they don’t have to take the risk. You will.

Here’s the counter-intuitive punch line: Establishing yourself as a person that eats problems for breakfast is exactly why you got promoted in the first place, and now it’s exactly what you do not want to do when you’re coaching others.

Spotting and skillfully redirecting unhealthy invitations is one of the key distinctions between good workers and good leaders.

A recent post of mine was about the library, of which I’m a huge fan and user. I’m passionate about the museum, too, but it’s a different kind of love. I don’t particularly like going there, I just like what it represents and what it could be.

I work directly across from our Provincial museum, the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM), and right next door to their annex. They house three collections, a biological collection, a paleontological collection and an Aboriginal artifacts collection. I’ve had the opportunity to tour through the annex, which is not open to the public. It’s more interesting than the museum itself by a factor of ten.

I think this goes for many museums, but I’m picking on the RSM. The museum is, unfortunately, much too static. This is because of money, of course, but it also seems to be because they’re presenting a history of Saskatchewan through mostly physical artifacts, and those don’t change over time. Once you’ve tweaked your presentation, you’re largely into preservation, right?

As you might guess, I don’t agree. I think the RSM should be all about the interpretation. This shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. The tour guides are called interpreters, after all.

Right now, the museum presents the facts, and just the facts. By “interpretation,” I mean that the museum should be in the business of helping me understand what all the history and the worldview they present means for me right now.

The museum offers a picture of reality that is not warped or diluted by other noise. It’s a view of our world that hasn’t been overly polished, manufactured or “defined” by someone else. It’s contact with a reality you can really trust, and that’s exceeding rare in our lives… check that… the lives of people like me, living in the city and going to work each day.

The museum says: These are the environmental regions of our province. This is the bedrock beneath our feet. These creatures once roamed our land. These creatures now roam our land. These people and these cultures defined this province. This vegetation naturally covers our landscape… When I spend all my time outside on paved roads and my indoor time in the air-conditioned comfort in front of a screen, these things can be forgotten.

Somewhere along the way, museums defined their role as protectors of history. They are preservationists to the point that most of the collections are hidden away from public view. The mandate of a museum ends up being, “We protect things that are irreplaceable.”

I think there’s a relevance problem here. Museums need to be challenged to make these collections and this ”real” look at our world relevant to the public. The museum I dream of would be dedicated to helping others understand the world, past and present, so they can make better choices for their future.

Leadership is often understood to be “principle-centred.” You figure out what’s important to you and then you stick to that path. You establish the path that’s integral to you, and even when distractions try and pull you from it, you know what’s important. I see the museum offering a reality-centre. It can be trusted. It can help you buildi an understanding of yourself and your world, offering a solid foundation from which you can develop principles that govern your behaviour. The museum offers an excellent foundation for leadership.

The museum offers bedrock in more ways than one, but we need help using it. It’s not enough just to be there.

Museum, thank you for helping me understand the past, and thank you for helping me understand the present. Please help me plot a path for the future that is grounded in reality.

At the moment, there’s limited transition between “What we know to be true,” and “What we should do now.” I’m inspired by the Human Factors exhibit at the RSM, which connects our human influence to the world’s current state, but it only implicitly invites a tough self-examination. For most, the principles at the centre of their behaviour are  left untouched after a museum visit.

I’d like to see the museum:

• provide examples of leaders who stuck to reality, even when it made them appear unreasonable
• ask me to make a personal commitment to respond to something I learned today
• organize our community to take action on important issues that are largely ignored
• reach out and engage the community in interpreting current events through a scientific and historical lense
• offer orientation for public servants and any organization that’s committed to Saskatchewan
• lead a movement of choice and change based on a trusted understanding of the world
• when I’m physically in the building, engage me in a dialogue. Pull scientists from the back room and focus on engaging with the public.

I’m sure this is easier said than done. There’s undoubtedly a laundry list of items and infrastructure that just need maintenance. Here’s my tradeoff: I’m OK with seeing historical artifacts suffer damage if it means people’s future decisions are more thoughtful, deliberate and grounded in reality. I say that, but I don’t think it would get that far. In truth, becoming more relevant is the first and most important step in getting more funding.

I love books and I love quiet places. By extension, I love the library. I could spend hours in the library just reading near-random books off the shelves. In reality, though, my relationship with the library is somewhat transactional. Primarily, the library serves as an exchange, a place where I check in (online), request pre-identified books, physically go in to drop off and pick up books and pay the occasional fine. I think I’m only using about ten percent of my library. The rest, at least to me, is irrelevant.

Aside from access to printed paper, the library is a quiet refuge, a place to focus a little more internally and find some organized information in a steady stream rather than the firehose of the internet. In truth, there’s lots of places to do that. Any number of coffee shops are happy to have you do that for the price of a cup of coffee. Is the physical space and the money devoted to a library worth it?

To be fair, I can think of a few other things the library offers. It’s a place of “trusted” information with professionals that can help you find data and knowledge that’s vetted, tested and approved. There’s also education programs and lots of obscure books that can introduce you to new worlds. There is support for businesses and access to databases.

The fundamental contract we have with the library – we’ll pay tax dollars so you can make information available – is a deal whose death knell is fast approaching. It’s not that libraries haven’t kept their end of the bargain, it’s just that the internet makes it faster, cheaper and infinitely more efficient to stay home and get the same. I certainly love the focus on ideas that comes with reading a printed book, and I want that from the library. I could do without the big, air-conditioned building and all the administration. I suspect that there’s an Amazon-style model of book exchange that could lower our taxes by a good touch.

I don’t think the library is going to go anywhere anytime soon, though, and its disappearance would not be my first choice.  My first choice would be to rethink libraries and shift them from a role of providing information access to leading us in learning how to manage our information. We’re experiencing an epidemic in our society right now. We’re losing ourselves, our purpose and our intentions to a glut of information. Libraries can be a big part of the solution.

Many of us don’t know how to manage all of the information that’s now so easily accessible. Heads bent down in the Blackberry prayer, texting at inappropriate times, the interruption of important conversations for the randomness of a ringing telephone, pulling an all-nighter in Second Life, watching another episode of Deadliest Catch instead of going to bed at a decent hour, mindlessley surfing Fail Blog… all this media can easily sidetrack us. Often, we don’t choose to apply our attention, our attention is simply stolen by whatever is in front of us. The library is the antithesis of “unplanned” attention, and building our capacity to be deliberate with our attention could be their cause.

If the library’s mission were to be, “We help people control the information,” they could:

• Help their users develop strategies to sort their daily stream of information
• Provide classes on keeping a clean email in-box
• Help users prioritize their information needs
• Communicate the importance of being deliberate with one’s attention
• Provide coaching on how to find and establish information feeds that are meaningful (I’d go to a course called ‘Getting Value from Twitter’)
• Help their users make personal learning plans to pursue their interests
• Research 101: Provide formal instruction on how to find information (and determine its credibility)
• Developing simple, flexible guides/frameworks for individuals to undertake self-directed study

I see this as being more valuable than a university education in many ways. Who needs university when the information on any topic is at your fingertips?

If you can find it when you need it.

Information and learning is now DIY. With information’s ubiquity, the barriers to knowledge are now our ability to search, sift and absorb. We would thrive with teaching focused on how to do this well. The library is in a pretty ideal position to take on the role.

Some of you reading this know that I have Multiple Sclerosis. I’m pretty lucky with it, and after 10 years since my diagnosis I’m hardly any worse for wear.

I’ve been watching with a great personal interest, of course, the development/discovery of a “liberation procedure” to address Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI). It’s posited that people with MS may have restricted veins slowing the flow of blood out of the brain. In theory this could cause problems with increased cranial pressure and iron deposits in the brain. This is pretty exciting news and has offered more hope for MS sufferers than other potential treatments in the last few years. It’s also a completely different paradigm than what has conventionally defined MS.

This makes for a fascinating study in how different people react to the introduction of a fundamentally different paradigm. I would assume this idea will eventually be proven or disproven, but for now it offers a potential new way of thinking about Multiple Sclerosis and a different approach to treating, or even curing, this chronic illness. It is a game-changer or a significant derailment of the “real” efforts. How are people reacting? How should they react?

There are plenty of MS sufferers who want to start doing treatments immediately. I can’t say that I blame them. While some are actually advocating for the complete and unqualified acceptance of the theory and treatment, I think they’re in the minority. Most advocates for “rushing” the procedure simply want to act now and measure as we go. They argue for a “learn by doing” approach. As their quality of life is slipping away with every day and this relatively safe procedure may offer stark, life-changing results, they don’t have the patience for the studies that would 100% confirm or refute this theory.

There are also individuals and organizations that are calling for research and confirmation of this theory before the procedure is offered to the general population of sufferers. This would be the position of our federal government and the MS Society. This one doesn’t make quite as much sense to me, and I would like to understand it. What are the possible reasons to advocate restraint?

It draws attention from our long-term efforts

There are a lot of thoughtful people working on solving the MS riddle. They’re organized, they’re relatively well funded and they are seeing results. The availability of drugs that offer real improvements have proliferated in recent years. Having MS has a different, much better prognosis than it did when I got diagnosed. We seem well on our way to killing this thing by a thousand cuts. In fact, it seems to be just a matter of time.

Time. That’s a bit of a problem for many sufferers. Rarely – if ever – does this illness get better with age. While I’m all for researching the illness and improving our understanding, this argument doesn’t hold water for me when there’s a very promising theory that isn’t getting enough of the pie. Perhaps we can call this reluctance a “fixed cost affinity.” If you’re a bureaucrat or a politician, I think it’s a lot safer and blameless to say, “We devoted our resources to the 10 year-project that’s got millions sunk in to it. The investment ultimately didn’t pay out, but it was a smart investment” than to say, “We went with the unfounded vein theory from left field.”

It costs money and creates risk for what may turn out to be nothing.

My guess is that this argument is at the foundation of most efforts to minimize the wide-spread application of the CCSVI liberation procedure. It’s an argument that says we shouldn’t put people through this when we’re not sure it will work. Let’s spare them the hassle until we can assure them it’s good for them. I appreciate the inherent protectiveness of the position, but what if it turns out to do something profound? Was the caution and delay worth the additional suffering? If you look at the “costs” of this diagnosis and procedure, you’re looking at a set of imaging scans and a procedure similar to an angioplasty. Let’s say it’s as risky as liposuction. How much study went into that? Now factor in the fact that as we delay, people are losing their ability to walk. The math doesn’t seem to add up.

Besides, because it`s surgical, isn’t the line between trial and delivery a bit more blurred? I can see that we need to use caution when we`re experimenting with a drug with unknown side-effects, but with this procedure the surgical risk is clear, and it`s really minimal.

The science doesn’t make any sense

This is the weakest of arguments. History is filled with paradigm-shifting discoveries that didn’t make any sense. Just because it wasn’t thought of before has no bearing on it’s applicability. There seems to be some ongoing presumption that if it isn’t the model you discuss with your colleagues or the one your professor told you about, it can’t be right.  That’s not how it works. Challenges to the status quo, be it the shape of the earth or the science of multiple sclerosis, should be met with opennes and humility. We’d grow more. To say we should proceed with caution because this isn’t how we were thinking is ludicrous. That’s dragging your feet because it makes you uncomfortable. If there’s an off chance this works for MS sufferers, I`d rather take care of their discomfort and let the discomfort of admitting you didn’t see it sit for a bit.

I don’t think I’m hiding the conclusion I’ve drawn so far. I think the people that fight change or even the spectre of change are keeping us from being effective on this one. New factors are now present in this environment. Trying to sustain the old environment is entirely unhelpful.

I’ve spent the last two weeks shuffling around my house in a fog suffering from an MS relapse myself. I am so fortunate to have a case of MS that has proven to be very mild compared to so many of my contemporaries. I sometimes find it hard to want more and better for myself when I’m doing comparatively well. Nevertheless, my quality of life diminishes when this illness gets a grip, and when I beat it back, life gets much better (and I start blogging again). If I get the opportunity, I’ll take the liberation treatment.

Sometimes we can’t solve a problem because we’re too close to it. We work it so much that the prescribed boundaries of the problem become untouchable. What was originally established as an assumption becomes a given.

That’s dangerous thinking that we can all get caught in. Creating a deliberate practice of stepping out of that “can’t see the forest for the trees” mindset is important for our success.

You can do it in a number of ways. The list I come up with is by no means exhaustive:

• Invite in some fresh perspective. Someone who is not familiar with the problem won’t have accepted the same restrictions as you.
• Take a break and do something else. Take a walk, do a puzzle or listen to some music. Give you brain a breather, and a broader perspective.
• Engage in something completely unrelated and connect it back to the problem.  How are the essential factors in growing a good wheat crop similar to your challenge? Name ten things that are green and describe how they relate to the challenge.
• Picture your problem from above. Review it from a helicopter. Look different?
• Redefine the timeline. What does it look like five years out? Changing the timeline can remove some barriers.

There’s another practice that I wanted to explore a little more. That’s a technique I sort of intuitively do that I’m calling the 90 degree rotation, though it’s probably more appropriately entitled “Turn it upside down.” It goes like this: take your problem and any sort of organization, hierarchies or linear processes that are part of it. Try and describe your challenge from a direction different than how you’ve been thinking about it.

Trying to complete a work process through a traditional hierarchy? What if the responsibility was given to a cross-functional team?

Trying to spread a message? What if it wasn’t through mass media, but spread through individual followers?

Coordinating a large group through rules and expectations? What happens if they’re given the outcomes they have to achieve and left to their own leadership and organization?

I don’t think my effort to name and systematize this concept has worked, but I needed to share it anyway. It’s the incorporation of a foreign (near opposite) perspective so that the givens can be laid bare. Should they really be off the table, or are they just off YOUR table?