Summary: When equipping teachers how to improve their teaching, Dr. Kathy Koch of Celebrate Kids, Inc., sometimes demonstrates “externalizing.” She poses a typical elementary school question, then verbalizes the whole thinking process that leads through possibilities and options to a solution that fits the situation best. Externalizing offers helpful role-modeling on HOW to think, not just handing over the end product of someone’s thinking.
Those of us involved in social entrepreneurship and cultural transformation enterprises are required to engage ourselves in increasingly complex problems and processes. We may find many useful methods and models in articles and “success stories.” However, we don’t often get to see the externalization that led someone to their conclusions – and that would give us clues as to whether their method fits our situation. Also, we don’t get to see the incomplete theories or the not-so-successful approximations along the way to their methods or models. Perhaps one of their earlier discards might actually have the insight we’re looking for.
In this series on creating an “elegant” strategy, I do some externalizing on how I reached the final framework I’ll be using for my curriculum to train social change agents. Part 1 focuses on earlier attempts over a three-month period to reorganize 20 years’ worth of available material I’d written. Part 2 shares the audience I selected to write for, and why. Part 3 shares the Top 10 Frameworks of concepts, skills, and processes that I arrived at, and how I sensed I’d found the most elegant system possible for what I had to work with. Part 4 shares “The Four Biggest Questions for Social Enterprises with Sustainable Impact.”
Part 1: Deconstructing, Translating, and Downshifting
I’ve only experienced two times when an entire movie theatre audience spontaneously burst out screaming and hooting and clapping for some bit of celluloid wizardry that was so spectacular, no one could stay in their seats. The first was at Star Wars IV: A New Hope when, in the opening scene, the huge imperial warship passes overhead, complete surround-sound effects. The second was at Trinity’s now-famous suspended-animation crane lift before kickin’ the crap outta her pursuers in The Matrix.
I’m relating with a lot more understanding these days to Trin’s mid-air move, captured in 360-degree views. No, it’s not that I’m making films or working in special effects, as incredible and wonderful as that would be. It’s the sensation of being lifted above the fray for a few frozen moments in time, breathing in refreshed perspective, and getting ready to plunge into the battle ahead.
I’m just finishing a three-month respite to prepare for the huge task forthcoming. I’ve been sifting and sorting through 20 years of material I’d produced for my curriculum on how to catalyze a paradigm shift and construct our enterprises to be culturally relevant and organizationally healthy. If you’ve read futuristguy, you know that many of my posts are very dense and intense. When something moves me enough to reflect and write about it, the result often emerges at a “Level 10” in complexity. That’s because I have this huge backlog of thinking about related subjects, and the issue du jour sparks me to consider how it interconnects with many other issues.
So, the task ahead is to “reverse engineer” this end-stage conclusion into a step-by-step curriculum. I needed to figure out what all is there, and then edit this mountain of Level 10 material in a way that makes it accessible for those who don’t yet have an interdisciplinary background. In short, this singular task is actually three in one:
- How can I deconstruct into a set of concepts this organic thing that emerged from my mind all at once and seemingly as a whole system?
- How can I translate each end-of-the-journey concept into meaningful mini-steps of Levels 1 – 2 – 3?
- How can I downshift my language into clear definitions and not-so-technical descriptions?
It’s like having a universe in my mind that I’m trying to give at least a taste of to those who are interested. [OMG – is anybody actually going to be interested in this? Oh yeah, that’s another whole issue …] But externalizing onto paper what we intuitively know is rough stuff. And P.S., if what comes out of this process could please be an “elegant” system that has a minimal number of elements, memorable format, and some nice symmetry, that would be extra grand!
One huge task, three short months, hopefully big success …
… and in fact, I think I did end up with what will prove to be an elegant system. (More on that later.) But it required taking the freedom that this time allowed just to meander through the material, experiment with different approaches, talk aloud about it with friends and get a feel for how well it could be explained verbally to someone. It called for discernment on whether a particular framework provided the “best fit” for the concepts and skills and processes and procedures we need to launch a successful social transformation enterprise or church plant. It also meant I had to eventually pick an approach and stick with it – closure is a key part of creativity, after all.
Early Attempts at Elegance
Going into this period, I already knew no approach would be perfect. But I was searching for something that was comprehensive – had all the right parts, integrated – those parts connected with each other, and elegant – the whole had a beauty and symmetry to it.
Along the way, I toyed with numerous angles and approaches for looking at things. Some were too small, others were missing some major elements, others overfocused on concepts rather than balancing theory with practical skills. Some were still too “choppy” – good pieces of work, but still weren’t connected. (That’s what I’ve termed as “The Frankenstein Syndrome.” All the parts may be accounted for and stitched together – but that doesn’t mean the system’s alive!) Others were just too cumbersome and needed to be reduced and refined.
Here’s a retrospective of some of the systems I visited along the way.
The Trajectory Triangle
1. Where things are now.
2. Where things need to go.
3. How to get from here to there.
This one produced a nice shape (I use a lot of geometric shapes in my work) and implied some movement from where a culture is to what it could and should become. It focused on an integrated system of theory, processes and procedures, and tools (team-building and progress-evaluating).
Definitely there was some merit here. But obviously, it was not nearly comprehensive enough. And so, then there was …
A.I.D.D.
Somewhere along the line, I went through my “Oh, wait! Everything’s A.I.D.D.!” phase. Oh, yehhh. Appreciative Inquiry and Differential Diagnosis, that is. Appreciative Inquiry, officially known as A.I., is about identifying the various assets and strengths of a team, group, or organization, and building activities on those instead of focusing on solving problems or trying to fill in gaps of what the group is missing.
Meanwhile, the latter process – problem-solving etc. etc. – is what Differential Diagnosis is about. D.D. is the process used by House M.D., where Dr. Gregory House and his team examine a set of symptoms and figure out the underlying sources.
For at least a few years, I’ve realized how important it is to keep these two procedures together. Using only one without the other leads to the equivalent of organizational adrenal exhaustion. As I’ve experienced social change and church planting ministry work the past few decades, if we focus on “only being positive” and “capitalizing on our strengths,” that means serious problems keep festering underneath, eventually rotting away exactly those positive assets that we’ve been trying to promote. But if we only focus on “fixing the flaws” and “getting everything right,” that seems like it would bring the organization closer to perfection, but in reality, it keeps us tied to the negatives of our past so we cannot connect with a positive future.
Imbalance – it’s insidious …
… but it isn’t the only thing affecting the impact of our attempts at social innovation or organizational transformation. The overall framework needed to be even bigger.
Seven Key Processes and Outcomes
So I experimented with how a “how-to” practical process could be used as the main framework for the curriculum. Each procedure in this seven-part process included development of numerous theological and theoretical concepts, as well as practitioner how-to’s. Would this be sufficient to get the job done?
- Identify your organization’s overall configuration of assets and challenges, and brainstorm on what might be done to amplify the assets and correct the challenges, in order to engage in optimal and healthy Kingdom-building activities.
- Discern your organization’s cluster of probable redemptive purposes within a Kingdom framework, based on the history and contemporary status (i.e., assets and challenges) of both your organization and its cultural setting.
- Discern your organization’s plausible, possible, and preferable futures, based on its redemptive purposes and the ongoing flow of local and global influences of both culture and Kingdom.
- Decide communally what preferable future to pursue, both in terms of internal challenges to correct in any part of our paradigm and any activities internally and externally to implement.
- Decide communally what constitutes a suitable trajectory and activities to pursue, given the organization’s redemptive purposes and preferred future; and that fit with a strategy and structures for sustainability; and that fit with a ministry contextualization approach that includes both connecting-resonating with the local culture and challenging-resisting it; and in long-term covenant collaboration with what responsible partners.
- Implement suitable activities in creative and healthy system ways, review and revise them periodically, archive related materials, and celebrate progress regularly.
- Prepare next generations of learner-leaders to read the currents in their own culture and times, receive the legacy of prior generations, and adapt it in ways that are biblically suitable and sustainable.
This made for a smooth-flowing and integrated change process. Around the time of this version, I began using the term “transgenerational” to describe the kind of approach I was recommending – not that generations after us would implement our plans in some static, robotic way, but that we would equip next gens with skills to flexibly adapt a creative process. That would let them catalyze social transformation enterprises fit for their own cultural space and times, not be stuck in ours.
Better, but still too technical – Level 10, not a Level 1, 2, or 3. It still assumed too much prior knowledge and experience. How do you do brainstorming? What’s a “redemptive purpose”? What’s “covenant” about, or “suitable” activities – when so many theologies and movements say they are “biblical” but they end up abusing power? How do you define and measure “healthy”?
I also sensed it wasn’t a hit because some things were still missing … Such gut feelings and intuitions were important barometers of my needing to change, even if they didn’t give me the specifics of what to change. Much more thinking and editing was needed. And I knew that was okay, because …
If we can’t think while inside our box, we’ll never be able to think outside the box! ~ Brad Sargent / futuristguy
Top 10 Conclusions about Paradigm Shifts and Cultures
Somewhere in the mix, I changed focus, looking at big-picture ideas instead of big-change processes. The result was my most recent blog post before this one, on my top 10 conclusions drawn from 20 years of cultural fieldwork and work with organizations doing education and social transformation. Here’s an excerpt from that post:
After years of prematurely thinking I was ready to finish this curriculum, I finally concluded that creating a primary source for exploring issues so large just takes time for observation, analysis, and interpretation. The longer the fieldwork process went, the more I learned about the questions I had and the ministry puzzles I faced. Also, I was surprised at how much more interconnected all my emerging answers seemed to be than when I began. Ultimately, I was glad the material had a chance to steep.
Here are 10 key conclusions from 20 years of very active reflection about ministry experiences in the early part of the modern-to-postmodern paradigm shift we find ourselves in. These “findings” create the parameters for this curriculum on how to shift your paradigm. In other words, if the entire curriculum doesn’t help its users understand and accomplish the following, it needs to be revised until it does.
1. Holistic systems and 2. healthy disciples-leaders are absolutely essential and should be inseparable.
3. Our deepest assumptions (“epistemologies”) ALWAYS trump our theology and methodology.
4. If we mix up our epistemologies, we inevitably misapply scriptural principles to life and shorten our organization’s “shelf life.”
5. Learning systems customized for our differences create strength-based complementarity.
6. Strategic foresight leads to more sustainable futures than does just “fixing” current symptoms.
7. Integrating our interaction approach around becoming intercultural will prove crucial to our organization’s sustainability.
8. Home-grown (“indigenous”) ministry methods and models work better than “plug-and-play programs.”
9. Contextualization involves respectful listening and radical discerning to see what to resonate with and what to resist in local cultures.
10. Collaborations based on complementarity and a covenant turn out strongest in the long run.
As with the other approaches, this set of conclusions provided additional themes to keep in mind for nurturing the emergence of the final framework. These were helpful, but it wasn’t a system yet, at least, not in the way I was hoping for. Still too complex, still not elegant. Still too much assumed, which meant I had to keep breaking it down so that the curriculum could start at Level 1 and build up concepts, skills, and processes starting from ground zero.
Meanwhile, my framework kept growing organically as I took what may seem like side-paths. These components were all related. And, as I’ve said before about the editing process, “It just takes long to write short.” The search for a more sleek and memorable framework was worth investing time in. And, as providence would have it, I was only a few weeks away from finding it!
Continued in Part 2 …
