T06-Trajectory-a

• Introductory Note
• Trajectory and Our Past, Present, and Future
• Starting Point, Ending Point, and The Process In Between
• Brain Activation Media #1 – What is “Trajectory”? – Stargate
• Brain Activation Media #2 – What is “Trajectory”? – Run Lola Run
• Brain Activation #3 – What is “Trajectory”? – Star Wars IV
• Your Take – What Elements Affect Our Trajectory?

Tutorial #06 – Trajectory (Part A)

Introductory Note

I STRONGLY suggest you absorb the material in this tutorial (#06, Trajectory, part a) and consider the “DIY Question” sections before you get into the details of the next tutorial #07 (Trajectory, part b), which includes my responses to these questions.

Trajectory and Our Past, Present, and Future

In tracking social transformation, we’re likely to find some aspects of a quadruple bottom line that we already have in place to a greater or lesser degree. We’re also likely to find some values that we want but that are pretty much absent so far, even if they are “on our radar.” And so, our trajectory is important.

Stated in its most simple form, trajectory is about:

• A)    Where we are.
• B)    Where we’re going.
• C)    How we get there from Point A to Point B.

Through my years in reflecting on personal and organizational transformation, I’ve come to see the overall change process as similar for both. Both types of transformation relate well with three classic questions of existence:

• A)    Who/what am I? (DNA – our possibilities, based on our nature and nurture)
• B)    Why am I/are we here? (Design – our purpose, based on God’s providential plans)
• C)    Where am I/are we going? (Destiny – our preferabilities, based on our imagination, perspectives, feelings, gut intuitions, and choices)

I would suggest that the answers we find to these questions definitely shape our trajectory as we move from where we have been to where we are going. I don’t believe in determinism or unchangeable fate, but I do believe that each person and organization has limits on their potential, based on what “DNA building blocks” are available. We are definitely affected by our past, our present, and what we want or believe is possible for our future. Also, I believe there are particular people or processes that can help us figure out the specific elements in our trajectory, whether for each of us as individuals as for our group or organization.

Let’s look at the personal pathway first, from past to present to future.

• Typically, a counselor helps us take a look at our past so we can understand the impact that our past is having on our present and – if we fail to make any adjustments in our worldview or character – what our future will likely look like.
• A pastor offers us care in our present situations and difficulties.
• A spiritual director mentors us in ways that will help us accomplish those things we hope to become and decide to do in our future.

It’s very possible that one person can be with us in playing all three of those roles, but I do find the distinctions helpful between how they assist us with sorting through our past, present, and future.

From an organizational development standpoint, specific processes help in discerning and designing a reasonable trajectory that takes the group from its foundations, through its current situation, and into its most desirable/preferable future. Various kinds of assessments help us understand what we bring to the table, both beneficial and baggage. They help specify the elements in our group enterprise’s nature (the inherent capabilities and potentialities of people inside the organization) and nurture (the cultural setting in which we function, and how that establishes limitations and barriers and such). Some kinds of organizational nature/nurture assessments include:

• Appreciative inquiry and other “asset mapping” processes focus on the positive values, structures, and forms of “capital” (economic, human, etc.) that our group possesses – not on what it lacks.
• The SWOT approach assesses a broader range of internal and external factors, including our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
• Strategic foresight helps a group sort through what their plausibilities are for their futures (note the plural) and what their most preferable options are – given their internal assets and liabilities, and the external realities of their cultural setting and global trends.

Starting Point, Ending Point, and The Process In Between

I’ve boiled this all down, as best I could, into its essential processes, and then came up with a visual framework that hopefully illustrates the key features and how they fit into the overall context. This version addresses the 1-2-3 of trajectory for organizations:

1. Cultural Geography helps us figure out where we are – both our organization and our specific cultural setting, and how those two relate in ways that are constructive and destructive.
2. Strategic Foresight helps us figure out where we want to go within what is actually possible. (As the quote says, “The organization can never be something the people are not.” ~ Price Pritchett, in The Ethics of Excellence.)
3. Organizational Systems Design is a way of doing trajectory mapping that helps us focus on how we get from where we are to where we want to go.

Image to be inserted: Trajectory Systems.

And actually, this is one situation where going out of sequence seems the right thing to do, so I’m going to take up process #3 first – Organizational Systems Design – and the elements that seem to be common to any trajectory, regardless of the starting and ending points.

Rather than present all my findings analytically first, I’m going to post some media-based examples that embody various features I think affect a comprehensive consideration of our enterprise’s course from past and present to future. In a second part to this tutorial, I’ll overview key features in establishing a healthy trajectory. Finally, I’ll use short descriptions and more of Scott Maxwell’s Golden Guyz images to illustrate healthy and unhealthy types of trajectories.

Brain Activation Media #1 – What is “Trajectory”? – Stargate

Stargate

My favorite media source for a technical (but understandable) show-and-tell demonstration of trajectory comes from the movie Stargate. In it, a group of three classical archaeologists (Dr. Shore, Dr. Meyers, and Catherine Langford) try to decode what appear to be variant hieroglyphs on a very peculiar cartouche (name insignia) found on a huge set of stones. There is an equally odd ring mechanism found underneath these cover stones at the same site. Both were discovered by Langford’s father during a 1927 Dutch archaeology expedition in Egypt.

When the team can’t crack the code, they bring in Dr. Daniel Jackson. He is a brilliant archaeologist, anthropologist, and philologist – but considered a crackpot by some for his unconventional theories on the origins of Egyptian culture. He works for two weeks with no more success than the original team.

But then it happens, at the beginning of Chapter #6 in the “Ultimate Edition” of the movie – about 17:00 minutes in. While at the fountain to get water for his next pot of coffee to fuel his umpteenth all-nighter, Dr. Jackson gets a flash of insight from a glance at the security guard’s newspaper. It displays a photo of the star Orion up close. Looking at the outline created by connecting the stars like dots, he’s found the key to translate the cartouche! He rushes back to finish the translating. (Who needs coffee now when you have adrenaline flowing from such stimulating intellectual work?)

In the next scene of the same Chapter (#6), we see Dr. Jackson, arms loaded with rolls and scrolls and charts, entering the military base’s conference room. Cigarette smoke hangs heavy in the room, which is filled mostly with officers whose jackets sport multiple lines of campaign color bars; plus a few nondescript, black-suited men; and the three archaeology team members. Catherine introduces Jackson to the head honcho, General West. Here is a transcript with my own stage direction comments in square brackets:

General West: So, you think you’ve solved in 14 days what they couldn’t solve in two years.

Jackson: [Looking around at his archaeology colleagues.] Two years?

General West: [Non-plussed.] Right. Any time . . .

Jackson: Umm … I have some stuff to look at. [Chuckles nervously. He hands out rolled up charts.] I just found these, if you’d just pass them down. Umm … you’ll have to share them [chuckles nervously] because [chuckles] I’m sorry. I don’t have enough of those. [Military leaders still sitting there, now looking even less convincible as they unroll the posters.]

Okay, all right, we’re obviously looking at a picture of the cover stones. Now, on the outer track, these figures that you would believe to be words to be translated were in fact … [awkwardly unrolls a very long constellation map, which hits several of the officers as it unrolls] sorry about that … were in fact star constellations.

Now, these constellations were placed in a unique order, forming a map or an address of sorts – seven points to outline a course to a position. And, uh … [he glances around and then tapes a chart of the cover stones to a white board] and to find a destination within any three-dimensional space [he draws a cube], you need six points [he draws six points at random within the cube] to determine the exact location [he connects pairs of points, and then darkens the point where the three resulting vectors cross].

General West: You said you needed seven points.

Jackson: Well, no, six for the destination. But to chart a course … [he draws a dot far to the left of the cube, and then draws a line from it toward the center of the cube] you need a point of origin.

Dr. Meyers: [Agitated.] Except – there’s only six symbols in the cartouche!

Jackson: Well, the seventh actually isn’t inside the cartouche, it’s just below it here [he circles the symbol directly underneath the cartouche pillar on the cover stone chart], designated by a little pyramid with two funny, neat little guys [on the side] and a funny little line coming out of the top! [He chuckles again.]  Haa! [He gets serious again.] Anyway … [caps the whiteboard pen and puts it down].

As it turns out, Dr. Jackson has indeed deciphered the cartouche, and General West allows him now to see the huge ring that was underneath these cover stones. It is … the Stargate, a portal to other places, other cultures, other worlds, and – in the near future (or is it actually the far past?) – multiple spin-off TV programs!

DIY Questions: Stargate

• What does this Stargate scene tell us about starting points?
• What does it tell us about ending points?
• What does it tell us about the process or trajectory in between?

Brain Activation Media #2 – What is “Trajectory”? – Run Lola Run

Run Lola Run

I find the 1999 German film, Run Lola Run, fascinating for its combination of linear and layered storytelling. The plotline of this action/drama movie is this: Lola’s boyfriend, Manni, has taken a job running smuggled goods for the Mob. He must deliver 100,000 Deutsche Marks (equivalent to about $60,000) at a certain time.  Lola was supposed to pick him up after he delivered “the goods,” but her moped was stolen, so she is late.  Manni waits, then walked to the train station, but leaves the bag of money on his train, due to certain circumstances.  He calls Lola from a phone booth near the money drop place, pleading with her to find a way to get the money to him in 20 minutes. Otherwise, he’ll have to rob the supermarket across the street to get the money so the Mob won’t kill him for missing the drop-off.

That is the set-up for Lola to try to get the money – three separate times, in fact, with each run done in “real time” – exactly 20 minutes.  In between these three “what if” scenarios where Lola literally runs through streets in Berlin to accomplish her task and save her man, there are intriguing scenes (Chapters #12 and #19) where Lola and Manni are discussing core issues of spirituality. (That’s material for another tutorial, but not this one on trajectory.)

You may want to watch it all the way through once, then take notes on the DIY Questions below. Then consider watching it again, this time with the commentary track with director Tom Tykwer and actress Franka Potente (Lola). The commentary is illuminating about hyperculture (the condensing of time and space in our current postmodern culture) and about postmodern film pastiche (the compositing of multiple media formats together). Then answer the DIY Questions again, based on any additional insights from the commentary track.

DIY Questions: Run Lola Run

• What does Run Lola Run tell us about starting points?
• What does it tell us about ending points?
• What does it tell us about the process or trajectory in between?

Brain Activation #3 – What is “Trajectory”? – Star Wars IV

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

There is a fun sort of trajectory-relevant scene to analyze in the 1977 movie, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. It occurs at the Cantina in the pirate spaceport of Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine. This is the part where Obi-Wan Kenobi arranges for Han Solo and Chewbacca to smuggle himself, Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, and R2-D2 to elsewhere in the universe. You’ll find it in Chapter #20 on both the Theatrical Edition (about 47:00 minutes in) and the Limited Edition (about 47:50 minutes in). First, the script, and then, some comments and links to help consider the relevance to trajectories.

Han: Han Solo. I’m captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you’re looking for passage to the Alderaan system.

Ben: Yes, indeed. If it’s a fast ship.

Han: Fast ship? You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon?

Ben: Should I have?

Han: It’s the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!

[Ben reacts to Solo’s stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.]*

Han: I’ve outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk-cruisers, mind you. I’m talking about the big Corellian ships now. She’s fast enough for you, old man. What’s the cargo?

Ben: Only passengers. Myself, the boy, two droids, and no questions asked.

Han: What is it? Some kind of local trouble?

Ben: Let’s just say we’d like to avoid any Imperial entanglements.

Han: Well, that’s the real trick, isn’t it? […]

*This stage direction comes from the posted January 1976 draft of the IMSDB script of Star Wars IV: A New Hope. (The Internet Movie Script Database is a super source for reading/downloading movie scripts for free. The version posted is not always the final edition, but it is usually close enough to what’s in the theatrical release to be of some significant use in film studies.)

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled comments … starting with a question, actually.

What exactly is Han Solo getting at when he declaims that the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less that 12 parsecs, and when he asks the question about the intended cargo for the trip? Although it looks like he’s trying to impress “Old Ben” with the Millennium Falcon’s speed, he may just be saying that to try to bamboozle him. This is because a parsec is actually a unit of distance, not a unit of time. So – if you knew that the Kessel Run usually requires 18 parsecs for a standard cargo ship, what would that imply about Han Solo’s trajectory, cargo, and potentially “tricked out” spaceship? And what’s that got to do with a trajectory that we might be trying to create for our social transformation enterprises?

For clues, check out the Star Wars’ version of a wiki, affectionately called the Wookieepedia. The entries on “Kessel Run” and “Parsec” give insights into what I’m hinting at … Oh! And don’t forget to click on the map in the Kessel Run entry, or just try this link: “The Road to Kessel” – galaxy map with Kessel Run insert.

DIY Questions: Star Wars

• What does this scene in Star Wars IV: A New Hope tell us about starting points?
• What does it tell us about ending points?
• What does it tell us about the process or trajectory in between?

Your Take – What Elements Affect Our Trajectory?

So – after all that – what do you think the composite of these three movies tell us about beginning and end points, trajectory, charting a course, things to be sure to include, things to watch out for, making course corrections, etc.? Tie things in with what you know about journeys already … and perhaps throw in your insights from other films with a journey. And when you’re ready, go to tutorial 07 Trajectory-b for my thoughts on the three movies, and some results of my decades of reflections on 10 different kinds of trajectories of transformation that organizations can adopt – some of them toxic, some making at least some positive strides, and some making significant progress in meeting the future..

© 2010 Brad Sargent. All rights reserved.