As social beings, connections matter. Sometimes, just how (inter-)connected the world around us is reveals itself. Not only that, the world I see may be literally different to the one you do. So it is not just about slowing down and raising your awareness of ‘what is’, it is also about recognizing the maps of the world we create are literally that: visual maps that differ from the moment we take data in through our eyes. This all comes to life for me having watched some of Christien Meindertsma‘s work this morning. Meindertsma work explores the life of products and raw materials. For example, PIG 05049 (2007) documented the “astounding array of products that different parts of an anonymous pig called 05049 could support” revealing “lines that link raw materials with producers, products and consumers that have become so invisible in an increasingly globalized world.”
Looking at my work with organisations and groups, it is rare that I come away not having become aware of a multitude of connections both within the container I am working in, and ones that link to what is going on outside. The challenge, aside from allowing them to come into awareness, is to discriminate between what is true and useful and what is not. And yet…
As I make meaning from what I see and hear, how certain can I be that what I am experience is similar to, say, what you are experiencing? Let’s just take the seeing bit of this process for a moment. In another experiment, Meindertsma and her colleagues demonstrated that, for example, people from different professions will absorb visual data by focusing on different elements of the same image.
So how do we establish a shared truth? I have rarely heard people in organisational settings (or any other for that matter) really make explicit the basis for why they believe something to be true, and so assessment replaces fact, and assumptions run riot. How can you tell which is which? When you voice assessments or assumptions, someone in the room will disagree (even if they remain silent). Facts land differently, you will know when they hit home.
Next time you are in disagreement and consensus seems a remote possibility, ask yourself whether you are missing some connections, whether what you see is really the same as everyone else, and whether you are in the territory of assessments or facts.
[...] Steve Hearsum, if the title of this post bears some resemblance to your most recent one, on porcine connectivity – I think that my train of thought may have originated there; but as you’ll see, it then [...]