Book excerpts - Ch3(E24): Moved by dramas.
How to utilize dramas as a vehicle to prosperity, instead of being run over by progress?
Dramas should be attended to as soon as possible, and the sooner, the better if we want to reduce creative debt. Dramas are valuable instruments of progress that can guide our attention and mindfulness before, during, and after intensities or distractions occur.
Pre-hoc dramas are accumulated or escalated tensions and conflicts that occur or spark before an anticipated event. Ad-hoc dramas are overwhelming discomforts or disturbing inconveniences that take place simultaneously with an event or situation. And post-hoc dramas are reanimated frustrations caused by memories of turbulent situations that had already occurred.
Post-hoc dramas
The more distanced we are from the drama (in time and space), the less we can do about it other than learn from it - which is a good thing.
As we distance further away from dramas, we can do less to solve them, but we can still learn from them and be better prepared to anticipate and respond to them faster next time. That's why Post-hoc dramas are the least difficult to attend.
Try to identify PRICE issues in past dramas to practice identifying causes and feel more comfortable with creative mindfulness.
Pre-hoc dramas.
Pre-hoc dramas are challenging for two reasons. First, they require knowledge and imagination to anticipate them. Second, they seem hypothetical, so we consider them less real and, therefore, ignorable. Although Pre-hoc dramas are valuable, we tend to undermine the importance of dealing with them because their impact cost is not yet determined, and the value of attending them is unclear or guaranteed. But the cost of neglected issues (regardless of whether they are naively or malevolently ignored) will inflate if we ignore them. When we delay attention to issues, we actively contribute to significant investment increases that will appear in the future.
Use the GAP sketch to identify possible dramas ahead of time. Future dramas are smaller if we encounter them without turbulent currents.
Ad-hoc dramas
Ad-hoc dramas: dramas that occur now are the most demanding and distracting. They require immediate attention, and they are stressful. During ad-hoc dramas, we experience exponential dramas because not only do they appear, but they also activate us and expose critical lacunas such as lack of knowledge, resources, skills, or resilience.
Nevertheless, dramas can provide us with valuable forward-looking insights and help us anticipate future dramas and meet them more prepared.
Don't be afraid to check the PRICE index, draw GAP sketches, or use the compasses to clarify constraints. An articulated theory of constraints is a valuable booster to a mindful theory of change. And a catalyst for learning and development.
So why don't we attend dramas?
We don't attend dramas because they are expensive. Exploring what could go wrong requires time and attention. Exploring what went wrong requires time and resilience to frustrations. And dealing with what's (currently) going wrong - requires all of the above and admitting that they are probably missing.
In hindsight, it's easier to forgive or forget than to reopen traumas, especially when the issues relate to complex dynamic systems (reference Roger Martin).
An elegant way of describing dramas (without the emotional debt they carry) is acknowledging them as wicked problems - problems that don't have a clear source, have multiple stakeholders, and/or complicated settings. Wicked problems are also frequently described as slippery problems or hairy issues.
Not only do dramas consume resources, but they are also hard to grasp or hold, and they slip and cause even more dramas. Even when we give them cool or sophisticated titles. Underneath complexity, we will find many analytical complications and emotional storms. Both need to be accounted for and attended to.
I hope that by now, you can imagine an easy and proactive translation of dramas to insights. And that attendance to dramas will grow on you instead of making you want to disappear.
How to deal with dramas
Our immediate tendency to distance ourselves from difficulties or problems contributes to the escalation of dramas. When encountering a problem, it's easier to blame someone for it than to attend to and account for its causes. It takes a great deal of maturity to truly admit our own role in it. So instead, most of the time, we simply throw problems at others instead of seeking the conditions for their resolution or even, one step further, our role in resolving them.
Obviously, this tendency is not so productive since it increases tensions and conflict instead of calming them.
A better way to attend to wicked problems, slippery situations, and dramas is to take a situationist approach. Observing situations neutrally allows us to neutralize dramas, delay their direct indication of the cause, and provide more time to distance from the intensity of challenges.
Observing a situation in which drama occurs involves three steps:
We want to identify the lacunas that are part of the situation without assigning them to particular stakeholders.
We want to evaluate the diversities or consensus around the lacunas.
We would like to collaboratively explore it and identify its interfaces with stakeholders if consensus appears.
To do the last, we will use future projections (via the GAP sketch) instead of past projections (blame games) to defer judgment.
Attending dramas
Post-hoc, ad-hoc, and pre-hoc dramas can easily translate into situations with lacunas. Observing what's missing instead of what's the problem helps us get closer to the problems without getting sucked into them or crashing into someone along the way. Even if you feel something like - what's missing is that management needs to approve the budget. Neutralize this statement by acknowledging that there is an approval lacuna - an approval is missing.
If you think that what's missing is your own resources to complete the task. Don't blame yourself too quickly. Instead, acknowledge the situation by saying there is a resource lacuna.
What you get from acknowledging lacunas instead of problems or issues is that you get to observe consensus around the issue before it's attached to someone. If consensus is missing around a lacuna, it doesn't really matter who's in charge of a lacuna. And if consensus appears around the lacuna, then perhaps it's not that important who's the owner of the lacuna. Perhaps what's important is the acknowledgment of the lacuna and the ambition to attend it. This way, we don't need to waste valuable time before thinking of ways to overcome the lacuna.
Seeking lacunas and acceptance allows the inclusion of diversities without raising unnecessary or premature barriers.
Often, barriers are raised due to previously generated perceptions or established surrogation. In the book "When more is not better," Roger Martin describes how we replace virtues with numbers. Or, in other words, surrogate or confuse, for example, "deep relationship", with "number of interactions"). Joseph Schumpeter acknowledged the need for something to be destroyed before it could be rebuilt. Similarly, we need to unlearn something in order to re-learn it. But how to practice unlearning, creative destruction, overcoming bias traps, or dismantling surrogations remains vague and unclear.
Acknowledging lacunas independent of actors as a form of phenomenon allows us to discover even more fundamental lacunas - such as engagements, agreements, or resources.
These evaluations can be made quickly at first, using intuition, and cut down much of the costs associated with exploring and overcoming operational obstacles. However, many operational obstacles remain latent because the cost of bringing them to attention is too high. To clarify - the cost of bringing things to attention is a function of awareness and awareness-related dramas. Awareness-related dramas result from a lack of consensus on lacunas, their resolutions, or both.