Enroute between meetings this morning I was listening to a pod cast of Bill Moyers interviewing a teacher of a teacher of mine, Parker Palmer. Palmer was commenting on his challenge for us to live in the 'tragic gap" between reality and what we know to be possible through our own experience.  Too much reality leads to what he calls a "corrosive reality" and too much possibility leads to irrelevant idealism. This gap is tragic because if we made different decisions the end result poignantly might well have been better. We are always living in a tension then between reality and what might be.

 

For example, those of us who sit in meetings and speak incessantly about risk and dismiss ideas because something similar 'didn't work last time' fall into the trap of corrosive reality. Meanwhile those of us who sit in the same meeting and suggest that the problem we face will be solved if we just work 'better' or the solution is to hope that a behaviour will change if we let him or her 'know' we are concerned by making a joke, or using the silent treatment, are trapped in irrelevant idealism. That said, we need to have both reality and possibility to move forward, to learn, to grow. A small child learning to walk in reality keeps falling but sees the possibility of walking upright all around and knows it is possible. To not keep trying is a terrible choice, regardless of the risks inherent in the current reality.

 

Leadership is about supporting people (and ourselves) in the 'tragic gap". Ask yourself and your team 'reality' questions like, what is really going on here? What part of this is clear, what part is unclear? What evidence do we have for our definition of reality? Is what we are saying/believing true? What are examples that support our thinking? What is your assessment? What are the risks and what risk mitigations are in place? And very importantly ask yourself and your team 'possibility' questions like, what does your intuition tell you? what could we do? what are the possibilities we see if we use different lenses to explore the issue? what is just one more possibility? what will happen if we do, what will happen if we don't? what would if be like to live in the future now? what thinking is imprisoning us?  what  could we change that would make a difference? For what do we hope and of what are we afraid? (Thanks to Meg Wheatley for these last few). 

 

May this week be focused on living and working in the "tragic gap."