Re-name It #1: bye bye “Problem” and “Issue” hello Positive Change
The Bite:
You can change your life by renaming it! (And I can help if you like)
And to begin the process I have created a new catagory for it.
The first renaming exercise: everytime you here Problem or Issue rename it "challenge" and "contradiction".
Huh? Keep reading. And even if you don’t keep reading, please do try it and let me know what happens.
The Background: A joke, An Explanation and an Example
Recently someone called me a re-organising and re-naming expert. Yes yes, go ahead and laugh. I did. But jokes are funny little things. They come back and bite you with ideas!
The joke came out of the fact that I truly believe that words are so powerful that they create worlds. As such, when we name something, we also simultaneously have/create a construct for that name*, and in doing so, that word now has a memory. A story to which we attach any number of things - often in good and bad terms.
A good example: you meet someone named Brad. Brad does something terrible. Forever after you will associate that name with not positive things. Now you meet a new Brad. even though the new person also named Brad is not involved in this memory you can’t seperate it because the label "Brad" is linked to negative stuff.
Ok - so now you understand some of the background thinking to my new catagory: re-name it!
Another Way to Read this: The Big Picture - A Story and How to Use It
I have been doing this unconsciously and consciously for a while now. But it took a joke to make it into an idea of its own right:
I have been renaming "Problem" and "Issue" with "Challenge" - problem and issue seemingly taking us into a negative spiral of fear and negativity….that is always very hard to get out of. Challenge being more like a game which suggests fun and play (which work HAS to include).
And now I have a new word to add to the Problem renaming - "Contradiction" which suggests reorgansing puzzle pieces (and still has fun and play involved). **
The power of renaming? Think "breakthrough"! Think "getting unstuck". Think "mindshift"
Just be changing a word?
Yes. This is re-framing at its most simple.
The best way I can explain it is through this story:
I recently coached a wonderfully intelligent woman on technology and organisation. She had been having ‘problems’ with her computer. In her language, "Samnatha" her computer was behaving like a bitch.
I politely inquired how it came that her computer was female. I suggested computers were male. She tried it, and suddenly the ‘problem’ ‘issue’ vanished.
Her computer is a man. It thus: doesn’t like to do too many (ok no more than one) things at once. It likes to sleep sometimes. It doesn’t like to be disturbed when being fed…and so forth… Any times she is challenged she can look at the contradiction in her expectations and her contruct for what it can do…
Her and her computer have a much better relationship now - there is no contradiction between it’s name and her conception of what it can do.
I think I have a new coaching service on offer here - any takers?! Any comments?!
*I wish I could claim it for my own but this is a socio-linguistic concept by Ferdinand De Saussure kindly passed on by friend Muriel….and it ties into the Shaman story I wrote about a while ago.
** Thanks to Colby’s blog for the word, which comes from TRIZ, a theory of inventive problems solving/something for your innovation toolkit that I will give you more info about another day…or you can read about it yourself. And thanks to Jochem for passing Colby forward!
PS I have made a conscious effort to respond to feedback of certain friends who require bottom-up understanding before they can leap into my top down reasoning…so I am beginning to invert the pyramid when I write, and I put some of my research chasers in the ** part - it is clearer for you?
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December 17th, 2005 at 2:40 am
I am not sure if I understand the last part (the p.s.)
From what i can see you have started to place a summary (top level) of the concept at the begining and then, with that context, expande on the idea and the source of the idea later on. (as you know, my personal favourite technique for writing long emails to ppl with little time)
I have always been told this is a TOP DOWN approach. BOTTOM UP was to start by explaining little pieces of the puzzle that will later on be put together to form a context/solution.
You said that they require “bottom-up understanding before they can leap into [your] top down reasoning” and as such have adopted the previously mentioned technique. Have I missed something or is this all upside down?
December 17th, 2005 at 4:07 am
ok
you win
I got into ‘trouble’ already…I did actually invert my own thinking but didn’t completely help the people I was trying to help
“fail once, try again, fail better”
meanwhile Joel - you were always going to be able understand this ;)