Hi everybody - it’s Andrew Benedict-Nelson, your social impact advisor, back with another way to think differently about any problem you are working on. Subscribe if you’d love to receive an exercise like this every week.
These are the same kinds of exercises I use with clients as I help them realize social change — if that piques your interest, just hit reply and we can talk about it.
We all like to think we are pretty good at predicting the future. But for that very reason, we are also aware of events, situations, and concerns that tend to make us more short-sighted. When you think about the problem you are trying to solve, what are some of the stumbling blocks and distractions that make people lose sight of the bigger picture? The more specific you can be to your problem, the better.
The people being tripped up by these distractions aren’t fools — chances are that you have also been made short-sighted by the same thing. What makes these short-term concerns so urgent that you lose track of the bigger picture? Is there something important you stand to lose if you don’t devote all your attention to them?
Imagine that an extremely competent personal assistant appeared in your life and offered to take care of the short-term concern, freeing you up to think about the future. Besides the time you would gain, how do you think your perspective might change if you didn’t have to worry about the distracting concern? What if nobody had to worry about it anymore?
Here’s a twist. Pretend that the short-term concern has been transformed so that when you work on it, you’re actually more prepared to take on the big problems. So if your distraction is you big annual fundraising gala, imagine that the week after it happens, you come to the office smarter about the core concerns of your organization instead of exhausted and disconnected. Describe how that might work, even if it sounds unrealistic.
The things we spend our time on reflect our social norms and values. Sometimes when we look closely at them, we don’t like what we see. What did looking at short-term distractions this way teach you about the values held by you, your organization, or your industry? Do you see anything you’d like to change?
That’s it! If you want to share any thoughts or feelings these questions evoked, just reply to this e-mail or comment below.
This exercise was developed using the future dynamic. It’s one of six innovation dynamics I use with clients to help realize new insights and unlock creative thinking.