Create a New Conversation

A change in action is preceded by a change in the conversation. Old conversations lead to old actions. The challenge is to have a task-related conversation that people have not had before. Holding on to the old conversation, the old way of naming problems or describing possibilities, is a way of seeking safety and maintaining control.

Old conversations are a way of holding to a position that we know we can defend. We want people to take positions that they cannot defend. Then we know we are in new territory. Plus, optimism is born the moment we are surprised by what we say or what we hear.

The real cost of our habitual conversations is the cynicism they breed. It's not that the question they raise have not been answered. Rather, it is the staleness of the discussion that drains energy. Old conversations become a refuge, a way for us to find safety.

If changing the conversation does nothing else, it gives hope that each time we come together, we have the capacity to transform our experience. This is how culture changes in the moment, and if we do it often enough, we learn more, risk more, and move more quickly. Change and its cousins, surprise and unrest, are always within our reach. They are just waiting for us to design them into existence.