Five principles to gain clarity in today’s chaotic world.

Busting through the fogginess of uncertainty to embrace new possibilities is far from easy, especially when operating with anchors that stop you from pulling away. We are creatures of habit and masters of recursion when inside our comfort zone; we need to work outside for short bursts and some of the time. The five principles are specific tactics that help keep things fresh and position us for change. Hopefully, they will help you to do the same.

Recently, the conversations I have been having with business owners have been about finding new directions and gaining clarity on what they should do to achieve this. Whether it is the general economic and political turmoil we seem to be witnessing daily or the pandemic’s rather abrupt end when it is still prevalent. There is an odd feeling that we have been in a vortex for two years, swirling around family and home, experiencing different things in alternative ways, only adding to a sense of confusion when being asked to return to what was, before this, normality. No matter the reason, established business owners and startups feel like they are looking into a heavy mist rather than a bright clear horizon. There is no panacea to gaining clarity; often, it is about giving things time and allowing situations to emerge – but operating in a framework that encourages an open mindset and applies methods to the problem can help.?

?Principle #1: Start messy and let your ideas evolve.

“Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge” – Winston Churchill.

?The challenge for many people is seeing ideas as concrete realities, representations of what is possible and within the bounds of normality. Ideas, in our minds, should not be contained; ideas are abstract, unformed realities that we control, yet many of us still use mental models forged in unchallenged times to dictate how we see the world. ?Inevitable actions leading to predetermined outcomes are easy to lean on since we see them as optimised ways of behaving. When we see a challenge, we bring the same thinking to the problem and do not allow new models to form, so when they do not work as they did, we enter the mist and lose our bearings.

The starting position for any challenge in business is the “I know what to do” framing – the rather humbling acknowledgement is that we do not. We prefer to impose our preconceptions on situations because we see the alternative as a sign of being unconfident and, therefore, weak in some way. My personal experiences around sales, all the sales books I have ever read, and all the techniques I have taught say confidence matters. Here lies a paradox – how can we be confident of anything when we are in a mist?

Starting from the supposition that the situation we see in front of us is messy, that is, it may have many causes, and unravelling may break different threads, we open our minds up to engage with complexity. People make things complex; their expectations and priorities will be different, and everybody brings a personal worldview with them, a frame to observe any problem and adapt a response to it. Therefore, we must be patient and curious and let our ideas evolve into actions to test the situation and observe how things behave. Emergence is in the eye of the observer, we can look away and not see, or we can stand back and watch; the latter position is where opportunities lay, and clarity unfolds. It is better to be the observer and not the observed.

Principle #2: Get questioning

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” – Dorothy Parker.

Should we, shouldn’t we? Whether it is right or wrong, take it or leave it. The world of binary choice would imply simplicity and clarity, but life is far from that simple. All decisions carry consequences, and our actions, like the pebble dropped into a pond, will ripple outwards. We need to get better at thinking about causalities. See each situation as holistically as possible, investigate the system and look for patterns of behaviours within it, follow the processes and find the bottlenecks and the leaks. Use questions to effectively open the system up and understand the root cause of any issue. Techniques like 5-Whys or the Five-W’s and an H (Who, What, When, Where, Why and How) are prompts that take us on a journey of discovery. Repetitive questioning using ‘why’ gets us to the root cause of a problem, and using the Five-W’s and H, helps us move from observation of the symptoms to deeper understanding. It would help if you had a mindset open to change and humility to see that what you may have implemented is not perfection and has consequences beyond the original expectations.

The most powerful question we can ask of any situation is the counterfactual, the question that opens possibilities and challenges by starting a sentence with ‘What if…?’ we go into the realms of the yet-to-be-done or even the seemingly impossible. It is the innovator’s question of choice. We can frame it to suit our personalities as John Battelle, cofounder of Wired, did by rephrasing it as “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” (Reeves and Fuller, 2021). Use analogous thinking and bring in alternative ideas from different industries, ‘What if a cruise liner could be a university?’ or a supermarket a bank, a piece of imaginative thinking that created Merrill Lynch’s dream of taking Wall Street to Main Street (Reeves and Fuller, 2021). ?

By asking questions, we widen options, which sounds strange when trying to gain clarity; it is far better to start by widening out our thinking before narrowing down our choices. This way, we develop a sense of completeness in our review, gaining confidence in the chosen direction.

Principle #3: Write every day but draw to enrich the situation

“You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” – Jodi Picoult.

I don’t have time to write; I can hear you say, yet, finding the time in a day to carve out your thoughts, liberate your mind, and engage with a vocabulary that is right for you, is a pathway to clarity. Uncomfortable for many, it is a practice that cleans the mind, unclutters the thinking and brings in new directions that lean into the past but have an eye on the future. It is a reboot process since what we hold in our heads are often disjointed ideas formed from moments of unwitting surprise; we need the means to join ideas together into living themes either to be carried forward or captured and held for recovery later.

I worked with a business where ideas were never captured; those working within it held the solutions to progress and a better customer experience or a sharper piece of practice. Yet, nothing was caught. With a simple system of buying them a small but attractive notebook – and stamping on it – “Think it- Ink it”, ideas had a space to go. ?

Free writing is for us and not for others; using a pen and notepad brings closer connections between the mind and paper. We remember the mistakes, the tiredness in our fingers, and the inability to correct the order and flow of words. Everything has a meaning – we are simply displaying our thoughts in a way they unfurl. If tapping into a keyboard works for you – then that’s fine – or use both, I do. Notebooks are not works of art; they are messy moments of thinking.

Writing is an essential practice to develop, but the downside of writing is that we must place a full stop at the end of our words, an action that closes our thoughts. It is a punctuation mark that breaks the flow and is something we are programmed to use. Drawing suffers less with completeness; a sketch can be added to, changed without losing meaning and often played with to explore new variances. Visualisation is a powerful piece of activity because it carries with it an interpretation that is rarely complete. The power of drawing to create clarity is given scientific validation through the work of Peter Checkland and John Poulter in developing the Soft System Methodology (Checkland and Poulter, 2006). The ‘rich picturing’ of the system enriches our understanding of a situation—a problem-solving methodology based on action, outcomes, and learning. Combining words with images, or constructing images with words, are techniques that open possibilities. Ideas and visions come from doodles and marks. Don’t believe me? Then look at the website https://theimaginationmachine.org/napkingallery/ ?and see how Jack Dorsey imagined Twitter or Sir James Dyson drew his prototype for the bagless vacuum cleaner (Reeves and Fuller, 2022). See how greatness and clarity were born.

Principle #4: Follow your purpose and make it worthwhile

“For most of us the problem isn’t that we aim too high and fail - it’s just the opposite - we aim too low and succeed.”

― Sir Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

It is a big world out there, a well-connected world that the internet and the worldwide web have made much smaller. With this comes opportunities but also competition, direct and indirect. What differentiates us from the many millions of others is ‘us’; we are unique, shaped by the past, exposed to different situations, and placed in a context like no other. When we stand toe-to-toe with others, we see only the visual differences that set us apart and often fail to recognise what truly matters. Our purpose defines our actions and gives meaning to our lives. We embody our businesses; therefore, our businesses share our purpose. If they don’t, they will only ever compete on sameness.

‘Purpose’ is not on the surface; it goes much deeper. Rarely is it clear, often hidden in the many actions and decisions we have taken and will take. It manifests as tweaks in our gut, a momentary tug of remorse or enlightenment. Purpose sits within us, all of us, often formed by an injustice we have witnessed or been affected by, often festering within us as a cause that is unrecognised but there, nagging at us, always there and challenging us to pick up the baton and run the race.

When I was very young, a teacher told my mother that ‘intelligence was a gift of the Holy Spirit, and I had not been blessed’. I have recounted this story many times, and each time I wondered why that story had remained so relevant to me and my actions in later life. As someone who failed in academia when at school but made the environment work for me as a learning ground for social skills, I now think that this one remark became a catalyst in defining what matters to me.

Probably not at that tender age, nor throughout my school life, did I understand how closed thinking holds us back; it was only once I had capitulated in the belief that this teacher was right that I did something about it. Intelligence is in the grasp of all of us, and we must take the opportunities to learn and apply them to grow. This ‘unintelligent’ boy had a pretty good time becoming an educated adult and now wants to make sure no one anywhere is subject to lost opportunities and limitations on personal growth.

Finding your purpose is never easy; it can often be challenging, painful, but ultimately enlightening. It is valuable in helping us to gain clarity, to align the actions of today to be focused on the impact of tomorrow.

Principle #5: Create a roadmap

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Change must be feasible if it is to happen. We must have the capacity to bring it about and the cultural appetite to see it manifest. It requires a narrative that convinces others and supports the desired outcomes by installing belief. A strong story builds advocates and ignites the passion and desire in others to see a different future come to fruition. Change is always looking ahead; it leaves the past behind as a road once travelled but requires a map to make action happen purposefully.

A map is an incomplete representation, often two-dimensional, distorted, and full of ambiguities. Maps provide us with the certainty of direction when there isn’t any. A map without a north star to guide us or a compass to identify the chosen path is incomplete, but with them, it is the start of coherent actions that bring impact and consequences.

The future we are designing needs to be imagined in a way that it has form. What does work look like in the future, and what about your life? What does that future life feel like? Start from a place of optimism and hope and position yourself in a time and space where you are living your best life. Can you quantify this life in today’s currency, extract the material aspects and combine these with the kind of life that is aspirational and appealing to you? What income would you need to live this life, and how would you fill your days? What impact have you made on the world, maybe a big problem you have conquered or an individual you have helped? Futures are hard to imagine because they carry with them the expectations and the limiting beliefs of today, yet to set our minds free and dream is liberating in the extreme. Let go of the past and look to the future – now ask yourself, what kind of business do I need to make this happen? What type of business would allow me to earn this life, and how would I start to construct this? This is the really fun stuff, the freedom to be the CEO of our lives and imagine what could be and not what is.

One map that helps me put these ideas to work is the Business Model Canvas, a masterful map that places nine building blocks into a rectangle and asks you to populate each block so that we create new narratives. Developed by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, I came across the canvas in 2012 and have advocated for this and the many other tools that Strategyzer provide (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010).?

The way we approach the map matters, and I would urge anybody keen to use this too to first familiarise themselves with how to use it via the book The Business Model Generation.

Other maps that I use include the Napkin Pitch, a one-page strategic document that outlines the immediate challenges ahead and asks to articulate the benefits and needs of our approach, but also the quick next steps (30-60-90 days strategy) and available social capital to make something happen.

Concluding remarks

These are challenging times; there is no question about it. Inflation and the cost-of-living crisis; Covid-19 and the ongoing battle to live with it; the war in Ukraine, its impact on the lives of a peaceful people and the constant threat of an extension of the war. Global warming and sustainable living, the costs and benefits of globalisation and the complexity of supply chains, ethical considerations and buying from countries with different views on what constitutes a human right.

Marcus Aurelius said, “The universe is change. Life is opinion.” We are bystanders to what is happening around us; we can only observe these things and manage our roles within them. We can challenge our perceptions, move forward, or capitulate and transfix on the moment. Tomorrow I will be the same person as I am today, but the world will have moved on once more. Whether we want to be a participant or bystander, to accept a future or make one, it is down to us.

I have two grandchildren aged seven and ten. Their futures have yet to be written, but I want them to have their lives in a better world. Yes, it is my idea of what constitutes better; that is a freedom we have as humans living where we do, my right to paint my version of a better world and my job to convince others to participate in it.

The Weave is a community accelerator currently operating in North Essex.?We are bringing the campus experience to aspirational owner-managers who neither have the time or resources to participate in one. Our model helps entrepreneurs grow their capacity, increase their connections, and find sources of cash. We facilitate a free-to-join community and provide paid mentoring and accelerator programmes for ambitious entrepreneurs with the mindset to learn.

Joining our community is as easy as clicking the link .

If you would like to know more about The Weave, then contact us via our website www.wearetheweave.co.uk and follow us at Twitter @bigfatweave

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References

Robinson, K. and Aronica, L., 2009. The element: How finding your passion changes everything. Penguin.

Checkland, P. and Poulter, J., 2006. Learning for action: a short definitive account of soft systems methodology and its use for Practitioners, Teachers and Students. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Reeves, M., Fuller, J. (2021). The Imagination Machine. 1st. ed. Boston, Mass, USA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y. (2010).?Business Model Canvas. 1st. ed. Hoboken, USA: John Wiley.

Kerouac, J., 1991. On the Road (1957).?New York: Viking Penguin.