Millennia before GPS, Polynesian Islanders connected across vast distances not via maps but by “calling the island to them”. Understanding their surroundings and the minute changes in it to position themselves on the ocean that where they wanted to be “came to them”. There’s a lot we can learn from that.
One of the most significant business challenges of those working in that space embracing the period before we can define a leading edge is finding ways to charge for it. We do the work because we feel compelled to investigate and harness the emergent in our field. Trying to explain it to those who live in the hamster wheel of performance makes them look at us quizzically and ask us to provide evidence of ROI and risk-assessed proposals.
Jerome Bruner wrote about the difference between paradigmatic thinking - thinking in terms of analysis, logic, and proof- and narrative thinking, which brings in wants, needs, goals, imagination, and wonder. Both clearly matter, and I find the magic happens at the point where the two intersect in:
“An act of imagination that is a patterned integration of our remembered past, perceived present and imagined future.”
The Stories We Live By. Dan P. McAdams.
The value of the artisan lies in the way they approach both challenge and material and the skill to combine the paradigmatic with the narrative to create something of substance that is greater than the evidence, something with a soul all its own.
The “material” included the client's imagination and perspective, building a relationship between the client and work that is more than utilitarian and embodied in anything from an idea to an artefact.
I was reminded of this last Sunday, on a trip to London, when I encountered a busker on the Underground. At that moment, that song, that voice, and a natural gift with a guitar combined to create a moment of pause on a journey I had not factored pause into. It changed my mood, and my day, for the better in a way I could not have asked for.
Much of what we do as artisans is of a similar quality. We cannot “sell” it upfront, because the people whose perspective it will change don’t know they need it. All we can do is strum away where we can be seen, wait for someone to pause, and accept the gift offered.
For me, it’s all about threads of connection to people, place, and the questions being asked of us, and weaving those threads into a pattern with others.
There’s a paradox: when clients understand how it works, they cannot unsee it, and are happy to pay well to be part of it.
The challenge is that we have to do the work first.