Author: Tenneson Woolf

This is a three minute video that has gone viral in the last week.

It is a six year old in Surrey, British Columbia talking to her Mom about being kind and getting a long.

It’s worth the watch.

Twenty-five years ago I was in grad school. One of my best new pals was a guy named John. John and I immediately hit it off. He was a person who was able to challenge assumptions. It meant that conversation and learning with him was always easy because he was good at clarifying assumptions, and in many cases, willing to leave things unresolved. Everything from some of the school assignments to grand philosophies of life. This was refreshing and essential for me.

In those days our program had our own separate lounge. It was a place to meet. Study. Leave a few things that you didn’t want to carry with you during the day. It was a place to just hang out too. Our program had 40 people in it.

John was known for hanging out in the lounge. We all did, but he was the person who seemed to always be there. I remember being in the lounge, needing to leave for a class, then returning after class to find John still there on the couch but now talking with different people. By the way, John was a top student — definitely top third in GPA.

John was famous for asking “what does it all mean” questions. We spent many hours and days over those years pondering meaning. One day he asked me, a bit playfully, “Tenneson, if you could sum it up in one sentence, one truth, what would that be?” I laughed. Then spit out, “choice exists.” It’s the best that I could come up with. I wanted to play the game with John.

I suppose I feel kind of proud having lived with “choice exists” now for 25 years. Choice exists. Choice in action (the blue or the red). Choice in thought (to be curious or judging). Choice in assumption (cultural story A or B). Even choice in emotion (frustrated or accepting). Choice, more than this “or” that, a fundamentally liberating principle and reminder. This later became a key root of parenting for me. “There is always another way,” I told my kids often, who are now 20, 18, and 10. Over the last many years they have rolled their eyes at me a time or two as I’ve shared this with them. They’ve also used it back at me a time or two, with particular satisfaction when they’ve been trying to do stuff that I don’t necessarily agree with.

In working with clients and teams professionally, I realize I’m looking for the most basic of reference points so as to ground our work. I say it a bit differently now. “We have choices.” How do we create a culture of trust and learning? We have choices. Even, “You have choices.” Is it possible to change the format of a large conference to something more participative? I can answer yes, which I do. But even more often, I reference choices. We have choices.

“We have choices,” breaks a spell, the trance that tells us we can’t do. That’s it’s not possible. “We have choices” is not a rah, rah speech. I suppose it could feel like that. It’s a reminder of something that many of us once knew, or that we occasionally forget.

Ah, an ode to John, my buddy from so long ago who by just being him, sparked a lifetime of thought for me.

Choice exists.

 

 

Today my mind shifts back to working with a team, six of us, on a final preparation day for hosting a three-day leadership training. We are a skilled team. Each person has oodles of experience in the field of participative leadership. We have a lot in common, of course. But we also have some differences, which makes it interesting and sometimes even surprising.

Today we will review our design that we started two days ago. In the best of ways, it will be a welcome of what has settled and what has simplified from our initial questions. Should we use a full circle to get people started? How will we talk about circle so that participants get that it is more than a geometric arrangement of chairs? Are there core agreements to remind each other of to create both helpful behavior and heart-filled learning? It has felt very gracious to me to let our questions settle rather than forcing them through a narrow time constraint. Learning happens not just with direct attention, right.

Today we will prepare a physical space. The chairs in the room. The small tables for small group conversations. A table to hold materials and supplies. A table for books and resources. A few flip charts and murals to graphically show what we are up to. The preparation of space matters. It is after all, a key component of the container we will create.

Why? Why all of this? In the last minutes of hurriedness, it is good to recenter in purpose. I have found that people are eager to do their work well. Most know that doing it together somehow matters. It doesn’t mean everything together, but it does mean working across many partnerships. Sometimes shared budgets. Sometimes continuous communications.

I feel the anticipation. A little nervous. Mostly an excitement of knowing for the next three days, 60 people will mix their energies, questions, stories, and practices on behalf of both projects and ways of being.

 

 

 

The full quote that I’m aware of is, “History is merely a list of surprises. It can only  prepare us to be surprised yet again.” Thanks to the works of Kurt Vonnegut, American author and essayist.

It is the notion of welcoming surprise that excites me in this. Oh, good, surprise. Some life that has not been reduced by me or others to a list predictable and mystery-absent steps. Life itself playing with us. Teasing us even. Presenting us with a few crazy insights and ahas.

Having said that, it’s not permanent surprise that I long for. There are some certainties that are comforting. Things that I can count on. Things that I don’t have to figure out each time.

Welcome surprise is a principle I often speak when working with groups. Often, it is in the context of invitation to find something together that we wouldn’t necessarily find by ourselves. An idea. An insight. A modified plan. Emergence is after all, a way of being. Less preplanning. More in the moment of engagement.

I wonder how much my life, our lives, would change from this practice alone — welcoming surprise. Seeing surprise. Expecting surprise. Being kind enough to ourselves and to each other to let go of knowing (or its cousins, including over-preparing, rote memorizing, fear of looking stupid, etc.), and welcome the wisdom of not knowing.

Just saying.