infinite mindset

Choir Holding an Impossible Note

I read a social media post that I cannot relocate, suggesting that what allows a choir to hold a note for an impossibly long time is that each singer can drop out and take a breath before resuming. As long as breaths are interspaced so they do not all overlap, the audience hears a consistent note, and the choir members achieve their goal of performing the music as composed.

The author took the choir analogy to discuss social activism and that volunteers and teams can achieve constant pressure if they act and then take a break as long as other individuals are committed to the process. The totality of overlapping efforts is not being ‘always on’ but rather being ‘in the game.’ The phrase ‘fight forward’ has been a guiding mantra for many social sector organizations. We cannot fight back against all the events that have transpired, but we can fight forward. We can be engaged in creating the best version of ourselves and our community while recognizing that our past versions have left room for improvement.

Battleship Strategic Planning

If your strategic planning attempt reflects playing the strategy game Battleship, then the prospects of success are limited. The possibilities of arranging the ships on the board are vast. This is akin to selecting the strategies and goals in a traditional plan. Then, we must start guessing in some methodical or random order to hit the correct positions and create an impact. The calculations behind the probability are significant.

There are a surprisingly large number of ways that the ships could be arranged: for example, a blank board with the usual 5 ships has 30,093,975,536 possible configurations. Source C.Liam Brown

Credit

What if we adopted a more durable approach? What if our goal was not to ‘win’ strategic planning but to remain in the game (and mindset) of planning and amending. What if the act of thinking strategically was a sign of progress? What if we collaborated with others instead of playing in a silo? What if we relied on others to succeed so that we could thrive?

The Bucket
Melting snow for water during a yurt trip.

Social media post I encountered. “I completed the first thing on my bucket list…I got a bucket.”

The quip is positioned as a humorous post but embeds truth in its simplicity. Before launching our aspirational moonshot, how might we ensure we have the essential supplies and a basic foundation? If we continuously operate on a burning platform, trying to assemble the basics to stay in the game, perhaps a fully articulated marketing plan is not our next move.

The More You Know
https://www.facebook.com/Anika.Insana

It is convenient to see a commercial airplane as a uniform piece of aviation equipment. However, focusing only on the control surfaces adds depth and dimension to our understanding of all the possible inputs that impact operations.

How might we illustrate the control surfaces of our own enterprises without overwhelming our audience? Super fans might desire more information, but casual observers might be better served with a more basic orientation. How might we decode our work to build a better understanding of the expertise it takes to keep our organization aloft?

Real-Time Decisions

If we make real-time decisions, be aware of our mindset and the moment we decide. No skiers were riding the chairs in front of me, there was no snow on the south slopes, and nobody was skiing the mogul run below the chairlift. A good observation in real time might be that it is time to shift the ski area’s operations to a minimal viable status. The snapshot does not capture that both photos were taken in the last minutes of the ski day for this part of the mountain; everyone had departed or was exiting via other runs.

How might we balance the long view with the immediate facts? How might we remain more holistic when there is a variance in the budget, a blip in enrollment, a change to a donor’s giving habits, a shift in how board members attend meetings or a disruption experienced by a peer organization? How might we prioritize a culture of curiosity over the desire to fix the immediate issue?

Wayfinding the Letter Search

Wayfinding parallels solving the New York Times Letter Boxed game. There is no perfect solution; sometimes, we rely on patterns we encounter in other parts of our journey. We are endeavoring to stay in the game, relying on what we can achieve now, even if it is a three-letter word, to reach the next attempt. Solve the puzzle in one remarkable turn; you are a genius. Complete the game in five guesses, and you are a player. If it takes six or more turns, you are still in the game and acquired knowledge that will serve you well in the next chapter. Even when we backtrack and undo a previous guess, we still navigate toward a waypoint that moves us closer to delivering the work that matters.