Patterns

The Void

Flightradar24 is an excellent app for tracking flights. You might comprehend some consistent travel patterns by visiting the site enough times. For example, the flights departing for Europe tend to depart in the afternoon and fill the Atlantic routes as the evening progresses. Alternatively, FedEx and UPS aircraft dominate overnight as they sequence into their respective bases in Memphis and Louisville. Occasionally, an anomaly is visible. A disruption to the patterns that stands out, even without activating additional filters like weather or volcanic activity. A void forms. It is easy to see the pattern disruption as an opportunity, like an open travel lane during a traffic bottleneck. But upon closer inspection, we might recognize the barrier.

How might we not race into each opening, focused on getting ahead without evaluating the environment surrounding us? How might we seek the insight of trusted partners before acting?

Routine

This morning I took my dog to the park. Walking back, I prepared to discard the dog bag into the trash bin but it was gone. There had been a music concert at the park last night; perhaps somebody had moved the trash can closer to the venue. My morning routine was disrupted, and my mindset changed. Where was the closest trash can? Why was our corner trash can missing? Who else was having a pattern disruption?

Some routines are disrupted by external forces, and some by internal choices. How might we disrupt our own patterns to challenge our status quo? How might a break in routine create new ways of thinking or confirm our current course of action? Emergency service and para-military groups perform pattern disruptions by running unscheduled drills. They move from a state of normal to a response posture with the sound of an alarm.

Quick starting points for a change to routine include moving your next meeting to a different venue, changing the agenda order, asking attendees to sit in a different seat, inviting a guest speaker, providing a report with different metrics, canceling a regular meeting to see the impact, and starting the meeting with a generative question.

How do you change your routine? What has forced you to change patterns?