Cycle 2 – final week… “Mirrors…are they helpful?”

As a child I used to go to country shows and small village fetes…where there were all sorts of exciting new things to explore that made childhood wonderful. Part of this was what used to be called the “hall of mirrors”. In this experience, you would walk around different mirrors that used to distort your image…seeing yourself with either tiny legs or a huge head or a very skinny body. It made me giggle to see myself morph and change in each new reflection. 

In some ways I feel that this prototype has helped me see through some distortions and illusions. As I reflect back over this prototyping period, my (level 3) insights are…

• When we choose to remain the same (in the current system), we are therefore choosing not to learn…without learning we are in fact declining…as the world will move on regardless, we become obsolete.  

• Change agency comes easily and naturally to those who are curious and eager to explore – they choose to test and try new things and then observe what emerges. 

• Some seem ‘locked-in’ by intellectualization (leaving out so much of their untapped potential) – choosing to debate and theorize rather than immerse and experience. The new paradigm is hypothesized but remains an abstract concept. 

I think the biggest and most visible change for the FCA founders has been the structure and actions over a timeline. I spoke to a fellow founder recently…“it has been great!...we have done more in the last few weeks than in the previous 5 years” 

I have found this experiment fascinating, it has allowed me to see things more clearly than ever before. I have witnessed that much of what we do is done unconsciously and comes from our prevailing mindset, yet we cannot see it. What is espoused and the actions we take are rarely aligned (cognitive dissonance). That no matter how we convince ourselves we are making rational decisions based on logic, our decisions are in fact largely based on how we feel. Our unconscious biases serve to keep us in the dark. 

As I reflect back over these 45 days and the journey that brought us here, I realise that this is exactly what the participants of Spring 2018 Summit and the following research were asking us for…. “the biggest barrier to innovation is Culture and Mindset”…some of us have explored with curiosity, deliberately taken different actions, reflected on our learning… for me this had led to new and profound (Level 3) insights into working with Mindset. 

As part of the final event, Archetypal Potential will share their analysis on the Mindsets & Culture they have encountered over these 45days – I am truly fascinated by what will be shared and where the FCA then chooses to go.