Changing... our preference for the tangible
© 2024, James McLean
I just received some feedback from a presentation I delivered a week or so ago. Overall, it was very good feedback, but one bit of feedback stood out as both familiar and frustrating (it occurs to me that this could also be relevant to my previous post about bubbles and triggers).
So here I go!
This particular piece of feedback suggested that the work with the group had been ‘theoretical’ and ‘academic’. It's not the first time I've received feedback like this, and it comes with a sense of being inconsequential at the same time. “Oh, it's an interesting theoretical,” so it can't possibly be pragmatic!
I know why it emerges. It's because I spend time talking about how the way we think about things influences what we do. This is a conceptual piece of my work.
Think about it. Isn't it true that the way we think and feel about things determines how we act?
Why does this seemingly intangible element of the discussion, which I know is so fundamental to change, obtain such off-handedness and sometimes even derision?
If you are a coach or psychologist interested in the stages of human development, you might suggest that it takes time for people to mature into humans who appreciate the power of the more subtle realm. This capability is a stage of adult development.
If you are a sociologist or anthropologist, you may be drawn to explore the nature of our modern Western cultures, which seem to strongly reinforce our appreciation of the tangible over the intangible.
I am running out of steam as I write. Recognising both these things are a part of my work. The work of change is working with both influences and guiding people through them to a realisation that the way we think, the things we assume to be true – as individuals and collectives – is the place to make tangible change. The intangible becomes tangible.
How hard is that to grasp? And yet this is the work, changing …the preference for tangible.