I just survived one of those well meaning, but off-target how to group-think about priorities and get (more) stuff done workshops. Now, in retrospect, I think it simply needed a better preface, focusing discussion and progressive lead-in. Instead we jumped into solving the problem. Wait, I said, what problem? How do I come up with a solution if I don’t even know what the problem is? I showed up just to discover what the problem is, not solve it. I don’t need a prescription, I need a diagnosis.
The methodological approach of todays technique was to write down the problem, post it on a wall, notice other people’s problems then draw on possible resources, develop actions and feel good about having solved the problem in less time than talking about it. Well some hits and some misses I think.
I’ve come to value the “talk about it” model more and more. Not actually for solving problems, I agree it’s way too slow, but for discovering them. That always seems to me the more important and less examined area. We’re all too quick to come up with solutions, but less interested in the taxonomy of how problems relate or separate. Are they perceived or actual? Are they tactical or strategic? Are they engineered to happen or are they accidental? It reflects my Hampshire philosophy that I think the power is in the question, not the answer.
This isn’t the only workshop of it’s kind. Bob Crowley and folks in IT are doing similar kinds of trainings that offer a small range of approaches and methods for feeling better about your workload. Well, at least feeling better about the method of approaching your workload, but Bob’s current method – service design – is much more introspective while being analytic at the same time. Nice house blend.
This also meshes well with the frequent and on-going strategic planing discussions that we’re all invited to. The end result is an increased awareness of how to think about problems at work, of work and how to approach their solutions. That’s good regardless of how modest or off-center it is.
What this really shows, I think, is what I’m calling The New Implementation. It’s the next fast approaching version of Hampshire now that so many of the first generation faculty are retiring and the new folk are looking around and re-examining the lay of the land.
The New Implementation isn’t about new buildings or a bigger budget, but simply refining the way and the why of what we do all day (also perhaps slightly into the night), though there’s going to be nothing simple about it. What we’re going to experience is a fissure of procedural behaviors. As we think through and work differently what we end up doing will slowly reveal the next iteration of what we call Hampshire, the college. There’ll be a lot of congruity in some areas, but less in others.
It’s all to be expected and embraced as long as we build a common and agreed upon story that captures the spirit, drive and excitement of what education needs to become to be both effective and sustainable and still wear the name Hampshire. Everyone is going to play a part in The New Implementation – whether they want to or not.
gunther 12-5-2013
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