Remember my comments about observation? One of the podcasts I pay attention to is the BBC’s Peter Day. He offers a “series of programmes about the whole world of work, public and private, from vast corporations to modest volunteers.”

The 04 April 2010 program, “Who sets our standards?” got me thinking about the importance of standards in stewarding knowledge. This is something you want to embrace in order to succeed in stewarding knowledge.

A “standard” is an agreement between a group of people about good ways to do things. It is a way to preserve what has been learned and make it accessible to other teammates,  organisations, and practitioners. It also becomes a vehicle for improving knowledge and driving innovation because we all have a common reference point for communication, something to critique together. (more…)

The greatest discoveries depend on errors observed.

One of the reasons I believe in the Power of Observation is that when I am working with others, we always make errors. Something doesn’t go right. We are never perfect. 

These errors are gifts of gold given to me for free. They highlight opportunities to do better, if only I can see them and honestly examine what they have to teach me.

This is the scientific method, this is the power of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. You have a plan/expectation, you do it, you check how it went as dispassionately as you can, and you adjust the plan just enough so that you can actually improve and do it again.

This is how I avoid feeling defeated or beating myself up when we make an error. I have come to believe this is how we can grow in what we do. Even more importantly,  it is how our team learns to trust and talk and be more committed to each other and the people we serve.

In this, I am inspired by a footnote in The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science by Richard Holmes. Chapter 2 describes William Herschel, an 18th century self-taught astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus because of his disciplined observation of the skies. Early in his career, Herschel thought the moon was inhabited and that the craters were actually architectural forms (an error). Talking about this, Holmes says this,

[this] bears on the whole nature of science history and biography. Michael Hoskin has suggested in his essay ‘On Writing the History of Modern Astronomy’ that most histories of science continue to be ‘uninterrupted chronicles,’which run along ‘handing out medals to those who “got it right” ‘. They ignore the history of error, so central to the scientific process, and fail to illuminate science as a ‘creative human activity’ which involves the whole personality and has a broad social context.

I think that’s tremendously important. The history of error is such an intimate part of science, and it’s so often suppressed in ordinary, conventional science history. You just get to the result. You also ignore things that don’t look right to us now. The history of error is very rich.

We do a disservice to our teams when we only tell the stories of what worked. When we fail to help them embrace errors. Failing to embrace error holds at bay the human – and spiritual – dimension that is vital if we are to discover what is truly valuable.

“It feels too ‘corporate’ to talk about ‘improving processes.’ You don’t understand: In this non-profit/NGO/humanitarian small-business world, you do this sort of work because you are called to it, because you love it. We focus on the people we serve. You are asking us to think in business terms.” 

Over the last dozen years working with NGOs, I have heard some variation of this objection time and again. Somehow, it feels too cold and un-human – some might say “nonspiritual” – to look at processes. Instead, we must be guided by love and inspiration and the needs of the moment. 

My hope is to affirm both! Love and inspiration keep you doing the NGO work day in and day out with all of its joys and frustrations. Business helps you do it with less waste, without overworking your staff, with proper stewardship of your resources… doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

In his brilliant book, The War of Art: Break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles, Steven Pressfield urges those who seek to make the world a better place to see their work as so important, it can’t be left to the amateur. This is as true if you hope to be a writer, photographer, teacher, NGO leader, or consultant. He says,

To the amateur, the game [what he is doing] is avocation. To the pro, it’s his vocation. The professional loves what he does so much that he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time. The professional

• shows up every day and shows up no matter what
• stays on the job all day, doing the work even when our minds might wander
• commits over the long haul
• sees that the stakes are high and real, worthy of the best effort
• accepts remuneration for the labour
• does not over-identify with the job (we can take pride in our work but we are not our job description… the amateur defines himself as a (musician, writer, photographer) and can take it so seriously it paralyzes him
• masters the technique of the job
• has a sense of humor about the job
• receives praise or blame in the real world (lets the facts, what really happens, evaluate the effectiveness of the work)

You know I am passionate about the importance of retrospection and reflection in our work. The stakes are high, too high for us to be complacent in how we do it. In the chapter, A Professional Dedicates Himself to Mastering Technique, Pressfield says

“The professional respects his craft. He does not consider himself superior to it. He recognizes the contributions of those who have gone before him. He apprentices himself to them. The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come. The professional is sly. He knows that by toiling beside the front door of technique, he leaves room for genius to enter by the back.”

Learning from others – especially from those who are outside your normal professional discipline – is crucial to growing as a worker, to sparking your creativity. I recommend this approachable book to help you grow.