Getting used to the mess

Yesterday, we hosted an intimate discussion with Fast Company co-founder Alan Webber. The conversation was wide ranging, attending to different facets of "Innovative Leadership". One thing that Alan mentioned was the need to begin to develop more coherent and clear language - that the multiplicity of terms (e.g., social enterprise, social innovation, social entrepreneur, social finance, venture philanthropy, etc) - and their uncertain definitions - is a hindrance to "The Movement".  This lack of clarity, the argument goes, is holding us back from our potential to drive social change and to engage an active audience.

This provoked me to think a bit about the duplication we see across the social change sector.  There is incredible duplication of effort as individuals and organizations seek to solve certain (identical) problems in isolation from each other. Or, sometimes, knowing exactly what the others are doing, but preferring instead their own approach. I made reference yesterday to the fact that i know of at least five initiatives that trying to create a "Facebook for social change". There's also a million water projects in different parts of the developing world, and inadequate strategies for sharing experiences, models etc. This type of duplication - and the concomitant challenge of information sharing and pattern-seeking - plays out it in hundreds of sectors, issues and places around the world.  The result is a failure to capitalize on and learn from the best possible innovations/strategies that address social concerns of all varieties.

This issue is further compounded by the deep themes of "scale" and "replication". How do we make sure that good ideas are replicated in other regions of the world? How do we make sure that good ideas grow to become ever more powerful?

The assumption here, and in Alan's remarks, is that we need to get a bit more organized. That the incoherence is preventing us from achieving our potential. That there's too much noise and insufficient signal.

To some degree, I agree. These are messy times. The pace of change is quickening. Technology is rapidly transforming all variety of activities. To me, the central questions are: Is this the storm before the calm? Will this intensity, this incoherence, sort itself out? Or is this storm going to keep a'rumbling?

In the old days (i.e., print paradigm), certain themes, memes, organizations and narratives dominated. They achieved a position of dominance through any variety of means. And "dominance" wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Many of these ideas and structures did us a lot of good.  And this paradigm was very good at keeping things easily understood and organized. You could get a handle on things. There was a clear narrative.

Now it may be possible that this new "messiness" is just a moment of transition. In survival of the fittest fashion, the best ideas, projects, strategies, narratives, etc. will sort themselves out and our world will be a bit cleaner once again. Our brains can finally get a bit of rest.

But what if that's not the case? What if the messiness is here to stay? What if the plurality of narratives, the multiplicity of perspectives and approaches is just the new way of doing things?

This seems to pose a challenge to scale and replication. If it's not clear which ideas are best, how do we grow and replicate their impact?  It also poses a challenge to our institutions, which are used to linearity and clarity. It's also a challenge to our brains, which have been made used to the same. (I don't think our brains are 'naturally' linear, but that our pedagogy and social reality trains us to be this way).

But maybe that's okay. Perhaps there will just be a preponderance of ideas and ways of approaching issues, that are context specific and locally rooted. Perhaps we're just going to have to get used to this messiness, and the fact that there is no clear coherent narrative. It may be difficult - even confusing or downright terrifying - but maybe it's just the way things is.   

I acknowledge, of course, that this is a classic modern vs postmodern conundrum. But the whole concept came into sharper relief yesterday in the context of the social change sector.  Should we be marshalling our energy to find accord on certain terms, concepts and strategies? Or is our energy better spent trying to come to terms with the messiness and developing ways to succeed despite it?