One week in: what I did, felt and learned
In the Tiny Experiments framework, Anne-Laure Le Cunf encourages reflection on whether we: Pause, Pivot or Persist.
I’ve returned for years to a simple reflection practice: what I did, what I felt, what I learned. I like the simplicity of it. You can write a few words, sentences or paragraphs.
In the spirit of Thinking Out Loud, my reflection on this Tiny Experiment is:
I did
Actually write! One week of posts in the little safe corner of Spark’s blog. In my self-agreement, my metrics were: (1) Did I show up? (2) Did I learn something along the way? Yes, and yes! ✅
Go further than I thought I would, in sharing my idea on exploring the conditions for courageous change in public service. My hunch is that trust and humanity are at the heart of this.
Receive unexpected and positive feedback from people the work resonated with, opening conversations for exchange and mutual learning. This feels exciting and generative.
I felt
A bit nervous about sharing the idea I’ve submitted as part of a fellowship application. I didn’t want to jeopardise any application process by over-developing the idea too early. At the same time, I feel ready to begin developing the work.
Clearer that there’s space within this Tiny Experiment for different lenses:
Looking inwards: what it’s like to do this work. For me, the thinking comes from engagement – with people, with their ideas, with our previous work - not from sitting in isolation
Looking outwards: what this work is showing me about the conditions for courageous change, how and where we rekindle humanity, and what we know about our lived experiences for those giving and receiving public services.
Pleasantly surprised, that I actually enjoyed the process, after facing some fierce resistance (for years, about writing). The first few posts felt a little forced. I gave myself a constraint of writing 200-400 words. As the week went on, I found this constraint gave structure to my often wandering thoughts - a hook and a home.
I learned
Over the past week, some emerging questions have arisen about:
Courage:
Where does courage show up in the quieter decisions? Brene Brown’s work explores this. Who else?
Is the experience of courage different when doing “hard things” versus things like dreaming and naming hope?
What might it mean to describe this (the space to dream a dream, and the belief to name it) as a condition for change? Where in Spark’s work have we seen this so far?
Humanity:
Are we more aware of humanity when it’s present, or when it’s missing in interactions in public services?
Shared values and experience:
How can shared qualities, behaviours and values be made explicitly as shared commitment? How is that done without becoming tokenistic or reductive?
Is it possible to share ways of being without direct experience? If so, how do we do that in ways that honour both the lived experience of the sharer, and the integrity of the listener?
Verdict, one week in: Persist.
Thinking Out Loud is where I share short pieces of thinking from the middle of the work. Ideas, questions and lived experiences, shared while they’re still forming. (Tiny Experiments Pact: Day 7/100).