Let's Hurry Up and Pace Ourselves

Last month at the SVII Innovation Society, which I program directed before taking up my current initiatives, Bill Veltrop of MISA made a compelling presentation invoking the important and timely distinction between finite and infinite games.

Finite games, our cultural habit, succeed when a winner and a loser are declared.   Infinite games, our path to a sustainable future, succeed when we get to keep on playing.  I find this a refreshing re-orientation, and a creative invitation for the next century of innovation.

I am sensing around me a growing taste, maybe soon even a hunger, for a (more) infinite game.  Gifted teacher and Stanford Professor Emeritus Michael Ray shared with me and his many students that a key practice of a creative person is to "see precisely" -- see with fresh eyes exactly what is happening.  In my effort to "see precisely" I am seeing and even experiencing a certain kind of deliberate slowing down.  Business has slowed dramatically of course, but I am talking now about something else.

For example, my husband and I recently hosted a small-business intern from abroad, and found ourselves dipping regularly into many local treasures on her behalf -- from parks, museums, stunning views and amazing food (in restaurants as well as in my husband's kitchen) to "Sunday Streets" where a neighborhood street is closed to traffic to allow for family strolls, young children on bikes, and pedestrians taking the stage.  Since then, I have continued to relish being close to home, which for me means walking more in my hipster 'hood -- teeming with people strolling the sidewalks, cruising the bike-lanes, and sipping coffee in the "parklets" that are sprouting up where parking spots used to be (naturally not without some controversy).  Meanwhile, our neighborhood group has increased its presence and interaction, with subjects including: how we can help each other in an emergency? how can we help each other with our gardens?

This slow-down is strangely paradoxical, given that at this juncture SMART sustainability-driven innovators have so much work to do --- in so little time.  Bob Horn, an accomplished colleague from the Vision2050 project reminds me of the daunting "must-have" milestones for the current decade.   Meanwhile, my partner in Innovation Alliances and I are gearing up for the large-scale innovation facilitation work required for many of the challenges (and opportunities) ahead.

And yet we must also move quickly to a more non-frenzied pace and place -- a place where we can "see precisely", plan collaboratively and consciously, and work-and-play steadily.  This dedication to pacing ourselves is, I believe, essential -- first to sustain our selves for action, and then to transform our systems to sustain our world.