The thing: big crises needing big change. Environmental degradation, economic dysfunction, poverty, inequality, racial, gender, religious, thought discrimination and prejudice ... you get the gist.
The problem: most of us, if not all at some point, deal with toobigtocopewith problems by ... um, not coping with them. We deploy the time-tested techniques of ignoring, playing down, denying, avoiding, "forgetting", passing the buck. Think of your last red bill, your overdrawn bank statement, your tax return, the call to the difficult relative, the weeding, the broken drawer, the "conversation" with the boss - if we "deal" with those relatively titchy problems by just swerving them, one way or another, then be in no doubt we do that with the Big Stuff. Big Time.
Which means if you're one of the creative disruptive types who have dedicated your life to trying to inspire those around us to look at them full frontal and roll our collective sleeves up to do something about it, you're probably chewing the carpet in despair right now.
As one of the Cafe Disruptif creative disruptors said recently, "I would love to get into the psychology of how people change their behaviours to becoming more involved in sustainability. Are there any patterns we could follow? Are there certain triggers? How could we facilitate this development? We could then use all this information to try and broaden our reach..."
The happy, happy answer, is that there is some brilliant help we can access on this. And we're going to collect every drop we can reach and create a fabulous smorgasbord of creative disruptive communication methods based on understanding what's going on in our heads, and in those people we're working to talk with ... have a browse and a comment below ...
the thing about facts, tribe and the myth of our "rational" self
behaviour change and all its wierdness
cultivating the art of resistance: making (good) trouble
bad news and how we cope (or don't always)
In our survey last year, you were very clear about what you needed, oh esteemed Cafe Disruptif members:
“we need anthropologists and sociologists to understand culture and change, plus psychologists for individuals, group and organisational behaviour"
"Particularly understanding better how to present challenges in a more engaging way. Understanding what people respond to - words, chat, facts, art, examples, music etc"
"The psychology of change is possibly the most important to understand so that we know how to make others change and drive the mainstream to think and act differently!"
" help … to identify more shortcuts to achieving my goals in a way that is as optimised and efficient as possible. I would love to get into the psychology of how people change their behaviours to becoming more involved in sustainability. Are there any patterns we could follow? Are there certain triggers? How could we facilitate this development? We could then use all this information to try and broaden our reach!"
So this is exactly what we're looking at next. We're going to find a way to pull out new ways of underestanding what we're saying, to who, and how it's landing. Because we need to have new conversations about change....
Watch this space.
“we need anthropologists and sociologists to understand culture and change, plus psychologists for individuals, group and organisational behaviour"
"Particularly understanding better how to present challenges in a more engaging way. Understanding what people respond to - words, chat, facts, art, examples, music etc"
"The psychology of change is possibly the most important to understand so that we know how to make others change and drive the mainstream to think and act differently!"
" help … to identify more shortcuts to achieving my goals in a way that is as optimised and efficient as possible. I would love to get into the psychology of how people change their behaviours to becoming more involved in sustainability. Are there any patterns we could follow? Are there certain triggers? How could we facilitate this development? We could then use all this information to try and broaden our reach!"
So this is exactly what we're looking at next. We're going to find a way to pull out new ways of underestanding what we're saying, to who, and how it's landing. Because we need to have new conversations about change....
Watch this space.