Jacques Derrida once wrote, "If things were simple, word would have gotten around." There are many reasons why gains in performance remain elusive, despite the good intentions of very smart people. One of the reasons is that our culture seeks out simple answers, sound bites, steps, tips, and techniques. This desire is illustrated when someone asks in a training session, "How can I use this tomorrow?"
To push this illustration to the point of absurdity: imagine if medical students asked that question, especially those seeking a complex specialty like neurosurgery. "So we've spent an hour learning about the blood supply to the brain and spine. How can we use this on patients starting tomorrow?"
Disciplines require significant work before they become useful—brain surgery and elevating performance being two examples. In fact, the more work that's required, the greater the reward for those willing to make the investment.
This chapter is about mastering the Three Laws, which means being able to achieve levels of performance in your life and business that occur as impossible to most people.
Personal mastery of any discipline or art appeals to those who desire to move beyond mere competence to a position of power, freedom, peace of mind, and full self-expression. Consider what masters in different fields can do that the rest of us can't, and consider how the experience occurs to them.
A grand master at chess has the power, freedom, and peace of mind to play fifty boards at the same time. He walks to one, looks at the board, and the winning move is obvious to him. He moves a piece and walks on. After an hour, he's not only won all fifty games but also enjoys the expression of his prowess.
Richard Feynman was a master physicist. Long before he won the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics, he was a junior member of the Manhattan Project. Feynman was sought out by Niels Bohr, perhaps the greatest of the physics minds on that project, to have a one-on-one discussion about the theoretical nature of the group's work. Why did Bohr choose a junior member? Because Feynman was a master physicist in the making—and Bohr recognized Feynman's flowering mastery. Most physicists were too in awe of Bohr to argue with him. Feynman said he felt as much respect for Bohr as anyone else, but he experienced no inhibitions in pointing out anything he considered to be flawed in Bohr's thinking. The other physicists tried to strategize in their conversations with Bohr—evidencing their uncertainty. Feynman, as a master, was able to dance.
When a master takes the stage, people stop what they are doing to watch. They know something may happen that people will talk about for years. Masters like Tiger Woods, Garry Kasparov, or Yo-Yo Ma do what occurs as impossible, yet the masters in their fields are not surprised by their performance. For them, it is a self-expression.
The ordinary explanation for what makes someone a master of a discipline or art is that he or she was born with "natural talent." Basketball players are tall, chess players are smart, and runners are fast—and were so from early childhood. But if the road to mastering a subject is reducible to some physical or mental attributes, why aren't there many more people who can play golf like Tiger, chess like Kasparov, or the cello like Yo-Yo Ma, or do physics like Feynman? And why are there the counter-examples of extraordinary people who seem ordinary or even disabled? As evidence that being born with talent doesn't explain mastery, consider that Winston Churchill mastered oratory yet stuttered from childhood and suffered from what he called the "black dog" of depression. Helen Keller, known for her writing and lecturing, lost her hearing and sight as an infant.
Many people born with advantages, even those who seriously practice their discipline, don't achieve their potential greatness. What is it that explains the elevated performance of some and the lack of mastery in others? More important, how can you use whatever this "x-factor" is to take your performance to a new level?
We assert that the x-factor is the way in which situations occur to the masters of their fields. The way in which the circumstances occur to a master makes the master's performance possible, reliable, and consistently superior to that of other people. This same insight allows us to see what it will take to master the Three Laws of Performance themselves.
To get a glimpse into the experience of mastery, note that each of the masters we've discussed thinks from the principles of their field. This is very different than thinking about the principles. Richard Feynman thought from the laws of physics, therefore things occurred to him as possible that struck others as hard, complex, or impossible. Feynman's commitment to being at the source of whatever he worked on is illustrated by the following story: While on vacation as a teenager, he forgot a reference book on geometry, which provided the proofs of theorems. Starting with the basic axioms, which he remembered, he set out to prove the theorems on his own. When he returned home, he realized that many of his proofs were actually better than those in the book he had neglected to take with him. He brought this approach to his work in physics. Until his death, he could create all the major laws of physics by thinking from basic axioms, and this way of thinking gave him an advantage in performance. He once complained that his CalTech students couldn't do physics the way he did physics. They didn't have his insights and hunches. They thought about the laws of the field, not from them. On his blackboard at CalTech, written shortly before his death, is the statement: "What I cannot create, I do not understand."
The essence of mastering any discipline or set of new ideas is approaching the new ideas without preconceptions, seeing them for what they are by themselves, and then creating from them. For an example of the power of seeing something on its own terms, consider Wilbur Smith's description, in his book River God, of a scholar in ancient Egypt who sees a wheel for the first time—part of an army of attacking chariots:
the leading vehicle ... moved on spinning discs, and I stared at it in wonder. For the first few moments I was so stunned by what I was looking at that my mind refused to absorb it all. If anything, my first sight of a chariot was almost as moving as the horses that drew it. There was a long yoke-pole between the galloping pair, connected to what I later came to know as the axle....
All this I took in at a glance, and then my whole attention focused on the spinning discs on which the chariot sailed so smoothly and swiftly over the rough ground. For a thousand years we Egyptians had been the most cultured and civilized men on earth; in the sciences and the religions we had far outstripped all other nations. However, in all our learning and wisdom we had conceived nothing like this. Our sledges churned the earth on wooden runners that dissipated the strength of the oxen that dragged them, or we hauled great blocks of stone over wooden rollers without taking the next logical step. I stared at the first wheel I had ever seen, and the simplicity and the beauty of it burst in upon me like lightning flaring in my head. I understood it instantly, and scorned myself for not having discovered it of my own accord. It was genius of the highest order, and now I realized that we stood to be destroyed by this wonderful invention.[18]
The moment the scholar grasped a wheel on its own terms—saw the situation in terms of the principles of circular motion—he could create one.
The rest of this chapter is in two parts. First, we'll examine what you can expect on the path to mastery of the Three Laws, starting with the fact that there are no steps, tips, or rules along the way. As with anyone walking a path, you need to make sure you stay on course, and just as with any path, there are milestones you'll pass.
Second, we will jump into some questions, which are designed to pull you into a full grasp of the Laws of Performance. As you deal with these questions, your journey begins, and you'll notice yourself making progress as you pass the milestones we discuss in the first part.
In addition to passing the milestones, there is another important sign of progress: your ability to impact performance will move to another level. As the milestones section explains, this increase in abilities is subtle. You will find yourself doing things that occurred to you as impossible before. You won't have to remember to take these actions; you'll simply do them. It's as though a new intuitive ability has taken over, one you didn't have before.
Mastering the Three Laws is like learning French. You start by learning words and translating them to your English words. It's slow and annoying.
The way to really learn the language is by immersing yourself in it—by moving to Paris. Bit by bit, things click. In time, words and phrases begin to make sense. You can order food in French and get what you actually ordered. You begin to think in French, even dream in it. You see things from a new perspective. As linguists have pointed out, there are phrases, thoughts, and ideas that can be said in one language and not in another. One of the benefits of learning a new language is being able to think and say thoughts that were impossible before.
Thinking about this analogy gives us insights. Although immersion in French isn't linear, there are key milestones you'll pass as you become fluent.
We now turn to the first milestone on the road to mastery of the Three Laws: seeing that these laws are a counterintuitive way of approaching situations.
Before we get to the experience of this first milestone on the path to mastery, we have to do a bit of background work.
A person's way of seeing a situation is filtered through what scholar Kenneth Burke calls a "terministic screen." This screen itself is made up of language—words, terms, phrases, and their relation to each other. This screen directs our attention to aspects of reality.[19] We don't see the world, and we don't see the terministic screen; instead, we see what the screen allows us to see.
It's like seeing the world through a pair of contact lenses. After we adjust to their newness, we aren't aware of how they modify our vision, and we don't stop to think about what objects we could see clearly without them. There's just the world, and our lenses, merged into a single image. So it is with a screen of terms. We don't see the screen. We don't see the world. We see the world through the screen. And just as with contact lenses, we forget the screen is there.
To picture a terministic screen in action, imagine how a physician sees a patient. She sees illness, patient history, probable diagnoses, causes to rule in or out, and likely courses of treatment. She is looking at the patient through the vocabulary and principles of medicine, intuiting the condition of the patient and arriving at a diagnosis.
Notice that the doctor doesn't have to think about her terministic screen. It's simply there, doing its work, invisibly—like the pair of contact lenses. As a result of the screen, conclusions and actions appear obvious.
Consider how a business occurs to a person with an MBA. He sees profit and loss, expenses, compensation, market positioning, competitors, strategy, and reporting relationships. These factors are so obvious to him that he can't not see them.
Dave teaches in a Marshall School of Business master's degree program for physicians. He describes teaching doctors the terministic screen of business:
At first, the doctors hear words that they recognize: profit, cash, operations, and leadership. We all know those words, and we think we know what they mean. But in business school, we use these words very precisely, and often they don't mean what they mean to a layperson. The physicians—all smart, accomplished people—learn more and more terms in marathon sessions, going eight to twelve hours a days. The doctors often become stressed, having to get up and get coffee, or stand at the back and stretch. What's happening behind the scenes, in their minds, is that we're stretching their terministic screen to the breaking point. We're adding terms that don't fit to what they already know. The stress is that they understand new terms through an increasingly complex set of connections to older terms, resulting in frustration and a sense of mental disorganization.
The magic moment comes at different points for different people, but it's usually when we're talking about leadership.
Leadership is about inventing something radically new, in concert with those who will implement it, and it can't be done through a formula, steps, or a checklist. The doctors get increasingly uncomfortable—their terministic screen, as physicians, is almost all formulas, steps, and checklists. So if leadership isn't those things, what is it? It sounds like mumbo jumbo. It's literally a thought they can't hold in their head, because it doesn't tie to anything else they know as physicians.
There's an "Aha!" moment when it clicks, and they give in to the demands of the new terms. The moment is dynamic and transformative. It's as though they suddenly put in new contact lenses, understanding new terms in relation to other new terms. Soon they can speak the new language of leadership as well as their older language of medicine, and they know when to pull up the appropriate screen. They look back at their frustration from a few days before and laugh. On the other side of the "Aha!" it all appears simple and obvious.
This struggle is more than just using new words in new ways. As a screen is replaced with another, the same situation looks completely different. As Kenneth Burke wrote, "A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing." When we replace one terministic screen with another, we see things we couldn't see before, and our actions correlate. If we alter the screen, the way the world occurs, shifts. It is a transformation in the truest sense. Old situations occur in a new way.
Dave often speaks to prospective MBA students. Here is how he describes the process of talking with them:
People often ask me, "What will I learn in a great MBA program?" Part of the answer is what people want to hear. You'll learn tools: accounting, financial, operational, managerial, and so on. But you can learn those tools in a book or through Internet videos. What's more, you can hire people who have those tools. The real value of a great MBA program isn't the tools, but that you leave the program seeing the world as a leader and general manager.
What I don't say to the prospective students, but am thinking, is that we do our best to impart the terministic screen of a business leader into each graduate. They don't need to remember to use that terministic screen, it's just there. Through that terministic screen, they see opportunities where others see chaos. They see system failures and possible fixes while others only complain that things aren't working. Because they see the world through a terministic screen others don't have, they do things others can't do, or wouldn't imagine doing.
Because we can't see our terministic screen—just like we can't see contact lenses when they're on our eyeballs—we aren't aware of the mechanism at work.
The MBA student often can't explain why the program was so valuable; he can only say that it was. The doctor returning to her hospital can't explain the "Aha!" moment in a way that conveys the insight to others. She can only describe it, and when she does, it may seem trite to people who didn't go through it themselves. Try explaining to a child how to ride a bike. Your advice will fall on deaf ears—and certainly won't have the child riding the bicycle. But after he "gets it" and rides the bicycle, he may say, "Now I see what you were saying!"
The path to mastering the Three Laws is to build a new terministic screen around new core distinctions. To do this, it's helpful to see how a terministic screen works, so we can catch ourselves when we're understanding the Three Laws in terms of what we already know.
In a screen, each term fits with the other terms around it, not unlike a wall of bricks. Like bricks that don't quite fit perfectly into the wall, a term here or there may not fit snugly, but it is, at the least, allowed for by the placement of other terms around it. When we are presented with anything new—such as a new word in a language we don't speak, or an idea in a field we haven't learned—we immediately search to find a way to link it to terms we know. So we're more likely to say, "Oh, that's just like ..." or "Well, really, that's no different from ..." Someone learning French will sometimes stumble over idiomatic phrases, finding them hard to remember, because they don't translate literally. Her first attempts amount to fitting French words into an English terministic screen, by flipping through a translation book as fast as she can. During the process, she links French words to English terms. The result is like the physicians learning business. They get stressed. It's mentally exhausting. It doesn't feel effortless.
From this perspective, the process of learning something new can be seen to involve fitting what is new with what we knew before as a way of understanding. When we learn in this manner, our terministic screen keeps growing, but always in a self-consistent way. This method of learning works well, provided our terministic screen gives us a foundation that is compatible with what we're learning.
But if we intend to learn something radically new, at some point we will confront the fact that the normal learning process gets in our way. Until we reach that point, we often make adjustments to new ideas by making them fit within our screen. We may say, "I see—this idea is much like x, y, and z ..." or "this idea follows from x and y," or "this idea is different from x but not from z ...." The result is an alteration of the new ideas to make them consistent with our existing terms. Although the process makes learning easier, it dramatically lessens the potential impact of the new ideas. When you realize that you want to get the full impact of the new ideas, it's time to build a new terministic screen.
This realization is the first milestone: its point is that we allow a new screen to be built by rejecting the need to fit new terms into our already existing screen. We catch ourselves reshaping a new idea to fit what we already know, or rejecting a new idea as being inconsistent with our screen. There's nothing wrong with doing so—it's what happens until we get to the second milestone. Every time we catch ourselves doing this, we can recommit to learning the new material on its own terms—moving ourselves more quickly to the second milestone.
If the new idea is truly difference making, it opens up new and uncharted territory, as the wheel did for the man in ancient Egypt. If he had linked it to what he already knew—blocks used to build the pyramids and sledges used to drag materials around—he wouldn't have grasped it. The closest we can come in English to what we mean is getting it, as in "getting a joke." If you need the joke explained to you, it won't be funny and you certainly didn't get it.
Robert Heinlein faced this limitation in English when he wrote Stranger in a Strange Land; he invented the verb grok, which means to "grasp, apprehend, or get something completely." The process at play is that the person sees the world through the lens of the new idea.
To see the need to build a new terministic screen, consider how the earth appeared to people for millennia: at the center of the universe, with the sun, moon, and stars moving around it. The sun rises in the east, streaks across the sky, and sets in the west. Sunrise and sunset are terms built into our language, as shorthand expressions of our observations. It's plain common sense—you can observe it. If you climb a tall mountain to a point where the view of the sun is unobstructed, in the morning you'll see the sun "rise" and in the evening you'll see it "set." The terministic screen on this subject was consistent and compelling. Galileo, in the tradition of Copernicus, argued for a radical new idea that didn't fit into the terministic screen of the day—that it was the earth that did the moving. People responded violently to this theory, which to them clearly was wrong. Some even understood the science behind it, but they still couldn't see themselves as living on a moving sphere. They had understood, but didn't grok. Notice also how these new ideas were initially received. Galileo was called in for a little chat with the authorities, which did not go well.
So why is it so easy for us today to "see" ourselves moving around the sun, seeing the universe that Galileo saw? Because we learned a terministic screen with these ideas at the center. Because of our screen, we have no problem imagining asteroids, other worlds, space flight, and life on Mars. All these thoughts would be impossible for someone with the old terministic screen.
In their book On Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee show the power of building a new terministic screen, rather than forcing new ideas into an old model, in their description of how Albert Einstein dealt with the theory of relativity:
According to rumour, Albert Einstein once said that conceiving the theory of special relativity was straightforward, almost easy. It followed naturally from a single observation: that the speed of light is constant to all observers even if the observers are moving at different speeds. This is counterintuitive.... He methodically thought about all the implications of a constant speed of light, and he was led to the even more bizarre predictions of special relativity, such as time slowing down as you move faster, and energy and mass being fundamentally the same thing. Books on relativity walk through his line of reasoning with everyday examples of trains, bullets, flashing lights, and so forth. The theory isn't hard, but it is definitely counterintuitive.[20]
Einstein approached the observation of the unvarying nature of the speed of light as a set of new ideas that needed to be unconcealed, and when he did, he found it easy to build a new terministic screen around it. Scientists who attempted to force the new ideas into an old terministic screen went to their deaths without ever grokking it.
There will come a point, on your road to mastery of the Three Laws, where you will begin to see key points of the laws in terms of other parts of the laws. You may experience that "Aha!" moment when it clicks. At this point, you are building a new terministic screen, from the Three Laws up. This is a critical point on your path to mastering the material in this book.
Shortly after you pass the second milestone, you'll notice that you are seeing old situations with a new perspective—as though you have new contact lenses in your eyes. You'll be going through the grocery store line and wondering, How must the situations be occurring to the people here, such that they are doing what they are doing?
You may find yourself asking deep questions about yourself, such as How does my spouse occur to me, and me to her, such that we behave as we do? You may even play with the question How must I occur to myself, given what I do in these types of situations?
Many people moving through the ideas, processes, and exercises in this book find that they begin listening in new ways. For those who are looking at situations from the perspective of the Three Laws, knowing how the situation occurs to the other person is more critical than what you think about the situation. For example, you may find yourself asking the other person "How does this situation look to you?" rather than assuming that you know. Or, you may find yourself saying, "The way this situation appears to me ..." in place of stating "how it is" to any rational person. You will see the reality illusion for what it is.
Notice that all of these insights are from the First Law.
From the Second Law, you may begin to observe how people's use of language expresses, sustains, and holds in place the way in which situations occur to them. You may see that people talk in terms of "problems," and things that "went wrong," and "are hard." You'll notice that this is how the situations really are for people. They don't occur to them as occurring, they occur as "how it is." The reality illusion is in place.
You may become aware of people's terministic screens. You'll hear the screens at play behind their speaking: artistic screens, business screens, scientific screens, analytical screens, even cultural and regional screens. You'll see the terministic screen people use when they talk about themselves, or relationships, or the future. You'll notice that you can gain relatedness and influence by talking to the terministic screen of others.
You'll become aware that most people talk about the future in terms of the past. You'll notice their default future, often unarticulated, and how their actions correlate with it.
You may sit in a restaurant and look around, asking yourself, What are people not saying and yet are communicating? You may find you have new insight into people and why they are doing what they are doing.
From the Third Law, you'll see that some (but really only a few) people talk generatively. Instead of merely describing, they use language to create new futures. You may notice that they're using future-based language, grounded in declarations and commitments. You'll see those rare individuals who listen for the future of their organizations, families, or groups to arise.
You may resolve, and declare, that you are such a person.
A great side benefit of taking the path to mastering the Three Laws is developing leadership, and even charisma. You'll find yourself standing for a future rather than trying to figure one out.
As you declare the future—incorporating the concerns of others—people become engaged, excited, inspired. Workplaces transform. Performance elevates. The default future is rewritten.
You won't have to remember to take actions like those of Malcolm Burns or Brad Mills. You'll do what they did, appropriate to your situation—because they were thinking from the Three Laws, just as you are thinking from the Three Laws.
When facing a performance challenge, you will find yourself asking both yourself and others, "How do situations occur to me and others, such that we are performing the way we are?"
You'll ask, "What conversations need to be completed, and what conversations need to be created, that would alter how these situations occur to the people involved?"
You'll find that you're probing the default future of yourself and others, asking, "Is this what we want? And if not, what do we want?"
You will notice that where there used to be a lot of confusion and anxiety about what to do, there now is a clarity and focus for what needs to be created. It's as if the frenzy concerning what could go wrong is replaced with an excitement of what can be created.
Great masters approach their work as a game worth playing: there is passion, intensity, and joy of play.
This third milestone of seeing opportunities for elevated performance everywhere is correlated to realizing that you are no longer remembering the Three Laws. They are now a part of your terministic screen. It's as though they use them rather than you use them. Thinking from the Three Laws will have become as natural as finding your car keys before driving to work.
Achieving the last milestone is the subject of the next and final chapter: making the application of the Three Laws a community effort. Simply put, the fourth milestone is itself a means of access to ever-expanding mastery. Through engaging, teaching, and coaching others in thinking from the Three Laws, performance will expand while you discover new and creative applications of the Three Laws. When you take this step, elevating performance has moved from being your personal interest to being the group's interest. At this point, you are onto the opportunity to rewrite the future of an organization—perhaps even to discover an organization's Self and make that the driver of a new era in your company.
We now turn to a set of questions that will guide you on the road to mastering the Three Laws of Performance.
Now that you have a sense of what the pathway to mastery looks like, here are some tools and materials to accelerate your movement—sets of questions to ask and activities to practice.
It's helpful, in this section, if you pick a new performance challenge. The more intractable, long-lasting, and seemingly impossible, the better. Go for something that on the "big deal scale" would be a nine or ten—something that, if resolved, would make a real impact.
Look at every facet of the performance challenge you and others face, including actions people have taken or not taken. See the issue in all of its facets. Recall the frustrations, the hopes, the progress you made and didn't make. Recall what people said about the situation, publicly and privately. What explanations and justifications did people use to deal with what didn't work? Feel the stress of the situation, including expectations of other people. Experience the default future that exists for the people involved and how it is influencing the present.
You want to see the various ways in which the present problematic situation is filled up, cluttered, limited in its apparent pathways. We've already talked about how the default future limits and constrains what is experienced as possible in the present. Now let's inquire into how solutions to past problems get placed in the default future.
We call this phenomenon the problem-solution mass. The mass develops when the solution to our problem becomes our next problem, which is basically how life goes. For example: You feel lonely. That's a problem. So you fix the problem by getting married. Once the thrill is gone, you realize you have a new problem: it's called "being married." Perhaps the solution is "have a child." Now you have diaper problems, time management problems, and financial problems. You fix that problem by getting a new job, or working hard to get promoted. The problem now is that the job consumes your life, with little time left for the family. At this stage, 50 percent of us give in and solve the problem by getting a divorce. Now there's the return of loneliness, and you have less money. And so it goes: the more we solve our problems, the more problems we have. The French have a saying that captures this paradox: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
We are not suggesting that you roll over and not deal with problems. It's just that the fix usually doesn't deal with the underlying issues that need to be handled. Resolving problems means transforming how your situations occur to you and others.
In reflecting on a situation that occurs as needing a performance boost, you might begin by asking (yourself and others), "What is working and what is not working in this situation?" Then, "Is there something that was done in the past to fix a problem that is now here as part of what's not working?" Make a list of all the "business as usual" solutions that people in your industry would use. Or, if the issue is personal, what are the usual actions people take to try to resolve problems like the one you have?
Think of technology, training, appraisals, incentives, decision rights, delegation. Add the management fads. And more staff. More money. What about motivational techniques? Try aphorisms, slogans, posters on the wall highlighting teamwork or courage.
Would any of those permanently alter how the issue, and the related situations, occur to you and others?
What if a permanent alteration in this occurring were possible? What could this shift do for performance?
As a side note, notice that this list of "business as usual" solutions is probably what your competitors are doing. If so, doing them moves you to the center of the pack, not to a position of leadership. The essence of competitive advantage is doing different things and doing things differently. At the time of this writing, implementing applications developed from the Three Laws of Performance is so rare that it gives early adopters an edge.
The point to draw from this thought is that the solution to a problem is part of how the situation occurs. Most people are caught in the trap of acting on the solution, which creates the next problem—a cycle they never break. Further, the "business as usual" solutions don't impact how the situation occurs.
In Chapter One, we introduced the notion of correlation but didn't spend much time on it. In fact, this idea is critical to the process of mastering the Three Laws.
The First Law proposes that how a situation occurs to a person doesn't cause that person's performance. Nor does the opposite hold true. A person's performance doesn't cause how a situation occurs. Rather, the two correlate. It's like two people dancing. The dance arises in the wholeness of their actions taken together. One dancer doesn't cause the other to move, or else it wouldn't be a dance.
Causation requires a time gap between two actions. Put a drop of acid on a one-celled organism, and milliseconds later, it moves away—irritation causes movement. On the other hand, the latest research from brain science tells us that we (humans, not one-celled organisms) perceive things and act on them at exactly the same time. Action happens in our bodies at the same instant that what is happening? forms as a pattern in our brain. The two happen simultaneously; therefore, we can't say that one causes the other. They are correlated.
Put your performance challenge on the shelf for a moment. This next exercise, designed to create the experience of correlation, requires a partner. So you will have to involve another person in your reading this book. This is part of the practice of the next chapter, so you are getting a head start here.
Hold your hands up in front of you, palms facing forward, your fingers straight and spread apart. Sit close to your partner, who holds his hands the same way, almost—but not quite—touching your hands.
Designate an "A" and a "B." If a third person is available, she will call out who is to "lead," alternating between A and B: "A," "B," "A," "B," and so on. Otherwise, one of you can act as the caller.
To start the activity, the caller says, "A." That person moves his hands as if across a plane of glass. Up, down, sideways, in circles. The other person follows as best he or she can.
After perhaps ten seconds, the caller says, "B." Now the two of you reverse roles—so that the one who was leading is now following. After ten seconds, reverse roles again when the caller says, "A."
Keep going back and forth, with the caller shortening the time for each round. Eight seconds, then six, then four. Then two, then one.
Then the caller goes back and forth as fast as she can: "ABABABAB." You'll both see that leading and following morph into something that is both and neither. It is a dance, in the true sense.
Once you're done, here are the questions to ask:
How did you know what the other person was doing, so that you could keep your fingers close but not touching?
At the beginning, was there a lag time between leading and following? Did this time shrink as the rounds progressed?
When you hit your stride, together, how long was the lag between leading and following? Most people say there was no lag time at all. If you hit this point, how is it possible for leading and following to happen at the same time?
Was there a point when leading and following became one and the same? If this happened, were you thinking about making it happen or did it just happen?
Here are two explanations. Which one captures the experience of the hand dance?
Cause and effect became faster and faster, but even at its full velocity, one of us was causing the other's actions.
Cause and effect fell away at some point. A's actions weren't causing B's, nor were B's causing A's. It felt like they were happening at the same time.
Most people say the second explanation captures the experience. That's why this exercise is called the "hand dance"—dancing doesn't occur when you are thinking about where to move your feet (or in this case, hands).
Notice that you have just glimpsed correlation. The movements of one correlated with the movements of the other. There was no cause and effect, no lag time. Your actions, and those of your partner, arose together.
The correlation between you and another person shows what is happening in the movement of life between people. Imagine what lack of grace—what poor performance—would result from someone dancing "by the numbers," or dancing as though his actions caused the actions of his partner. This analogy is worth thinking about. The more you approach a situation using the correlation aspect of the First Law, the greater your access to elevating performance. If you see the correlation between action and the occurring, you'll be able to dance with events as they happen, altering how situations occur to you and others on the fly. People's actions will immediately and naturally "dance" with the new occurring. Performance becomes elegant and graceful.
When you see the powerful connection between performance and how a situation occurs, and you can grok correlation, you are inside the First Law.
Let's create two categories for any of the phenomena we deal with in work and in life outside of work. One category we call reality that arises in language and the other reality that is independent of language.
An example of reality that arises in language is marriage. Two people are literally married when a properly designated official pronounces them married. Until that moment they are single individuals; after that moment they are married. A new future is created to live into: being married. All of life changes as a result of altering the occurring between two people.
Another example of something that exists only by virtue of language is money. A hundred-dollar bill is the same as a five-dollar bill to your cat—but not to you. The "money" of the bill is in the symbols on the bill, not the paper itself.
Consider the following question: is there anything that occurs to you as totally independent of language? Most people would say "the wall" or "the table." They'll add: "These objects exist whether we have words to describe them or not!"
Maybe not. Consider the table.
There is clearly something there. But labeling and calling the "something there" a table carries enormous implications for action. As you label a situation or object, so you behave toward it. With the table, perhaps you dine on it. Perhaps write on its surface. Or create a flower display using its height. Perhaps store books. But you do not place a refrigerator on it.
As human beings, our relationship to the object is inseparable from the language of our terministic screen.
And how do you know it is a table? Because surrounding the table is everything that is not the table. But everything that is not the table doesn't exist in reality—negatives are a function of language, not a reflection of reality. We don't know how the table occurs to a dog, but one thing is certain: the dog doesn't refer to it as a table. Perhaps the dog thinks of the table as something to walk around to get to the door, or a place from which the smell of food comes. For us, it's a table. Once we learn language, we can never again see the world without its influence.
To make the point another way: most cultures have a word for dog, and there is something there taking up that physical space (and eating physical food). But in some cultures, people associate dog with friend. Other cultures associate dog with lunch. Our experience of the dog, and certainly the dog's experience of us, will be different depending on the language in use.
Going even deeper, physics tells us that solid objects aren't solid at all. They are collections of particles, atoms, separated by vast amounts of empty space. Most of what is out there is literally nothing. "Something is solid" really means for us that we can't go through it and stay intact. But to be able to experience solid, we need a word to name it. The name solid is not itself solid but allows for solid.
We are not saying that there is nothing "out there" beyond our language. But whatever is beyond our language is not accessible to us. We look at what is out there through our screen of terms—a full set of vocabulary, in which words link to other words—so that table and dog occur as they do. It's our terministic screen that counts. Once we learn the words for table and wall, we can't not see tables and walls. And as time goes on, other terms get associated with tables and dogs based on experience.
To see the inescapability of the Second Law, take a moment and look around at the physical objects around you. What do they mean to you? Your coffee mug may have a sentimental connection—maybe someone gave it to you—so it occurs as warm and cherished. If you're on an airplane, the experience may occur as busy, chaotic. People around you may occur as happy, or tired, or on the run. Notice that everything around you occurs in a certain way, and that you can't shut it off. Notice, too, that in every case it occurs as it does through language.
We can never see our terministic screen, but we can see its effects. Notice again how people and things around you occur to you. What does this tell you about how life occurs to you? If everything occurs as something to do—a pen occurs as needing to be used, a magazine occurs as needing to be read—perhaps all of life occurs to you as needing to be attended to. Again, all of this is a function of language.
If you're in a discussion group about the Three Laws, we suggest you spend time with others getting at the source of the most important object in language: yourself. How you occur to yourself arises in language, just as with anything else. People who reinvent themselves have the ability to transform how they occur to themselves. (For a guide on group discussion questions, we invite you to visit www.threelaws.com.)
Refer back to your performance challenge. Notice that the way the situation occurs and the words used to capture how the situation occurs aren't just connected—they are inseparable.
As you look into how the situation occurs to you, notice connections to past incidents that seem similar and related. See that this situation is tied to other situations, and ways of acting and dealing with past situations are imbedded in actions being taken to deal with this current situation.
Consider also the network of conversations that people have that support and maintain performance the way it is. Even if your challenge is personal—such as losing weight or improving your marriage—there is a network of conversations around you that impacts how that situation occurs to you and others.
Notice:
What people say
What people don't say but still communicate
People's posture, gestures, facial expressions, and tone of voice
What people write—in e-mails, sticky notes, letters, memos, formal reports, and the like
Consider that you are a node in this network of conversations—much like a node in a network of computers. Notice further that much of this conversation was present before you got there.
Ask these questions:
How does the situation occur to people, such that people are having these conversations?
Where are the conversations noisy? Where do they pull in opposite directions?
Which of the conversations are productive? Which are ineffective?
What is the relationship between your performance issue and this network of conversations?
What is the default future that people in this network of conversations are living into?
When you see language at work, and that the way that situations occur arises in language, you are inside the Second Law of Performance.
You may not be able to change the facts of the situation, but you have something to say about the screen of terms with which you see it. To use our analogy in the first section, you can't change what's in front of you, but you can put in a different set of contact lenses. Once you see the situation in a new way, you'll see opportunities you didn't see before. More to the point, they will occur to you in a new way.
With the power of the Third Law, you can alter how a situation occurs to you. The path to mastery lies in moving as much out of the occurring as is movable. If you have a racket involved with the occurring of this situation, it will color how it occurs to you. To the degree that you give up (through generative language) your rackets as soon as you notice them, you'll be on the path to mastery.
Complete any past issues that are part of this situation, including your relationships with other people.
Commit to seeing the situation, as it is, without the problem-solution mass. If there's any bit of I've tried this ... or This is really hard, move those judgments out. See the situation without solutions, without any sense that it's a problem.
Mastery means that there's nothing between you and the thing you're dealing with. If you have knowledge, it's above and behind you, shining light on what you're dealing with. If you have beliefs, expectations, hopes, fears about the situation, mastery means putting these on the shelf so you are not looking through them at what is in front of you.
The masters we have looked at in this chapter don't see problems or bring their past baggage with them. Their commitment is to moving forward, to seeing the situation in a way that allows for elevated performance.
If you are using paper to take notes, pull out a new sheet of paper. At the very least, mentally jump to a clean sheet. Consider the following question, about your performance challenge: How might the situation occur to me, such that my performance would be elevated? Said in another way, If this situation occurred to me as [blank], I would be acting in new ways. Now fill in the blank.
Consider the gap between how situations occur to you now and how they could occur to you. What aspects of the occurring, if altered, would make the greatest impact in performance? For example, if a situation that currently occurs to you as dangerous and threatening suddenly occurred to you as something to keep an eye on, would that free you up in what you did and can do?
Consider the network of conversations that supports and maintains how situations occur. What new conversations, if started, would permanently alter how situations occur? What conversations, if removed, would impact how situations occur?
Take a hard look at the network of conversations in light of integrity. Do people honor their word? Do they do what is expected, even when they haven't explicitly agreed to do so? Do they communicate honestly, not holding back? How could new conversations be started to begin a cascade of integrity throughout the organization?
Most important, what futures are people living into? Are they inspired by those futures, or resigned to them? Does the future fulfill the concerns of all stakeholders? Is anyone listening for a new future of the organization or group? Who should play that role? How can they be inspired to do so?
Listen to others. What are their concerns? Are those concerns being fulfilled by the future that the organization or group is living into?
What is a new future that would have the stickiness to replace the future people are living into? What future would address everyone's concerns?
Return to your performance challenge. Recall how it occurred to you prior to reading this book. How does it occur to you now? Can you see the occurring? Can you see language at work, and the network of conversations? Can you see possible new futures, and how future-based, generative language would rewrite the futures people are living into?
There's a moment for many people when it clicks, when they see situations through the lens of all Three Laws at once. When that happens, things never look the same again. You're now thinking from the Three Laws.
If that hasn't happened yet, take another performance challenge through the questions and activities in this chapter. As you work on a "problem," you will move further down the road to mastery.
If it has clicked, you're now thinking from the Three Laws. The challenge now is to share the Three Laws with others, to engage and involve them in insights that make a difference for them.