Skip to main content

Learning Activity: Paradox Castle



Leaders must face what can feel like an endless series of paradoxes. Struggling to hold onto truths that tend to clash yet remain both valid is excellent training for the need to make careful strategic, compassionate, courageous decisions.

Purpose:
Explore the impact on perception of paradox and its implications for achieving success.

Materials:
Large prints, posters, or slides of paints by M.C. Escher (and other painters with a flair for painting paradoxical situations.)

Process
  1. Discuss the meaning of paradox. Ask: What are some examples of paradox in your world? In movies? In art? In leadership?
  2. Show two or more works of paradoxical art. Allow several minutes of silent reflection.
  3. Break into groups of four who must silently depict the motions of a day in the mental world of the painters presented, taking care to bring out a sense of paradox. Stress the silence. (Allow several minutes. If a group struggles, silently signal them to quietly provide musical / percussion background for another group. They may struggle with this as well - it helps to prepare your group with previous musical improvisation exercises. You could also play atmospheric music in the back ground, something meditative.)
Debrief:
  • What are the visual cues of paradox?
  • What are the benefits of embracing a sense of paradox?
  • What transforming processes might tease-out more precise and concrete meaning from a paradox?
  • What does paradox look like in the business world? In the not-for-profit world? In education? Theological world? World of interpersonal relationships?
  • What can you do with this new sense of paradox to enhance or transform one of your important relationships?
Image retrieved 27 December 2018 at: 



Image retrieved 27 December 2018 at:
https://www.baystatebanner.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Escher4-1024x683.jpg


"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."
-- Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

"All generalizations are false, including this one."
-- Albert Einstein




"This Is Not a Pipe" image retrieved 27 December 2018 from:
http://www.ecs.csun.edu/~cputnam/Comp300/Overheads/chapter4/04files/pipe.jpg



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How's Your Reputation

How important do you think it is to sustain a positive leadership reputation?  It matters to your team. It matters to any future team that you might be leading. Your reputation tells a story about how you operate, how you facilitate and how you achieve your results.  Leading positive change builds credibility. Making a difference right now builds credibility. Keeping your promises and showing care for others establishes the kind of character that people want to work with and maybe even follow. What positive change are you currently working on? -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

Where to Start?

  It's harder to solve a problem alone when you are at the center of the problem. Get another perspective. Stay open to your own part of the problem. Sometimes, deep into the search, we discover that we could be the cause. Start with reflection. It could provide direction. -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

Human Problems

Any problem created by a human can be solved by a human. I wrote that long before AI started solving problems for us. Many days it feels like we will soon not even need to solve our own problems at all because AI will do it for us.  Honestly, we know better than that, right? For as long as it's still true, humans can still solve human problems. Let's do that.  -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more

Creatively Human

  In a world where anything can be duplicated, create what cannot be duplicated. -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

Clear Improvement

The best we can do is not yet the best we can do. Improvement is part of everyone's job and leaders must make that abundantly clear. -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more

Extremes

Do you know what it is like to work for an unreasonable boss? When no matter what you do is ever good enough it can become demotivating, even crippling. We do need to challenge our teams, but not to esteem crushing extremes. Unreasonable expectations cause disappointment. High performance? Yes. Perfect performance? Not attainable. -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more

Dig deeper

Obvious solutions are great, except that they seldom work. The chances are that the solution that first occurs to you has already been tried.  Sticky, mysterious, subtle problems evade the obvious. They hide. They mask. They simmer. Mysterious problems seldom surrender to obvious solutions. Dig deeper.  -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

No Victims

There will be offers, heading your way in obvious as well as subtle channels. Strong looking barriers. Refusals to see you. Efforts to take advantage of you.  That's not meant for you, no matter how strong someone else's intentions imply that it is. Decline any opportunity to be a victim. It does not suit you. -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more

Strategic Secrets?

If you have to keep it a secret it's not as much in your control as you think it is. Every secret eventually becomes revealed. -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more