Learning that illuminates
Where the best illustrations come from
Illustrations. All good sermons need them (apparently). All good preachers acquire them, store them, retrieve and deploy them. Stories, analogies, examples. Things to illustrate—illuminate—a point. But what makes for the best ones?
The answer, it seems to me, are not ones that are sought to buttress a point but those that have led to that point being realised in the first place. Observations from life that highlight something that is bigger than just the specific instance.
Seth Godin is brilliant at this. His article on smooth water and the lesson he draws and applies from cavitation is a prime example—illustration, if you like—of just that. It’s brief so I’ll include the whole here:
Everything moves better in smooth water. Engineers spend a lot of time and energy to avoid cavitation, the often dangerous bubbles that are caused by pumps or propellers. And sailors and surfers prefer to do their thing without excess chop.
As we apply pressure to an organization, the same thing happens. At first, people engage with change as an opportunity, doing their best work in the face of small shifts. But once fear sets in, so does cavitation. The cavitation, the bubbling, the uncertainty, the expansion and collapse of bubbles of doubt and disagreement—this becomes the primary problem, more than the fear that originally caused the issue.
The challenge is to avoid this before it happens. To insert pressure relief valves, smooth out the bends, and give the energy a place to go.
The stories we tell each other will lead to the actions we take.1
Godin has seen something, learnt something, about a topic (in this case, cavitation) that enables him to then see something else more clearly, on an enitrely different topic. Those kinds of illustrations don't only help to illuminate something that is already known, they've likely been part of that discovery in the first place. Knowing what and why engineers do regarding cavitation leads to keener perception of comparable issues in the realm of organisations and their dynamics.
When our eyes are open and our minds alert to the world around us and within us, those insights occur. And when that happens, everyone is a learner.
https://seths.blog/2018/07/smooth-water/?