Rifles or Love Letters?
Wednesday 16 Feb 2011 at 16:56 Posted by Steve Marshall. Follow me on Twitter.
I've been reflecting on how my approach to working with change has shifted over the years and found myself drifting back to the days when I would turn up in organisations armed with a stack of methodologies, ready to battle with anyone who would stand in my way. Even my clients might risk getting caught in the methodological crossfire!
A colleague had suggested to me that I might have been 'a bit of a working class hero' in those days, a charge that I immediately denied (I'm pretty firmly middle class now...!). Yet that evening, as I was driving home in the car I found myself singing along loudly to 'Eton Rifles', an old song by The Jam:
"Sup up your beer and collect your fags.
There's a row going on down near Slough..."
"...All the rugby puts hairs on your chest.
What chance have we got against a tie and a crest?"
"Hello-Hurrah - cheers then mate - it's the Eton Rifles!"
Of course, I guess I feel a little embarrassed about my previously combative, egalitarian, anti-establishment approach to change. The sing-a-long episode left me laughing to myself but also wondering how I show up rather differently now...
That weekend, I was listening to the radio and began to pay attention to a soft, gentle voice describing different forms of intelligence and interventions that might be 'betond human agency'.
I listened more closely and found the speaker was Michael Glickman, who had been researching crop circles for more than 20 years. The programme host pressed Glickman towards a declaration of extra-terrestrial life forms visting the earth and I heard him resist the familiar configuration of bug-eyed alien intelligence.
The crop circles were, he claimed, indicative of a different intelligence though 'it is not landing metallic craft on the lawn of the White House.' 'Rather,' he said, 'it seems to be gently pushing love letters under the door.'
Those words really touched me and I can't help thinking that all our efforts to change the world might benefit from fewer rifles and more love letters...