nearby utopias

Beware the nearby utopia. Or, choose your nearby utopia with care. 

For many people on teams, even those who have an appetite for some risk-taking, it’s common to imagine a nearby utopia where a) all of our systems are in good shape b) people we like and trust run those systems and c) things don’t change. This utopia is one of predictability.

There are merits to this vision but I’ve found it to promote more cynicism and ennui than ambition and enthusiasm. When you compare your shifting, unsettling world to this neighboring, static one, you get bummed out and disillusioned. You get annoyed at leaders or colleagues who propose ideas that shake things up, even when those ideas match your values and point at your mission. 

I’ve found more value in a different nearby utopia. In this other imagined place, we all take change as a given, as a precondition for our work, as part of the assignment. In this place a) our people adapt as change inexorably arrives b) by testing, learning, and refining and c) returning to mission and values as the arbiters of good and bad ideas. 

In this utopia, unexpected circumstances, sudden departures, big opportunities that mean your carefully built systems have to get reconfigured or cast aside - these are embraced as facts, sublimated as fuel. You get better because of them. You even find gratitude for them.

The first imaginary place really is a utopia -  a non-place that can’t exist. The second one isn’t a utopia - it’s an aligned team. It can serve leaders well to name which of these ideals they’re chasing - that one becomes the basis of praise, complaints, and chosen change. It’s the one you head toward.

-Eric