Exploring path 1: Semantics

So we established in the last post, you need a want and a need to explore. Assuming that is present, let’s start with a semantic pathway to navigate the unknown

“The limits of my  language  mean the  limits  of my  world.”- Ludwig  Wittgenstein

A semantic approach focuses on conscious word choice and intentional exploration of meaning.

Words matter.

We are as a society remarkably imprecise and constrained with language. In her new book the Atlas of the Heart, researcher and author Dr Brene Brown shares that in surveys taken by 7,000 people over five years, her team found that on average people can identify only three emotions as they are actually feeling them: happiness, sadness, and anger. 

In the book she goes on to unpack 87 emotions that you would be familiar with. This is important as the saying goes: If you can name it, you can tame it!

At the risk of dating myself as the readers digest used to say, it pays to enrich your word power! Especially after so many of us have been in flight / fight / flight with the threats of the last two years and have experienced a form of social atrophy.

I wonder how further you could explore if you were to slow down and be intentional in the words you use in conversation with people as you emerge out the last couple of years, whatever that means for you.

 Consider this an invitation. Be awkward and stumble in your conversations as you search for the words that mean most to you.

Consider for example the difference between boundaries, edges, and limits. Three words that could easily be interchanged and sound very similar in concepts. And yet only one of those words permits exploration of new territory whether it be organisational change or family relationships.

Boundaries create a hard no or a hard yes. The message to the person trying to push up against them is no further, turn back and find another path.

A limit denotes safety. Speed limits, weight limits, capacity limits all denote a point at which to go past may cause harm. 

An edge signifies concern for risk, but attraction and willingness to go further. Edges are uncomfortable and unfamiliar but with sufficient risk mitigation you may make progress.

You don’t have to be an expert in neurolinguistic programming to know that we prime behaviour with language.

Until next time stay safe, primes people to assume there is danger around us, we need to be on alert

Until next time stay well, primes people to assume they are already in good health and have an ability to maintain that.

Are you dealing with change resistance or are you dealing with change readiness?

Hint: only one of these gives you things you can do to progress change, however both look very similar.  

Professor Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset is now being taught in primary schools. One of her most useful lessons is the power of the word ‘yet’. Three little letters that totally transform the meaning of a sentence.

 When we add the word yet to the end of our sentences, we find that we create opportunities to think about things in a different way. There’s a real permissiveness, we get permission to try. I can’t do this, yet. This doesn’t work, yet. I don’t know, yet. That little word opens up amazing opportunities for us when it comes to thinking differently.

What a profoundly kind thing it is to catch those around you staying things that shut down opportunities and add  the term yet to that sentence. Have a play with it!

There is a whole vocabulary around change that is inertly triggering: don’t call it change, that frightens people, call it innovation. So whether it is transformation, change, improvement, innovation the words are loaded.

 In exploring new frontiers at work, at home, or in  community you are invited to be attentive to the language you use.

 Part of that means being curious as to the language others use. Consider this post as blanket permission to interrupt in a conversation and say, “when you say resilience, what do you mean by that?”.

The semantic path is not so much about choosing the perfect words to make progress in a conversation of change and understanding as it is about explaining what those words mean to you.

When you take a semantic path to exploring new frontiers you are enabling collective sense-making and that creates momentum.

Next post we look at the role values play in exploration!