Positive deviance

Back in college. (9 days out of the last 13. I love college, I really do, but this can be over nao plz?)

Yesterday was a high point, though – positive deviance! I got very excited just hearing the name. (Be quiet at the back.) I texted SJ to say, ‘We are studying positive deviance!’, and got the reply, ‘Is that something in statistics?’, which just shows what happens when you work with accountants.

One of my stories about my fifteen years of corporate life is that people didn’t want star-shaped pegs, only identical round pegs with the points rubbed off. So this space is personal for me, and I filtered the seminar through my own feelings and experience.

Positive deviance is defined to be ‘intentional behaviours that depart from the norms of a referent group in honourable ways’. Spreitzer and Sonenshein, who work on this, acknowledge that ‘at first glance, positive deviance appears to be an oxymoron’, and that we are taught early that deviance is bad. Our lecturer suggested that organisations do not distinguish between positive and negative deviance, and that organisational systems are set up to keep people within norms and preserve the status quo.

This resonated with me. It’s why I’m here and doing the work I do – because I’ve seen so many people silenced and sidelined for not fitting within organisational norms, people who have so much talent and passion to offer. So I am heartened to learn that someone is studying the value and benefits of differing from the norm. It’s relevant for my life, and it’s relevant for my beliefs about people – that we all have unique strengths and that we’re at our best when we are able to use them. In other words, we are all star-shaped pegs.

I became very interested in the idea that positive deviance is ‘intentional’. I always deviated from the organisational norm – but was this intentional? Or was it just acting out? I always find it hard to see the middle ground between ‘I am a misunderstood star-shaped genius surrounded by unbelievers’ and ‘no wonder I was never valued and rewarded; I was acting and reacting like a six-year-old’. The answer, probably, lies somewhere between the two. But I can’t say it was intentional.

Spreitzer & Sonenshein write about the personal qualities that enable positive deviance: meaning, courage, self-determination, focus on the other, personal efficacy. I’m not going to write about these in detail, partly because this post is already too long and partly because I am not yet sure what I think. But these are all qualities that I would like to have more of, and I don’t doubt that they would increase my effectiveness as an SSP in the workplace.

But I have questions. Is positive deviance really a property of the individual, or is it in fact a property of the organisation? How contextual is it – in other words, is a successful positive deviant able to repeat the experience in a different environment? Is positive deviance just for leaders, or can it be for the rank and file? Is it possible in any culture, or is some permission or cultural openness required?

I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the middle. I can probably do more than I used to believe, and less than I would like. It’s certainly not going to work if I try to do it all myself, without trying to meet the organisation where it’s at. And it’s not going to work if I sit back and wait for the organisation to discover the brilliance of my positive deviance.

I don’t know what I’ll do when I go back to work, and I guess I won’t know until I get there. I guess I’ll be working on making my deviance intentional rather than random. (This sounds so weird.) And I hope I’ll be looking to develop the enablers on the list above – especially courage. And, above all, I’ll be reminding myself that deviance can be positive, but it isn’t automatically. I have to take responsibility for making it so.

Those days are passed now

Carol Craig came to speak to my class this week.

Her work springs from her interest in Scottish culture. (If you click on one link in this post, make it this one.) Her main thesis is that Scotland suffers from a crippling lack of confidence. She talked about the the troubled relationship between England and Scotland and the ’schizophrenia’ of identity that this brings for Scots. She cited some aspects of Scottish character and culture that she sees as central: the reluctance to put one’s head above the parapet and draw attention; the bone-deep pessimism; the scepticism; the extensive social problems; the way that diversity is silenced. She painted a picture of something broken. She thinks Scotland’s need for positive psychology is great.

I was listening, transfixed. And in between listening, I was madly texting everyone I know: I’m learning Scotland’s psychology!

I have a complicated relationship with Scotland. With one exception only, all the men I have loved have been Scottish or of Scottish ancestry or deeply connected to Scotland. I worked for a Scottish company for six years, and the work and culture always seemed to be deeply informed by the national character. I have spent a lot of time there in the last ten years, and I have come close to moving to Scotland on several occasions.

Craig’s presentation was valuable for me. She is a very gifted presenter and she talked a lot of sense, but the resonance was deeper than that. At one point, she was talking about Scottish idealism and how it can lead to depression and anger when people don’t live up. She talked about the Edinburgh Calvinist ministers looking through the windows of their parishioners on Sundays to check that they were at their devotions, and how this has led to a culture of thinking that everyone’s business is the community’s business. And I thought, I recognise this. It helps me to interpret people I’ve loved.

Craig got me thinking about generalisations. Mostly I am not a fan of generalisations. (Please note careful choice of wording here.) But I have been known to make trenchant generalisations about the Scots. I have been accused of racism here, and I think that was probably fair, so I’m a lot more careful than I was. That’s a whole ‘nother post, really.

But Craig’s thesis is not just a collection of generalisations. Her book is profoundly scholarly – her background is in philosophy and political science – but her work is practical. She is using her generalisations to choose which areas of the positive psychology canon to focus on – confidence, self-esteem and resilience, for example. She is helping many Scots to change, to become happier and more resourceful. I find that exciting, and I wish I could be part of it.

There are aspects of Scotland that I love beyond reason. The landscapes of the Highlands, the atmosphere of the West Coast, the architecture of Edinburgh; all take my breath away with their beauty. And there are aspects that I find hard; I always felt rather ground down by the number of Scots whose football team of choice was ‘whoever is playing England’.

I don’t know how to be in relationship to Scotland. I love Scotland, but don’t always like it. I can’t live there now. And I am not of Scotland. I am a foreigner there. But Craig has rekindled my love of Scotland, in all its flawed glory. It hurts a little, but it’s good to be back in touch with it.

You’re trying to make sense of something that you just can’t see *

Today I am learning about spirituality.

My class consists of ten people: 3 diehard atheists who consider themselves ‘non-spiritual’ and find the whole thing rather off-putting; 6 who consider themselves to be “a spiritual person” but don’t believe in God, and one person who outed herself as religious. (Me.)

We started by talking about definitions of spirituality. Themes that came up included connections with other people and the world around us and the search for meaning and transcendence. My definition (which might have been slightly softened because I was acutely conscious of being the only person in the room who plays for my team) was ‘a connection with something that is greater than yourself’. (No prizes for guessing where that wording comes from.) And I hastened to add – which I do believe – that this could be anything. For some, it’s a connection with the natural world. For others, it’s their relationships with those they love, or a more general sense of connectedness to others. For me, it’s God.

I don’t expect everyone to believe in God. I wish it didn’t get quite such a bad press, because it’s by far the best thing in my life. It makes me a better person, and it makes me happier and more at peace. But it is not everyone’s thing, and I do not think it is my job to tell other people what to believe.

However, I do believe that we all have a spiritual side to us, even if this does not translate into a search for the divine. I do believe we have an innate desire for meaning and connection in our lives. My ex-boyfriend, a militant atheist, found his meaning in life through helping his friends. He would do anything for them, and nothing made him happier. And it was a different kind of happiness from how he felt cooking or gardening or skiing. Perhaps a better word would be fulfilment. Others find this in creative activity or relations with family, or a myriad of other sources. And I do believe that we benefit on many levels from nurturing our spirituality, and we suffer if we ignore or deny it.

This post doesn’t have any particular point. I’m not trying to make a case for anything. I’m not even trying to pass on my own learning, because I’ve come to this place through a long and complex journey and I do not believe I could have got there any other way. As much as anything, I’m writing to figure out what I think.

It is an interesting topic for a lot of reasons. It’s interesting to watch my class getting het-up about this, far more than they have done over any topic so far. And so far this week we have talked about ancient philosophy, culture, experiments on people and animals (yes, I cried all evening on Monday, why do you ask?), the mind-body problem, nihilism, loneliness, existential angst and death. (Yes, I am tired, why do you ask? And it’s only Wednesday.)

There is something in this space that is really emotive. It presses buttons, both in the spiritual types and the atheists. I’d venture to suggest that it presses buttons for SJ, and it presses buttons for me. I’m becoming very curious about what’s going on here.

* My thanks to Hano for the title of this post. He is now in charge of post titles.

The psychology of style

Yesterday was in danger of not being a great day. I was stood up by my original date, and my flatmate, my usual best playmate, was laid up and lying on her bed moaning feebly. I was bored. I was checking my email every five minutes – not good recovery behaviour – and was scarily close to spending the afternoon raiding the fridge for all the wrong reasons.

So I got the hatboxes off the cupboard and went through all the hats. Old hats have gone away and new hats have come out. I put together some new outfits, using each hat as the basis for new combinations of clothes, ideas that I’d never thought of before. I made my poor sick flatmate try on hats and outfits as well, and gave her two that no longer suit me. By the time we had to leave for Mass, she had perked up noticeably and I was fizzing with energy.

I spend a lot of time playing with clothes, both my own and other women’s. My flatmate sometimes claims I think she is a doll, so often do I dress her up. I have been through many of my friends’ wardrobes, helping them to define their style and learn to put together outfits that they love. I’ve done it semi-professionally. I love it, and it makes me very happy.

But is it a good thing?

There are arguments both ways. I list some (not exhaustive):

In favour:
(1) I’m helping women to be happier with how they look. This raises their confidence and makes them happier in general.
(2) I’m often helping them to save money, by being more creative with their existing wardrobes and learning what they really want to wear.
(3) It is lots of fun. Everyone has a good time.
(4) It is creating more choice for the client – the more she can control how she looks, the more options are available for her.

Against:
(1) It is colluding with a social problem. Part of the way women are discriminated against in our society is that we are judged on our looks, and this becomes a competition. The act of helping someone to move up the scale is implicitly condoning the validity of this. It is not really useful for these women, even if they do better in the short term- instead, it is binding them more closely to this way of being. And it is not helpful for women in general.
(2) It is shallow, devoting time and energy to the way we look when there are so many more important things to pay attention to.

I often wonder what I am doing when I play with my own wardrobe, trying on hats and new outfits. Am I creating my feminine identity in a positive, empowered way? Am I playing, childlike, bringing light and magic into my day? Or am I a prisoner of my beliefs about how I should look, always looking for ways to make myself more attractive to others, trying to win a competition with other women? Am I using my wardrobe like another drug?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions.

My gut instinct is that it is not all bad. There was no hangover of guilt and shame after my hat orgy – instead, I was happy all day and I’m still smiling at the memory. All the clients I’ve stayed in touch with have continued to be excited and enthused about how they look, and in touch with the benefits for their confidence and sense of self. They have stayed interested in how they look. (Of course, they would not necessarily tell me if they felt very differently.)

But my instinct is often wrong. And I have no answer to the critiques. These are questions that I have been grappling with for years, and I’m always very interested in new perspectives. I think the arguments both ways are compelling.

Why does Karl Marx drink herbal tea?

I really want to write about what I’ve learned about my father today:

* He took two undergraduate degrees during four years at university
* He can speak Hausa
* He is a fan of David Davis (this last is not so impressive).

Sadly, this is outside the spec for SSP, so instead I will write about hoarding.

I have spent the last couple of days clearing out my stuff from my parents’ loft. I have had a lovely time playing around in my past, and have rediscovered many things I didn’t know I had.

I have also thrown a lot of stuff away. With extreme reluctance.

I am nearly thirty-seven years old, and it is somewhat embarrassing that I still find it so difficult to throw stuff away. Even leaving aside the stuff that I anthropomorphise, I still always think, what if I need it? what if I might use it? And, more perniciously, what if someone else could use it? I have boxes of make-up that doesn’t suit me and never will. And I don’t have space to store it in London, and I don’t give makeovers here. But I still can’t bring myself to get rid of it, because I can’t bear to think of it going to waste. It is nonsense.

And even if I know that I’ve finished with stuff, I can’t just put it into dustbin bags and put them out. Instead I sort it carefully into stuff-that-might-be-useful-to-someone-somewhere-someday and stuff-that-I-reluctantly-have-to-admit-is-probably-no-earthly-use-to-man-or-beast. I then label the two piles and get my mother – who will be seventy this year – to go through them and decide what to do with them. And then not tell me what she’s done with it, so that I don’t have to know what got thrown away.. Do as I say, dahlings, not as I do.

There are some advantages to this. It certainly saves me money. Most of my clothes have been in my wardrobe for quite a while, and it works pretty well as long as you don’t look too closely. And I am writing this sitting in my room, listening to a tape – yes, a tape – of Mozart’s Flute and Harp concerto. This would be lovely anyway, but it is particularly lovely because this is in fact the first classical tape I ever had, the very same one that my father gave me in 1986.

I’d like to be someone who travels light, though. As with many of my compulsions, I’ve wrestled with my hoarding over the years and it is not as bad as it used to be. I used to need a twelve-hundred-square-foot house for all my stuff, and now I keep the bulk of it in a one-hundred-and-thirty-square-foot room. But I still have more than I need, and I still find it very hard to let go of what I need no longer. And, for someone who is learning how to accept the things she can’t change, this is a controlling mindset.

I have to admit that once I’m past the trauma of putting old possessions into black plastic sacks, it feels lovely. I know where everything is. I have gone through an old, never-used jewellery box and put the cream of it into a small, shiny new one that can live on my dressing table, and I’ve found some lovely pieces. And I know that if I have to come down here at short notice, I will have jewellery. (Don’t laugh. If I have to come down here at short notice, it will be for a bad reason, and I will need jewellery.)

And I feel lighter. I’ve let some stuff go. I did this a year ago, and decided that I couldn’t bear to part with the ten or fifteen dustbin sacks that are now on their way out. Maybe next year I will be able to get rid of another ten or fifteen, and I will be lighter still.

Guest post: Out of control (and I don’t mind)

Hi all Curious Bunny here – F and SJ very kindly invited me to guest-blog. Thank you, ladies. It’s nice to be here.

Several recent posts here have discussed fear and control. SJ needs to be in control and taking action to feel calm about her life; F needs to admit her lack of control and turn her life over to a higher power to achieve the same end. This dichotomy got me thinking about whether or not I fear the world, and the extent to which I believe I can control it.

I realised that, when things feel out of control, if there’s nothing I can do to change them, then nothing is exactly what I do.

I usually come out of those self-test religion quizzes looking like a secular humanist. That’s probably a close enough approximation, though perhaps best served with a generous dollop of nihilism. I believe that I was born because my parents (inexplicably, but who doesn’t think that?) got it on, and not for any other reason. I believe that when we die, that’s it. I believe that what you do with the time in between is up to you, and the only consequences of that behaviour will be those mandated by whichever society you choose to live in. I believe that none of this has any real, objective meaning at all, and that any meaning we do project is entirely subjective, egocentric, and in all possibility entirely wrong. To me, even the moral absolutes of our society (societies?) are pretty arbitrary*.

However.

I believe the world is generally a much nicer place when people are nice to each other and obey the (near-universal) basic rules pertaining to good conduct. I believe it’s nicer still when people help each other achieve their potential – experientially, it’s a better ride for all concerned. I don’t think it buys anyone any karmic poker chips, but wouldn’t we all rather have a better time while we’re here? I know I would.

Naturally, when people flout this world view (usually just by being thoughtlessly selfish, but sometimes by more pernicious and organised means), it pisses me off. Some days, I go bury myself in movies or music or writing. Other days – better days – I do something. Email my MP. Vote. Give money to Amnesty. Work myself up into a froth so I don’t forget that the world is fragile and will require my attention if I want it to continue being a nice place to live in.

So despite my belief that it’s all fairly arbitrary, I do believe in taking action, because I think everyone would prefer to lead a positive existence. And I believe that even small actions can have huge consequences. When I act, I don’t do so in a vacuum: I can have an effect on others around me and lead by example, if I behave in a way that encourages that. (And I hope that I do. I find myself in the position of being a potential role-model both at work and in my leisure time; this alarms me, but it would take an amazing lawyer to argue convincingly that I got here by mistake.) Change can start small, in the manner of grassroots campaigns, and swell to become prairie-sized. Most change is incremental: working out can have negligible impact over the course of days or weeks, but over months or years, it can transform your fitness, your shape, your weight, your self-esteem. And those effects have knock-on effects. So when I act small, I don’t expect the results to be small.

Of course, I could just be deluding myself. Seeking to reduce cognitive dissonance by justifying to myself why my actions are small, and not epic. But much as my ego would like me to be an overwhelming force for good in this world, complete with full plate armour, occasionally I need a reality check. So I do the things I can, and try not to beat myself up about the things I can’t. Because in the end, it’s all pretty arbitrary, and while others might find that thought terrifying, I find it oddly comforting.

* though I find merit in some of them. Personally I am a big fan of washing my hands after using the loo and before eating, and of not sleeping with members of my immediate family; YMMV.

Driving lessons, a metaphor for life

I have been having driving lessons for quite a while.

F: (does something stupid)

Paul (driving instructor): (kindly) Don’t worry. A lot of novice drivers do that.

F: (somewhat red in face) Paul, I had my first driving lesson in 1989.

It’s not quite as bad as I’m pretending; during those twenty years I did pass my test and get my licence. But I am not a good driver, and I am not a happy driver. I do a lot of things I’m bad at, and mostly the worst thing that can happen is that people might laugh at me. With driving, people might die.

For a long time, I have let others drive me. But I want to be able to drive. It is a grown-up thing to do. In particular, I am currently staying with my father, who is quite disabled, and we would be able to do much more together if I could drive him around. So I had a driving lesson this morning, the first for about five years.

Paul asked me at the beginning of the lesson, ‘what do you want to learn?’ And my answer was technical: parallel parking, reversing, wing mirrors. But as we pottered around country lanes and reversed around corners in cul-de-sacs, I was also observing the process: what worked and what didn’t work; how it felt. And I started to formulate a theory: the way we drive is like the way we do the rest of life.

When driving goes wrong for me, it’s not because I have to make the car go backwards or into a small space. It’s because I panic and think I can’t do something, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, or because I become impatient to finish a difficult manoeuvre and go too rapidly, or because I’m stressing about what other drivers are thinking of me, or because I’m not paying attention. These are all things that I do when I’m not driving.

Similarly, I sponsor and support people in recovery from addiction, and I often notice that people do their recovery in the way that they do their life. M is diligent as hell and her step work is always wonderful, but she is a perfectionist and constantly worries that she isn’t going to enough meetings or doing enough writing. K will do anything to support newcomers and people who fear relapse, but she turns her own recovery into another form of self-punishment, as she did with her addictions. I push myself at top-speed, looking for instant results, and am always convinced I’m doing it all wrong – but my determination has never wavered, even when the road has been dark and the journey has seemed relentless and eternal. And as we progress through the steps, we grow and heal. Our recovery changes. And our lives change.

Today’s driving was better than it’s ever been for me. And I think that’s because I’m gradually becoming calmer. I’m more able to slow down, more able to let myself be imperfect, more able to bounce back quickly when I didn’t do something right, rather than continuing to beat myself up about it for the rest of the lesson. There’s a way to go yet – apart from anything else, I do have to learn how to manoeuvre the damn car into the parking space – but, for the first time I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

Fear is a four-letter word

SJ and I have been texting each other about fear, and what we do to cope with our fear. As usual, it is very different.

For example, we are both concerned about the political situation. Her solution to this is to become politically involved, because knowing that she is doing something helps her to feel that the world is less chaotic. I step away from it, believing that my impact is minimal at best. Instead I turn my attention to areas where I think I can be of some use, like helping someone I know personally or through my work.

She confronts her fear directly. I walk away from mine.

She connects to reality. I create a different reality.

She immerses herself in the truth. I am happy to ignore it and stick my head in the sand if it means I can live to fight another day.

She considers herself to have an obligation to become involved politically, to use her energy in the service of the greatest cause she can find. (Her words: “I can’t do much by myself, but most of history is lots of people doing a little. And I want to be one of those people.”) I consider myself to have an obligation to go where I am most useful, to pick the arenas where I am best able to function, even if they are not the largest and most important.

One could argue that these methods are polar opposites of one another.

Or, of course, one could argue that these methods are identical, except that she believes that she can have an effect on the political situation and I don’t.

I think the answer is somewhere between the two. If I believed I could change the political landscape, would I use my energy there? I don’t think I would, because I’d also have to believe it used my signature strengths. The people I admire in politics have the strengths of bravery, fairness, citizenship, honesty and integrity, diligence and zest – what my family would call ‘the courage of their convictions’.

I am not that person. I am closely related to two career political advisors, and although I admire them both, I find that we are very different. My strengths are in seeing both sides of the argument rather than passionately pursuing one side; in providing support and nurturing to the people on the battlefield rather than following them there; in helping people to connect with each other and build together rather than designing or leading the building. Maybe there are roles for people like me on the political landscape, but I have not yet found them.

This year I will not be doing much except studying and recovery, because I am really quite ill and quite tired. But I hope and expect to recover in due course, and when I recover I hope that my practice will grow. I do want to do work that helps others, and that helps others beyond the small circle of people I know.

But I want to do it using my strengths. I believe that this is what I’m here to do, this is where I can add most value to the world, whatever pitch I’m playing on. I believe that, when I’m using my strengths, I am myself stronger: more energised, more confident, more truly myself.

And less afraid.