I’m About To Get All Congruent On Your Ass
I just read a pretty useful article for bands and musicians by Bruce Warila: Are Your Ducks In Order?
Mine sure aren’t. But I’m getting there. Bruce’s post serves as a good little outline to help you get focused.
Side note in which I contradict myself for no good reason (and while talking about congruencey, no less):
I know the map is not the territory, but in his diagram (left), the incongruent tower looks a hell of a lot more interesting to me than the congruent one. Maybe that means something, maybe not. It’s just a diagram. As far as the reality of what he’s talking about in terms of business, I think he’s right, because if you think of these as actual structures, which one is going to hold up better, and longer? Life isn’t always about which concept diagram looks more interesting. Usually it is, but not always.
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I also like the older post it links to, about how many people think they need a record label. I also also like how in this one he’s talking about only planning a marketing strategy for 2008-2011, with the built-in expectation that everything will be completely different after that.
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Gosh, you know, I just plain like the blog. Perhaps I will subscribe to it.
My first random association looking at these diagrams is “diverse ecology” (left) and “monoculture” (right). Not sure whether the analogy holds up at all, but at least it shows that diagrammatic higgledy-piggledyness (wow, I bet that phrase is unique on the web!) doesn’ necessarily mean “ineffective”. Streamlining and aligning everything might give more results faster in the short term, but what about the bigger picture?
I know what you’re saying, but he’s absolutely right. Everything needs to be completely in-sync, like a tightly focused laser. Then, when you do one small thing, it cascades and reverberates on all levels at once and the smallest effort creates the biggest reward. Yoga is “yoking” which means that all of these diverse elements are in line.
I’m surprised he didn’t just go whole hog and add “Personal Life” to that list as well, because that is the scale I’m shooting for. That’s what’s possible, I think. Easier said than done I realize and I still struggle with it.
Gyrus, you articulated what I was grasping for. And I think the reason I can’t disagree with either view is that they’re dealing with two different things. It’s like this is a diagram of an apple, and I’m looking at it in terms of apple based pastries (things that can be done with the apple). But a good apple looks like an apple, and an apple is very simple. If the actual apple looks like an apple strudel.. yikes. That’s a bad apple.
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Tim, yes — “personal life” has to be in there. Has to — because it is anyway, whether we’re aware of it or not, and if we aren’t, and (probably, as a result) we don’t get that part in line with everything else, well, it’s the most important - the foundation of the whole structure - so if it’s out of line, it’s going to throw all the rest off balance even if the rest of the pieces are perfectly, meticulously lined up with each other. If they’re all resting on a crooked or wobbly foundation… you get the idea.
Tim, I see the magical importance of your take on it. I guess it’s about scale and context: to achieve a specific purpose, you need to focus, hone, get everything aligned with that purpose. But then we need to keep in mind the wider ecology beyond that limited purpose, the wisdom of which is generally beyond our narrow focus and seems higgledy-piggledy to us - and in the end has to be deferred to. Like… the efficient single-mindedness of the cell in a leaf embedded in the gnarly complexity of the forest. Or… the direct simplicity of the apple cooked into the layered folds of the strudel!