Shifting Paradigms...And What is One of Them Anyway? Blog 108

Namaste! 

Ah its the weekend again! How lovely. Time to be with friends and family, eat, talk, house clean, visit nice places? You bet. 

There are a lot of seagulls here by the Creek in Barking - they woke me up this morning with their chatter, they and a little squirrel who knocked on my window expectantly! I didn't know you got seagulls and squirrels in the urban scrawl - how life surprises. 

Maybe its because of this that I found myself thinking about paradigms and shifting this morning. You have probably heard this phrase many times in all sorts of contexts? Its certainly in common parlance and I have heard many business leaders utter these words, indeed have found myself saying them many times too. But what is a paradigm? Well the trusty Wikipedia's definition says: 

A paradigm shift (or revolutionary science) is, according to Thomas Kuhn, in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science. It is in contrast to his idea of normal science. According to Kuhn, "A paradigm is what members of a scientific community, and they alone, share" (The Essential Tension, 1977). Unlike a normal scientist, Kuhn held, "a student in the humanities has constantly before him a number of competing and incommensurable solutions to these problems, solutions that he must ultimately examine for himself" (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).

Once a paradigm shift is complete, a scientist cannot, for example, reject the germ theory of disease to posit the possibility that miasma causes disease or reject modern physics and optics to posit that ether carries light. In contrast, a critic in the humanities can choose to adopt an array of stances (e.g., Marxist criticism, Freudian criticism, Deconstruction, 19th-century-style literary criticism), which may be more or less fashionable during any given period but which are all regarded as legitimate. Since the 1960s, the term has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events, even though Kuhn himself restricted the use of the term to the hard sciences. Compare as a structured form of Zeitgeist.

It wasn't just the seagull and the squirrel that prompted this thought - but business itself. Its been a week of them - paradigm shifts not seagulls and squirrels!

Notably I had lunch with a friend at the Galleon Cafe at the end of the road, two minutes from our studios at the Malthouse. The Galleon does a roaring trade for the local workers, is often filled with construction guys with hard hats and local coppers from the police station across the Creek.

They do a mean breakfast - and I mean mean - mean to the waist line, laid out in its greasy beauty on a plate big enough to feed a family of four. With the changing nature of this Cultural Industries Quarter I often wonder if they will change their paradigm to reflect the burgeoning shifts. I will watch with interest, because the truth is that whilst the cholesterol beauties serve their market right now they may have a limited future! For the time being though I manage to get a mean salad there and the owners are very lovely.

Anyway - my conversation with my friend naturally fell into chatting about our respective weeks. We were having a very relaxed and pleasant catch up, mix of personal and professional sharing, when she suddenly received a text and her whole mood and palor changed. Without a breath skip, she began to text with a demonic energy that left me laughing into my lettuce! I tried to be sympathetic and convivial, but she was having none of it. No! -  the received text had had the effect of an electric shock. Whatever the message said had instantly provoked a reaction of exasperation which she attempted to redress by almost breaking her Iphone keypad as she directed her response down the line. I did laugh, which is really not very kind. After all we stick by our friends through thick and thin - don't we? 

I thought I better show some gentle support - but frankly it fell on deaf ears. 'No - you don't have to put up with this - its ridiculous' reminded me that we all live in our own stories! And yet the subject matter was very funny. I won't go into details for fear I might get sued, but suffice it to say it was my friend's employer asking her to do something completely the opposite to an earlier instruction, and to do it NOW, in the very next minute, sod whatever else she was supposed to be doing, which actually was to be having lunch with me - thanks Boss. 

Recovering from the adrenalin release, my friend's palor gradually returned and she no longer looked like she would explode. Working hard at my attempt to be a kind friend and rather failing, I resorted to suggesting that one way that might work to deal with it could be a paradigm shift. 

I think when you suggest something like this to someone who is living in a particular experience that is their truth there is a real danger that they might throw their sausage at you. Fortunately my dear friend has an irrepressible sense of the comic and began to laugh her head off. I have learnt from bitter experience that a good belly laugh is often the best way to shift a persistent paradigm. It sounds a bit psychobabbly to suggest that she 'reframe' the experience. But as we chatted about this obviously inept boss, we did just that together. 

Once the shift had happened mysteriously, ie; - we had begun to imagine an alternative perception, a whole set of creative opportunities presented themselves. Indeed this paradigm is a golden gift, because the experience invited us to remove ourselves from the immediate emotion and change our view of it. And then as if by magic we came up with another idea for a creative project - and we both got really very excited about its potential. So my friend was able to leave our lunch and respond differently to the stimulus - thereby creating her own paradigm shift which gave rise to some very creative solutions. I just loved it. And I can report that 24 hours later said new paradigm is firmly in place and acted upon - until the next one that is! What fun it is - and my experience reminds me continually that we make it all up any way. What appears set in stone is simply our own illusion about it. For me this is more often than not a way to circumnavigate a problem or challenge - I hate to quote Tony Blair - but the idea of a "Third Way" is a perfect example of a paradigm shift - doesn't mean it always works though and just when you are getting comfortable there comes another one - so I say  - "duck!"

Have a lovely Saturday all - I am planning to bake a cake - Victoria Sponge for my daughter and her boyfriend who are coming to tea.

Mine probably won't look as good as this!