TEDX Mulhouse 2014

‍Vision guides action

Here is a woman in her kitchen. She recently got marriedand she is preparing

a gorgeous leg of lamb for dinner. As he comes intothe kitchen, her husband sees her sawing the bone off the leg.

"Why do you saw off the bone?" he asks her.

"Because it is the family recipe! My mother didit that way!"

Intrigued, he calls his mother-in-Law, tells her whatis happening and asks her: "Why do you have to saw off the bone?"

"Because it is the family recipe" answersthe lady. "My mother did it that way!"

More and more intrigued; he calls his mother-in-Law'smother and asks her the same question: "Why do you have to saw off thebone?"

And the old lady answers: "Because my oven is toosmall!"

As the theme of this TED is Unlearning, I asked myself:"What should we unlearn?"

What is the oven in our mind that is too small but ourmental models locked in our habits and ways of seeing?

Here is a series of numbers.

If I ask you what is the line of numbers thatlogically follows this one…. I imagine most of you are busy applying somecalculation or geometrical logic. In short, we are going to use a complicatedway of reasoning while, in reality, all it takes is LOOKING and SEEING what isright there in front of us and to read it out loud!

What actually prevents us from SEEING is our alreadyformatted Mind.

Our brain is like a building full of outdatedfurniture. In other words, what we look at is less important than the way welook at it.

The question then is the type of "glasses"we have in our Mind and how conscious we are about the presence of thoseglasses!

In other words, are we conscious that what we call"Reality" is not the “real”, but Reality within the limits of ourperceptions and our Vision of the world?

Is it possible to refresh and broaden our vision ofthe world?

If I have decided to tackle this subject with youtoday, it is because it has been close to my mind ever since I was a child andthat I have turned it into my profession.

First, when I was a child, I kept drawing all thetime. I created my own world and

I actually experienced in my flesh what GastonBachelard said: "Imagination awakensnew Life and opens eyes that have new types of Vision".

You all know, as I do, whether you create, you cook oryou dream, how the very fact of imagining new possibilities changes theperception we have of the Reality which is under our eyes.

Secondly, I was dyslexic and didn't always understandthe logic of others. I became conscious of it while listening to a teacher whosaid in a rather assertive way: "There is no smoke without a fire!".At the same time, in my head, I was hearing "Oh Yeah! Isn't it rather thatthere no fire without smoke?!".

Dyslexia puts the world upside down permanently! Itleads one to believe that the error is forgetting the "contrary” Truth.  Hence the necessity to approach things “upsidedown”  and “downside up”.

As an example, philosophers say that "What we seeis the creation of our Mind, inevitable representation!" As a truedyslexic, I would say that what we create is a vision of our Mind, truerealization".

In other words, if the world we have created is theworld we have seen, what could we see to create a new world?

Lastly, when I was a child, I was extremely oppressedby linear and deductive reasonings in which the starting premise was identicalto the conclusion. A person would start a phrase by "I think that this orthat" and, after a pseudo rational and so-called logic argumentation,would end by saying exactly the same thing that was said at the start but if theform of a conclusion: "Therefore, I think this or that!".

I felt totally imprisoned by these tautological andoften monologues-type discourses destined to confirm the "Known"rather than explore the "Unknown"!.

When I reached the age of 15, thanks to one of myteachers, I discovered Edgar Morin’s Complex Thinking and it simply saved myLife! How? Because if is a thought in movement and where there is space. Ittalks about relations between things, people, ideas... for example Man createsSociety which created Man. A thought at the exact opposite of the usual categorizationin "boxes" which are so common in our Western world, where each thingis classified in its own category, inherited from the Past and separated fromthe rest. You see what I mean….

And then, I discovered how Edgar Morin talks about Hopeand Utopia. One of his thoughts actually entered my heart: "Utopia is at the same type what makesReality change and what is incapable of changing it. Realism is at the sametime lucid and blind".

Can you feel how beautiful that is? Do you feel thatwhat he says is that, to paraphrase Bergson, "The Possible is richer thanthe Real!" and that our Imagination can change Reality.

Would it then be possible that Utopia, of the Futurewe imagine, be the cause of the Present?

oooOooo

After studying Law and Drawing at the same time, Istarted working at age 23 in an excellent Consultancy firm, of human size, andwhich accompanied companies and organizations in periods of crisis or majorchanges.

Among the things I discovered and you all know about,is that organizations are mainly busy managing the Past, or more preciselypreserving the Past and rarely inventing the Future.  In short, that the Past is the cause of thePresent.

And as I told you, I was obsessed by one question:could it possible that the Future be the cause of the Present?

I suggested to my Boss that we put the world upsidedown and that we reinvent our Business on that new basis.

Two years later, my Boss was leaving the company andso was I.

Then, with my friend Jean-Louis Baudoin, I created aconsultancy specialized in Creative Thinking and Innovation.

At the heart of what we do is "Shifts in Mindsfor Shifts in Action" i.e. provoking new ways of seeing to generate newways of doing.

oooOooo

On this mountain road, a man is driving at high speedin his convertible car. The weather is great and he feels very happy. Suddenly,coming out of the curve ahead of him, comes a convertible car driven by awoman.  She slows down as she approacheshim and shouts "Pig"! Surprised and shocked, he shouts back"Bich", presses on the accelerator and, in the middle of the curve,he hits a pig!

How many people have tried to warn us about somethingwe hadn't seen, or anticipated or not imagined! Maybe we did not like themessage and so we eliminated the messenger or call him/her a liar!

For example, a number of people had foreseen the 2008crisis way ahead of time but we preferred not to understand them and were verysurprised to see things happen!

As the front page of a famous British financialmagazine of September 27th 2008 shows it.

In the same kind of line, a French researcher haspointed out the monumental mistakes made in decision-making. One of hisexamples is September 11th 2001.

It has been proven that, long before, the GermanIntelligence Services had warned the FBI and the CIA in detailed ways about thepreparation of the attacks. The political people in charge had all theinformation that could have prevented the catastrophe. Therefore, the questionis: why didn't they do anything about it?

Can you imagine the reason is: by lack ofImagination!!!

The American Politicians in charge did not believe theinformations they received. More precisely, given their "Vision" ofthe world, they were incapable of imagining that terrorists would dare attackthe greatest power in the world!

So, as you can see, deciding is also imagining.  It is being capable of envisaging the"non-impossible", of reaching the capacity to overcome theincertitudes that we create. And this is crucial because every day, decisionsare made by Leaders, managers and ourselves….decisions which create the Future.And they depend on our more or less open Vision of the world.

One day in 1924, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, twogreat physicians, are having a conversation in Kronberg Castle in Denmark. Thecastle where legend tells us Hamlet lived.

At one point, Niels Bohrtells his friend: "Isn't it strange how this castle instantly changes assoon as we imagine Hamlet lived here! As scientists, we believe a castle isessentially made of stones and we admire the way the architect has conceivedthe whole. And all this shouldn't be modified by the fact that Hamlet livedhere, and yet, it changes everything. Suddenly, the ramparts and the walls speakanother language, the courtyard becomes another world, a dark corner reflectsthe human soul and we hear Hamlet say  "Tobe or not! To be, that is the question!"

In this story, you feelhow clear it is that it is the power of Imagination which changes Reality. Itis exactly the same in Life! Our perception or our Vision creates what we live.The way we look at things creates our reality; more exactly, it creates ourexperience of Reality and the meaning we give it!  It is the "Theater of our Mind".

This is particularlyevident in the field of cartography!

For instance, this is amap of the world seen by the Americans!

And this is the Europeananswer!

Of course, in thesespecific cases, you can immediately see that these maps are"clichés", reflections of a way of Thinking fixed in time. But, inreality, all our geographical maps are abstract representations, which tell alot more about our mental landscapes than about the Reality they are expectedto “represent”.

The important thing is notto know whether they are right or wrong, but what they tell about ourrepresentation of Reality.  When we say"The map is not the territory", everyone understands but, in depth,what attention do we bring to the “theater of our Minds”, to this imaginaryworld that we create , through which we interpret the world and which guidesour decisions, our actions and our lives?

Take Einstein, forinstance. He says: "There are two ways of living one's Life. One as ifnothing was a miracle. The other as if everything was a miracle!". Isn'tit a perception that changes everything?

A contrario, if youremember, there is a very interesting sequence in the film "Lawrence ofArabia" which narrates how, during world war One, a British Officer namedLawrence recommends to the Arabs to rebel against the Turks of the OttomanEmpire and to create a modern independent Arab Nation. At one point in thefilm, one of the troopers is lost in the desert and Lawrence decides to turnback and go look for him. Sharif Ali, played by Omar Sharif, tells him:"Lawrence, you will not find this man. It is impossible. It is written!"And Lawrence answers, hitting his forehead with the butt of his camel whip:"Nothing is written Ali, except here!".

Our visions can be the "Jails of our Minds". What we considerpossible or impossible depends on the way our brain is jammed with "oldfurniture" and on our Imagination.

Niels Bohr, the Quantum physicist calls our perceptions "theTheories of the Mind" to clearly indicate that they are Hypothesis andthat we should consider them as such. They are "stories we tellourselves". And this is not connoted negatively. This is why I like tocall them "Meaning-Making Stories", stories that make sense. It is throughthese stories that we tell ourselves the Past, the Present and even theFuture.  What is Life but a"Meaning-Making Story"? What is a religion but a "Meaning-MakingStory”? What is an Utopia but a "Meaning-Making Story" of the Future?What is a Corporate Vision or a Strategy – when well thought! – but a "Meaning-MakingStory" of the Future for that specific Community?

The question I ask myself is: is it possible that we try to create theFuture starting from obsolete maps? In other words from imaginary worlds whichlack Imagination?

It seems to me that Imagination stands at the heart of the debate onUnlearning!

What are the mental representations that we must abandon and whatcapacity of Imagination must we develop to navigate in this emerging uncertainworld which we don't even anything about yet?

You know that there is an old, mechanistic vision of the brain whichstipulates that each hemisphere is specialized: for example Reason in the leftand Emotion in the right hemisphere.

Recently, a researcher has totally repositioned this divided brainvision. He demonstrated that both hemisphere are active at the same time andall mental operations but in different ways. Thus, it is not WHAT eachhemisphere does that is different but HOW it does it! Each hemisphere directsits attention in different ways towards the world, with different goals andpredispositions. The hemispheres embody two VISIONS of the world and two waysof experiencing the world.

Left hemisphere: Narrowfocalization, outside of context

Right hemisphere: Broadfocalization, vision of context

Left hemisphere: Reductionism,division in parts and categories

Right hemisphere: Integration,connections and fluxes

For instance, if you consider a bird, an animal like us, it will at thesame time focus narrowly on the worm it is about to eat and broadly of thecontext in order not to be surprised by one of his predators.

Left hemisphere: Certitude,risk aversion

Right hemisphere: possibilitiesand Flexibility

Left hemisphere: Control andVision of the Known

Right hemisphere: Search forNewness and Originality

Left hemisphere:Simplification, Abstraction

Right hemisphere: Complexity,incarnation

Left hemisphere: Rationalism,quantitative

Right hemisphere: Reason,Wisdom, Meaning, qualitative

Of course, you can see to what extreme our vision of the world – andhence the world we have created in the Western world is dominated by the LeftHemisphere.

It is practically the description of the Newtonian Paradigm!

The consequences?

We can see fragmented parts but we seldom perceive the Big Picture.

We think we solve a problem in the short term, but we create anotherproblem in the long term.

Instead of taking the context into account, we focus on parts, usuallyourselves or our Business.

We are in a sandpit on a beach without seeing nor the beach nor theworld.

When a new idea is presented to us, we are so good at recognizing theknown that we have trouble to see the value of the “unknown”.

Let us consider two men whose world maps are significantly different.

The first one, Mr. Known, is a man educated in a top University who seesthe world

‑ or wishes to see it – is a chess game. One winner, one loser,traditional problems and predetermined movements.

The second one, Mr. Unknown, sees the world as a weaving of forces andinterconnected and complex problems.

Mr. Known lives in a vertical, pyramidal, siloised world based on the EGO System and Profit.

Mr. Unknown "feels" the emergence of a more"lateral" world, more fluid, more distributed, more collaborative andconscious of the ECO system

Mr. Known sees the company as a Symphony orchestra.

Mr. Unknown likes to think of his team as a Jazz combo.

What kind of strategies are they going to develop?

One enters Competition, against his "enemies"! The otherstrives to create a network of partners who are going to generate more than thesum of the parts.

 One is going to develop abstract battle plans based on a linearextrapolation of data! The other knows that he must learn to "tango"with Reality and to navigate

the ocean of Incertitude! And with pleasure if possible!

One reorganizes the furniture in the same room, he restructures,practices Reengineering without truly changing anything while the second one isgoing to put his Audacity and his Imagination at work in order to reinvent thewhole system!

oooOooo

Since the theme of this TED is Unlearning, I would say that Krishnamurtihad really understood everything when he wrote "Freedom from theKnown" in 1970.

Mr. Known's perceptions do not help him navigate in this uncertainworld. They help him to recognize the "Known" to create the illusionof Control and to reproduce standard answers. Yet, what we need are new ways ofSeeing in order to create our Future.

oooOooo

To conclude, I would like to put the following hypothesis forward:

Is it possible that this world we have created, the world outside, isthe mirror of a certain type of Thinking and of a certain "Theater of ourMinds"?

Is it possible that the greatest crisis of our time is neither financialnor economical?

But a crisis of Intellect, of Conscience and of Thinking? Directlylinked to the way we, individually and collectively, are capable of Seeing andThinking?

Do we need to fundamentally turn the way we interpret the world aroundus and our place in it upside down?

Take the current situation! "Shifts Happen"! The old worlddeclining at the same time a new world emerges!

Either we are guided by the Past, maybe by the fear of losing and we aresatisfied by reorganizing the furniture in the same room!

Or, as we can imagine it here at TED, we are guided by the Future –which by the way is already here – we are in tune with the emerging world,endeavoring to

to take part in the movement with our Intelligence, our Courage, ourEnthusiasm and the Imagination that generate new Life!

Could it then be possible that an Utopia or the Future we imagine be thecause

of the Present?

A proverb from a Collective of Women in Bolivia says: "Be carefulabout the Present you create because it must look like the Future you dreamof".

I wish us to dream “upside down” and downside up”, upwards anddownwards.

Dream to open eyes which have new types of vision

Dream to see tomorrow's Reality

See that what seems to be "in order" today might be "inverted"tomorrow. And vice versa

Dream to move beyond ourselves.

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oooOooo

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And then, I discovered how Edgar Morin talks about Hopeand Utopia. One of his thoughts actually entered my heart: "Utopia is at the same type what makesReality change and what is incapable of changing it. Realism is at the sametime lucid and blind".

Can you feel how beautiful that is? Do you feel thatwhat he says is that, to paraphrase Bergson, "The Possible is richer thanthe Real!" and that our Imagination can change Reality.

Would it then be possible that Utopia, of the Futurewe imagine, be the cause of the Present?

One day in 1924, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, twogreat physicians, are having a conversation in Kronberg Castle in Denmark. Thecastle where legend tells us Hamlet lived.

At one point, Niels Bohrtells his friend: "Isn't it strange how this castle instantly changes assoon as we imagine Hamlet lived here! As scientists, we believe a castle isessentially made of stones and we admire the way the architect has conceivedthe whole. And all this shouldn't be modified by the fact that Hamlet livedhere, and yet, it changes everything. Suddenly, the ramparts and the walls speakanother language, the courtyard becomes another world, a dark corner reflectsthe human soul and we hear Hamlet say  "Tobe or not! To be, that is the question!"