From the Archives: Ton’s Thoughts on Work Life Boundaries, Barriers and Attractors

Image of a colorful sculpture made out of used covid barriers with a sign that reads "I am made of old COVID barriers."
Neighborhood artwork made from used covid barriers

In 2008 this blog from Ton Zylstra caught my eye. In my “archives ” project of digging up unpublished drafts, I revisited his post. Sort of mind blowing to see it after we dove into a whole new type of work worlds with Covid.

Ton’s Interdependent Thoughts: Work Life Boundaries, Barriers and Attractors

Ton uses the concept of Attractors (“things that I think will improve my flow”), Boundaries (“things that I think help me to stay in flow”) and Barriers (“things I think impede my flow: ) to explore his own work life.

My takeaway is that through observing our work, our practices with lenses such as Attractors, Boundaries and Barriers we being to shape our work context – just through that awareness. As one still in a “fallow” period, the observation of my changed habits CHANGES my HABITS!

Lying Fallow Part 3: Assumptions About Work

So earlier this year (this post) I basically admitted I dropped out for a while. I gave a quick update here. I’m still dropped out and I’m still loving it. Why didn’t I do this sooner? Why didn’t I create pauses earlier in my working life? Am I still me? Is my identity SO wrapped up in my work that the other aspects of me have either been quashed, or simply put in service of my work? All sorts of interesting questions.

As my lying fallow summer came and went, I did not seek additional gigs. I referred inquiries to other practitioners. I fulfilled a few small obligations, did some pro bono work and supported my various communities of practice. The latter being some of the most satisfying work all around. I think informally I’m also an on-call mentor to other practitioners and I deeply enjoy those conversations. All the juicy ideas and none of the work. PERFECT!

But still I feel no impulse to return to full-time, paid work. I read books. I putter in the garden. I try to walk consistently. I have finally dipped my toe into adding weight training to my routine. I project managed recovery of a basement flood, removal of a 100 year old giant tree, a solar install and new HVAC for our house that is now bereft of it’s natural cooling from that magnificent (and rotting) tree.

Because I’ve been such a workaholic all of my life, I’m pretty invested in my identity as a (senior) practitioner. It felt good when I was the person to call. That I was valued, needed, appreciated. That I finished my to do list, had my email inbox tamed. I do not miss this. I don’t crave it. My volunteer and community work provide plenty of social connection and intellectual stimulation.

So what happened to my assumptions about work? This is where we shift from resigning to reassessing.

How much do we lose when we let work be a (or THE) central force in our lives, even if by dint of the hours, let alone intentions? What gets deprioritized? For me, rest, reflection, open-ended thinking that can lead down creative paths and cleaner, clearer sleep, as just a few examples. Since I’ve been working less I’m sleeping better. (Less time at a screen part of that? I think so!) I’ve read a TON more – fiction and non fiction. I’ve delved deeper into topics I’d previously claimed were important to me but I had not, as they say, done the work. I would like to believe I’m listening to and engaging the two grandpeople (ages 9 and 12) who live with me more fully. I hope I am being a better adult for them.

When I was working like a maniac, at the end of the day I would collapse in front of a screen, social media scrolling or half attention to a television program. I was seeking mindlessness. Now it takes a lot more to sit me in front of the telly. I still have some addiction to the scrolly-stuff and have been trying to dial that down. I hate being a counter example to the grandpeople.

So why is it I waited till now to take a pause, a fallow season, a sabbatical? I can list a few: financial security, identity (especially as a babyboomer, feminist, and to acknowledge my privilege, a white woman), passion for the work, once I discovered what I loved (and becoming an independent consultant at age 41). I raised two kids. I am co-raising two more grandkids. I can say I think my workaholism took some of me away from those people and that is one of the very FEW regrets I have about my work habits.

But what if I worked just a bit less in those years? Would my work have been as successful? (I have always been fortunate to have a full client docket, come rain or shine but I carried that fear that if I said no to a client, no one else would knock on my virtual door.) Would I have been as fulfilled? Would I be doing something different now?

A friend once told me that sometimes she sensed only one of my wings was fully unfurled. That stops you in your tracks…

I think with fabulous hindsight I could have worked less. AND it would have been much easier if our (white) American culture was not so predicated on valuing people for how many freaking hours they work a week. What if we had a four day work week? More people to work, less burnout, more family and friends time. Maybe with less of a focus on consumerism (I dream big!)

I hear colleagues 50+ talking about taking a break. What I anecdotally hear from colleagues in their 20s and 30s is a different model. The “great resignation” is not just the burnt out olders, but the dissatisfied youngers. Could we all benefit by reassessing, rethinking what work means, the role it plays not only in our personal economic subsistence, but also the role it plays in society?

I’m certainly not the first person to think about this. (See this lovely essay by Maria Popova reflecting on the work of Oliver Burkman’s work,  Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals . This crossed my screen this week thanks to Patti Digh.) I just wonder why it took me 63+ years to slow down… Or maybe this is not about slowing down, but simply making different choices. Or better yet, in Oliver Burkman’s beautiful words;

Any finite life — even the best one you could possibly imagine — is therefore a matter of ceaselessly waving goodbye to possibility… Since finitude defines our lives… living a truly authentic life — becoming fully human — means facing up to that fact.

[…]

It’s only by facing our finitude that we can step into a truly authentic relationship with life.

Oliver Burkman,  Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Connecting Infrastructure and Power

I was intrigued by a post from my wonderful friend and colleague, Eva Schiffer, on LinkedIn a while back. Coming off a conversation with the creative Gianluca Gambatesa, Eva quoted him with something that opened up a lot of questions in my mind about power. Gianluca said “There is a tight link between power structure and infrastructure. By making infrastructure more accessible, we can destabilize and open up power structures. Oh. So. Much. To. Unpack! Then Eva went on to ask for examples.

Before I can mine examples, I want to understand what we mean by infrastructure and power structure. In my group process work most often the aim is to distribute power out to engage everyone and support work that distributes agency and responsibility across a group. It is rarely a goal to destabilize power, but to distribute it. So the idea of “opening up” power structures resonates.

Decision making can be a good place to test ideas. In practice that might look like clarity of decision making (as opposed to fake consultation – I’ll listen to you but I already made up my mind), clarity of how power is exercised and by whom in decision making processes. Power structure is expressed in this case by who makes what decisions, how they are communicated and enacted.

So what is infrastructure in this case? In the LinkedIn thread most references were to collaboration tools: Google drive, Slack, etc. Accessibility to tools requires they are available, properly configured to distribute control of the tools, backed up so useful experiments don’t risk mass destruction of stuff, and skills for people to use those tools. Who can choose and mess with the tools is super important – something we learned in our research for Digital Habitats.

I immediately wondered about the role of transparency of tools, how they are configured and who controls them as one sort of accessibility. There are other layers of accessibility: is a tool friendly for those who cannot hear or see? Is it free of embedded bias? Are the use practices built on shared values and goals or is it a free for all? My bias here is finding the sweet spot between over control and under control. For a diverse group, is the tool accessible ENOUGH to allow access and support diversity? Eva, in a latter comment, noted “Transparency is part of it. But also: Does this structure make it easy for me to fully contribute if I’m not highly privileged?”

That takes us to the less visible side of tools-as-infrastructure – the processes we use with the tools, each other and our shared work. Who has the power (there is that word again) to, as Eva called it, “fully contribute” regardless of one’s priviledge and power.

Process is infrastructure. Lack of process is infrastructure. Workarounds to avoid or change process is part of infrastructure as far as I’m concerned. Yet it is rarely noted in ones “infrastructure plans,” eh? It is the place where power is exercised with little visibility, or perhaps little accountability.

Some other stuff:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2019/08/08/facebook-and-electio
n-influence-will-history-repeat-itself/

Renee Diresta gave a superb talk at Long Now about the difference
about social media which Long Now retweeted about:

"When people say propaganda has always existed, they're absolutely
right. But what has not always existed is inexpensive,
sophisticated, precision targeting."
- Renee DiResta (@noUpside) on how social media algorithms help
spread propaganda on altogether new scales.

https://twitter.com/longnow/status/1518706648730140672

Disability Justice Audit Tool

Screenshot of the cover of the audit tool reading: Disability Justice: An Audit Tool. Written by Leah Lakshmi, Piepzna-Samarasinha, envisioned by Stacey Park Milbern and Leak Lakshmi Piepzan-Samarasinha
Cover page

I recently downloaded Northwest Health’s “Disability Justice: An Audit Tool” at https://www.northwesthealth.org/djaudittool# – it is a quick, free download. From the website their description:

Disability Justice: An Audit Tool” is aimed at helping Black, Indigenous and POC-led organizations (that are not primarily focused around disability) examine where they’re at in practicing disability justice, and where they want to learn and grow. It includes questions for self-assessment, links to access tools, organizational stories and more.

While white facilitators aren’t the target audience, this is a terrific and more broadly useful piece. For me it stems from Intersectionality, one of the ten principles of disability justice. Intersectional work is one of the essential practices we all need to learn and use, especially those of us who call ourselves facilitators. While the checklist is organizational oriented, it is great food for thought and ACTION.

First, what is disability justice? From the tool:

Disability justice is a term and a movement-building framework (i.e. a way of envisioning the ways people can organize around and think about disability) that centers the lives and leadership of disabled Black, Indigenous and people of color and/or queer, trans, Two Spirit and gender nonconforming people.
To paraphrase Patty Berne, disability justice leader and co-founder of DJ performance and political collective Sins Invalid, disability justice steps into the “cliffhangers” left over from the disability rights movement.

Disability Justice: An Audit Tool

I was particularly taken by Patty Berne’s description about the cliffhangers left oer from the disability rights movement. It make me wonder about how we overlook something because we are focusing on something else we think is important. I reflect upon my feminism as a white woman and how it so thoroughly distracted me from racism for so long.

If we are not intimately involved in the issues of disability rights, we can forget about it. Time for action.

The action I put forth to myself is to read, journal and reflect upon the tool to identify first where I have an am falling short on disability justice in my life and work. It has been gratifying to see how many people have started to pay attention to things like access issues in online meetings, so that opens the door a crack for more and more fundamental changes. The checklist can help me go deeper. Thanks, NW Health and all the individuals who created this tool.

Read this Report Now: Black Women Thriving

Ericka Hines of Every Level Leadership and her network launched this project to deeply understand and provide data about Black women in the workforce. I’ve just starting reading and already find it full of compelling, clear data and recommendations. So I don’t want to wait to spread the word. From all Ericka’s good work, comes possibility for the rest of us to take action. THRIVING!

Black Women Thriving Report