Let’s shift from storytelling and story collecting to storyseeing and storyfeeling….
Tim Gallwey’s seminal The Inner Game of Tennis has had a big influence on my work and practice since getting back into competitive tennis in the pandemic along with our tools at Freedoms Works UK. Check out not so much his bestseller (unless you are a tennis player) but his 1976 follow-up ‘Playing the Game’ in which he develops his approach and broadens the application to life and work off the court.
As with Eastern philosophy, key principles are deepening the awareness of the inner, presence-awareness and quietening of the ego, the art of concentration, relaxed intensity, nurturing seeing and feel, trusting/letting happen/unleashing the intelligence of the body/being, discovering/creating purpose, possibility and a will to win.
In the social impact and creative sphere, too often we are seeking to change/fix/improve/strategize/produce/engineer something … a product/service innovation… organisational change… diversity and inclusion…. audience and business development/diversification… and collective organisational egos seek to force this through… and we turn to coaches, consultants and agencies to help/shuffle the chairs/offload our fears to someone else (the good ones know the answers lie within the client and its people).
Rarely do we pause and start with that simple awareness of what is so now. (Or ponder the Zen master’s provocation: What, in this moment, is lacking?) (Or truly follow an asset-based approach and ask: What assets do we have now, in this moment?)
Just as the intelligence of the body/being will correct a tennis stroke naturally with feel and awareness, and in the space of presence, relaxed-intensity and possibility produce shots and match play the player never thought were within, so to with creative teams and organisations, with feel and awareness of what’s so and what is, what’s next and what’s possible unfold as if by magic.
Nb. My sense is that artists/creatives, people who work with people, bodies, animals and nature, neurodivergent people, people with disabilities, athletes/sportspeople, and even politicians (there will be others) are particularly primed and attuned to the gift of feel-awareness though it is in all of us.
Good research, storyseeing (as I’m going to start to call it) and evaluation can help with feel and awareness, and should become the principle why/purpose for doing research and evaluation, and end in itself instead of ‘in order to’ [prove/measure/strategize/align to/speak to/demonstrate/draw in/unlock the final bit of funding form the funder].
It’s been a privilege to have been involved in a practice shift in recent years towards more story-led and participatory approaches, but often this can still feel extractive, a needing to share stories with an ‘in order to’ in mind.
I wonder if the next shift in this approach needs to be towards a more storyseeing, storyhearing and storyfeeling approach. Where are stories are seen, heard and felt, but not always ‘collected’, not always recorded, transcribed, ‘spun’ and packaged for organisations and funders. An output might still be the organisation’s learning and possibilities, but with trust and a letting go from funders in needing to see evaluative data and evidence.
Ethnographic approaches have a powerful place in this mix (see our work with Kensington and Chelsea Art Week and Wandsworth Arts Fringe). Some simple question prompts to start to practice more intuitive evaluation include:
- What, in this moment, is lacking?
- What’s occurring? (be like Nessa from Gavin and Stacey)
- What is becoming possible for those that we care about right now?
- Where is there love? (and joy, charisma, daringness, energy, enthusiasm)
- Where is there advantage and disadvantage?
- Where is there momentum and anger/frustration?
- Where is there service?
- Are there any breaks (in service) and faults to acknowledge?
- What do we see/hear that is working and why?
- What do we see/hear that isn’t working (and why) that could be better (how?)?
- What could we imagine happening differently right now?
- What if we…
- Why do we want to do this (if we’re really honest) and is that a true expression of ourselves? Does it express all we have in, out there in the court/community – or do we more to unpack? Who do we really want to be and what do we really want to create? What is our will to win (our real why/purpose for doing this)?
- Forget about the next match/tournament/3-5 year strategy… how we will we play this point? What is our next action/conversation/shot?
- Building a gameplan/strategy: what do we want to make happen? What do we want to prevent from happening?
“It’s no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and it’s all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point. It reminds me of the way seconds become minutes become hours, and any hour can be our finest. Or darkest. It’s our choice.”
― Andre Agassi, Open
“Neither look forward where there is doubt nor backward where there is regret. Look inward and ask not if there is anything outside you want, but whether there is anything inside that you have not yet unpacked.”
― Quentin Crisp
“Who is hitting the ball? Is it one shot (my shot and their shot) or an exchange? Who is doing the action? Who is doing the learning? Who gets the credit? Am I willing to get out of my own way? How much control am I willing to surrender to a superior center of control within me? Who do I choose to be?
[…] The flight of the ball can be taken as a metaphor for life. Events come towards us, we respond, and then the events leave us, bearing the mark of our response. I see the dartboard; I throw the dart; I see where it lands. I see and hear a person talking to me; I respond; I watch and listen to the answer. I see a problem; I take action; I observe the results of my action. The clarity with which we see, hear and feel is crucial.”
[…] The more we think about what we are doing, the more we lose the feel of it. Every athlete knows that when s/he loses the feel of what s/he’s doing, s/he’s in trouble.”
– Timothy Gallwey