What’s up by Alessandra Cianchettini

A few days ago, while attending an Aikido practice, I listened to a phrase from the Master that made me think: “help her by putting her in trouble” he said, addressing two guys who were practising in the attack and defence roles.

Thinking of my work with people in organizations, I found this sentence very meaningful. Facilitating the achievement of a goal does not mean making things simpler but making them possible. Creating the conditions for people to experience new paths that lead them to express their potential and evolve, does not mean making the journey easier. Indeed, often highlighting obstacles or difficulties is part of the value we deliver to organizations because evolution passes through the desire and ability of individuals and the whole system to question themselves. Although this is difficult.

The answer to the difficulties of the system as a living organism is what the physiology of training calls “super-compensation”, the adaptation of the body following a training stimulus. For example, to increase the capacity of a marathon runner, the workload is raised by gradually increasing the distance to be covered so that each time it is a little more difficult to reach the goal. This triggers a mechanism to which, day after day, the body adapts, improving itself, to the benefit of the performance.

Bringing this concept back to my experience within organizations, I believe that disturbing the balance of a system, sometimes triggering a real revolution, has the great value of making it difficult to generate change.

Difficulty is a precious tool to cultivate and not an obstacle to get around. This change of perspective is, as always, up to us!

This article was first published in our Cocooners N° 6