The Value of Vivid Descriptions

By -
When I was learning to write BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) I was told to make “vivid descriptions” of the desired outcomes. When I learned to write Wholly Formed Outcomes I was also told to write about what I wanted to achieve “in sensory terms”. Someday somebody could explain to me the difference between vivid descriptions and sensory descriptions. For now I can see their similarity: they both mean describing what I want to achieve in a way that I can see, feel, hear or touch.

I find that when I ask people to describe “what they want to see” within a planning period, they respond in two ways. Some respond in abstractions, such as “I want financial independence.” Others describe specific, observable (and measurable) conditions - “I have 25,000.00 US dollars in the bank and zero debts.”

When I ask the guys who give the abstract answers exactly what they mean, some of them think for a while, others take only a second - and they all explain what they mean in sensory terms. It seems behind every abstraction is a more specific idea of how it can be manifested in reality.

Somebody said everything is created twice - once in the mind, second in reality. Imagining the desired outcome as something one can see, hear, touch, or feel allows us to create a picture, scene, smell, emotional or physical feeling in our minds. 

The first effect of that mental image is that it brings us to a positive state - it encourages us, reminds us that there is something in our future that we expect to see and be happy about, even lifts us up during hard times. A positive state always helps us to think better and make better decisions - which bring us closer to our desired outcomes.

The second effect is that it helps us to churn - to think about whether what we are doing is actually working, having the desired effects. When they are, we keep on doing those things. When they are not, we look for other ways to move forward.


Bottom line, vivid descriptions (or sensory-based descriptions) help us to see what is not yet reality - and to hang on to these desires, objectives, plans or beliefs as we move towards making them real. Sounds so much like faith, come to think of it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Orientation in OODA - Discerning Opportunites to Improve the DENR Business Model for Titling Services

By -
O rientation is basically analysis and synthesis of Observations in the light of new information and previous experiences (Boyd says Orientation is also influenced by one’s genetic heritage and cultural traditions).  Each person Orients himself in a different way – consider a game of chess, where both players observe exactly the same pieces on the same squares, but see different opportunities and threats. When we looked at DENR’s old business model for issuance of titles, we observed several things. First, with regards to Customers, it was noted that prior to RA 10023 the only two ways Residents got their titles were to either buy it from the State (through a Miscellaneous Sales Agreement) or go through the judicial process. Both could be costly; the latter could take a long time. RA 10023 provided a great opportunity to speed up titling for Residents. DENR’s Value Proposition is uncontested – it is indeed the authority for public land titling and it does have the m...
Read more

Towards a Development Entrepreneurship Community of Practice

By -
Image
A fter three workshops on Development Entrepreneurship (held in Quezon City, Davao, and Cebu City), we have gathered plenty of feedback from participants, and so there's much to think about. There are practical ideas for improving the workshop, like spending more time for introductions and small-group work, samples of filled-up Tools, guide questions for writing the Theory of Change, etc. Our participants included development professionals, some funders, and members of the academe.  There's been much discussion about how funders can support the DE approach given their traditional desire for certainty, which they try to enforce with deliverables and timetables.  This reflects the dialogue that's going on with the global development community, as all actors find their footing with adaptive development strategies. Two questions from participants that resonate with me are a) will the DE approach still be useful if policy is not the problem?, and b) can the DE a...
Read more

Picking a Development Reform Agenda through Service Analysis

By -
T he Business Dictionary (http://www.businessdictionary.com) defines a Service as “A valuable action, deed, or effort performed to satisfy a need or to fulfill a demand”.  Social, economic and political institutions were established to perform actions to satisfy needs; in other words, to provide services. Failure to provide services effectively leads to undesired conditions (e.g., malnutrition, inefficient industries, low rate of land titling) which attract the attention of Development Reformists. It does not take much for a Development Reformists to know that something is broken somewhere, and needs to be fixed. It takes much effort to find out exactly what is broken, how it is broken, and how it can be fixed. The answers to these questions comprise a set of possible Development Reform agendas, which can be filtered further by the twin lenses of technical soundness and political feasibility. Is there a systematic way to generate ideas for reform? This blog suggests that s...
Read more