Feeling into Experience
If there is one thing I have long-since known, it is you cannot know the future.
So, when I read the book Edgewalkers; People and Organizations that Take Risks, Build Bridges and Break New Ground and saw Dr. Judi Neal had named Sensing the Future as one of the five Edgewalker Skills, I was immediately drawn to the conversation.
I started questioning – is sensing the same as intuition?
As I pondered the notion, Sensing the Future began to speak into the many X factors that could make a huge difference to amplifying theCustomer Experience (CX) in the digital space (DX).
Here is a definition of the X factor: an unknown or unexplained quality that has a strong but unpredictable influence which makes someone or something more interesting or valuable.
This definition further piqued my interest as I have always found Intuition to be so subtle that it’s very difficult to explain.
Here’s where I landed:
- I concur that Sensing the Future does stir my sixth sense of intuition into play to power-up the five ‘sense intelligences’- hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, tasting. When I combo the embodied knowing from intuition with what I perceive I know, I notice how my ability to move forward becomes more ‘graceful’.
- Sensing the Future speaks to both creative and logical sides of me. It reminds that you don’t know what you don’t know, and you don’t know the future until it is has moved through being present, to become the past.
- Sensing the Future offers me comfort as I give myself permission to stay present and vision what could be next, but not to labour onor yearn for the future now.
But what is the difference and/or relationship between knowing and sensing?
In reference, the author Mark Neposuggests it is common to confuse plans with planning, dreams with dreaming, and love with loving.
Mark also shares that every book he has written has been discovered on the way to an unplanned destination.
This sparks a smile, as my legacy career has me ‘labelled’ a marketing strategist. This means I must know where we are headed, or at least have the ability to locate it, right?
Indeed, my 30-year-old company, Strategic Solutions bears the responsibility of its name in a (business) world I now know to be more fun, much more real, and much less worrying in un-strategic surrender. This is especially the case as we navigate the unknown path to AC (after corona).
I am not mooting the absence of the age-old stalwarts of the Strategic Plan – Vision, Mission, Objectives. Rather, I am appreciating an exchange of vocabulary to ignite a ‘different felt shift’ or movement. I have found that using an alternative word can give a re-newed experience – to myself, the team, the client, the customer, the marketplace, the reader, the community, and some.
Try these vocabulary exchanges for size, fit and shift into the X :
- Vision becomes Reality which becomes New Reality which becomes…
- Mission becomes Purpose which becomes Reason…
- Objective becomes Intention which becomes Sense…
The best part is you get to choose the ‘vocabulary energetic’ that works for you and your Sense of the Future, or perhaps it is your Sense of a New Reality.
Here’s some more practise points in locating the subtle but powerful X factor contained in vocabulary as we make ‘quantum leaps’, or small but significant steps from here to there :
- Timeline becomes Pulse which becomes Rhythm…
- Strategy becomes Methodwhich becomes Recipe…
- Tactics become Tasks which become Rituals…
According to Dr. Neal, the Edgewalker definition of Sensing the Future is ‘the ability to understand and embrace (what is ahead).
Let’s take the last bit first.
Embracing the future is an ability we all have, as each breath automatically carries us forward.
If we sense that the experience (X) will be good, then it is more likely that both the ability and the quantum leap will be enjoyable.
However, it may not be an ability we recognise or enjoy when what lies ahead appears troublesome, uncomfortable, and even disruptive,
I wonder is this because the future is always just ahead of the point of arrival, and we don’t want to arrive at the unknown?
As I ponder, I am aware that understanding the future, especially one we don’t know, is where turmoil can kick right in. Enter the Hearthtender and Guardian, two of the five Edgewalker Archetypes of Change.
The Hearthtender – or Heart-Tender as I also like to call this orientation – looks kindly at me and says:‘Find truth in observation, not opinion….’.
This is para-phrased from Anthony De Mello, and I take this to mean ‘embodied observation by listening to the intuitive heart first, before asking my head’.
The Guardianorientationthen steps forth and looks me squarely in my knowing eyes and states:’It will be alright in the end, and if it is not alright, it’s not the end….’.
I chuckle.
That appeals to my sense of play, as well as my feel for the future, as tomorrow shows up, right here and now.
In summary, intuition or sensing the future, along with appreciating that words matter are is two of many subtle, smart X factors that can help transform Customer Experience in the Digital era.