Together With Britney And Hogarth On The Road To Abilene.

 

Life has very cool moments.

When you are presenting at a seminar you might wear a head set. You know, a microphone strapped to your head. And of course, at such moments, you feel like Britney. As in "Spears".  Wearing a headset entitles you to do a Britney. Finger in one ear, sing loud and out of key, having all the right moves. Sliiiiiiiiide to the left. Sliiiiiiide to the right.

If you don't feel like Britney, you're not allowed to wear the headset. If you don't feel like a princess, you can't have the pink tiara.

So. I am watching a presentation by some guy about some boring topic. He enters the stage and he's wearing a headset. I am waiting for the finger in his ear. Nope. Song? Nada. Slide? No way.

No Britney.

In my mind there is actually forming this sentence. Seriously. I hear myself saying to my other imaginary self…

"No Britney. What a loser."

Since last year I have a new inhabitant of my brain. Hogarth.

An 800-pound gorilla that I see sitting around offices. I have to thank Joel Bancrof-Conners for that.

"“Oh, right! Meet  Hogarth. He’s sitting down the table, wedged between the QA director and the product manager, quietly reading his newspaper and ignoring everyone else. It’s a bit of tight fit, but what do you expect from an 800 pound gorilla?”

Joel took a gorilla instead of the elephant that is normally used in the phrase “the elephant in the room”. It represents the topics every body knows are there, but aren't talked about.

"Hey, Hogarth. Wasn't expecting to see you here!"

Seriously. You'll start to see Hogarth drinking coffee. It's ridiculous.

Ever been to Abilene?

I see big signs with "Abilene 100 miles" on them.

Sometimes a member of a group ends up doing something that he doesn't want to be doing, but does it anyway to please the others in the group. When all members in a group do this, when all members do something that they think will please the others, but in reality nobody wants to, they are on the road to Abilene.

This is named after an anecdote management expert Jerry Harvey uses, to illustrate this phenomenon, which he called The Abilene Paradox. The story is about a family that ends up driving on a hot day to Abilene. Nobody wanted to go there. But they all thought they would do the others a favor.

Sometimes, seeing teams operate, my internal dialog goes …

"Yep. That truck is going to Abilene."

And don't get me started on Shrinkonia!

Unlike Abilene, you really want to go there.

I did even become Emperor of Shrinkonia.

I realized I needed a different language for writing about projects. I realized I needed embarrassing drawings to express my thoughts on projects. I know projects are about humans. But how can I talk about people stuff when the tools I have to communicate with are technocratic, cold and impersonal?

That's how my mind invented Shrinkonia.

I turned 40, started drawing and became emperor of my own imaginary state. Go figure.

Shrinkonia: a place where project teams find connection and flow, so they can create amazing things together. It’s located all over the world. And mobile. So it moves around. And people come and go. They move to Shrinkonia fluently and leave as they have done their thing. Also home of The Project Shrink. And MacGuyver. Although. They do not really live together.

Life truly has cool moments.
 

Bas de Baar is a writer who draws about people in transition. He loves to make visual maps and travel guides for the collaborators of our brave new world.