Greetings!
A couple of weeks ago, Kathy and I visited
the Koshland Science Museum here in
Washington, DC. We've gone to a lot of
museums. She looks at paintings, bones, or
rockets. And I look at paintings, bones, or
rockets. For the most part, we tend to have
parallel and separate experiences. Then, over
coffee, we talk about it.
Our experience at Koshland was quite
different. The exhibits not only engaged the
individual, but also begged for conversation
right then! For example, in the exhibit on
infectious diseases, you could choose options
for eradicating malaria and then see how
effective that approach would be. We both
were surprised by the dismal results of some
approaches. So then, we started to mix and
match - try things out -- to see what the
most effective approach might be. We got
curious and talked about why one approach was
so much better than another.
Contrast that experience to most
presentations announcing the need for change
in an organization. Although the intent is to
get people excited and engaged, most are
talking-head snoozefests with a seemingly
endless number of PowerPoint slides. There is
nothing to get excited about. . . sink your
teeth into. . . debate. . .or explore. They
are as lifeless as the bones in a
paleontology exhibit.
We could learn a lot from good museums. Think
of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. It is
a veritable playground that entices people to
try things out to see what happens. Imagine
if we tried to engage people in ways that
invited exploration. (I think some
participatory change processes like large
systems change events come close, but they
too often miss the "Wow, that's so cool!"
magic of a great museum exhibit.)
If you have thoughts about this - and
especially ideas that you've seen that meet
the "wow" test, please add a comment to my blog.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Rick Maurer
Maurer & Associates
phone:
703-525-7074
