What’s on the other side?
The last few years of Zoom has made us all more aware of our workspaces, and even has us sometimes “fake” the background of the space we are working in. We know there is often an unseen, other side to the spaces we meet in virtually.
My own Zoom background is books – lots of real books on real bookshelves. That means that any client or workshop participant sees a key part of my working space – it is my study, my office, my teaching space.
However, for the last few years there is also an “other side” to my space - the side you cannot see when I am coaching or teaching. This other side contains my weaving studio. This means a wall of colorful yarns, and a large wooden easel on which I place my frame looms.
For a few years my weaving activities and supplies floated through the house, and I really wrestled with whether I should move it into my “workspace”. It felt like doing this would somehow dilute the work side of the space. The pandemic was the push to make the move into the office – made necessary by what we jokingly call the “Ouma and Oupa daycare” we ran on and off for our two little grandsons. While they are enthusiastic about yarn play – and the oldest even weaves – there are definite advantages to have the bulk of my supplies and works in progress a bit more out of the way!
What was a surprise – which in hindsight should not have been so – is how right it felt to have my weaving and my working space be one and the same.
Creativity practices have always been part of my thinking and design practice. Markers, oils pastels, and paper are always on the side of my desk, and doodling and drawing as a way of thinking is deeply familiar. Having my weaving in my office bought another aspect to this that enriched my working time. There is often a meditative quality to weaving, and having the loom right there means I can get up when stuck or tired, and weave for 10 or 15 minutes. And as I wrestle with problems in the weaving, the mind wanders and often new ideas, insights or perspectives about a work question emerged from that. This integration of art and work in my physical space made real in a deeper way something I have always practiced.
The experience with having my weaving share my working space made it easier to also bring my fledgling painting practice into that same space in the last few months. I am more aware than ever that the way we arrange ourselves and our things in space have real impact. Yes, physically the space is getting smaller and tighter and requires organizational discipline (not my strong suite!) However, the expansion of the imaginative and creative space this arrangement brings my is both invaluable and enjoyable.
What’s on your “other side”? How does that other side stimulate your imagination, enrich you, help you recalibrate in the midst of stress, soothe you? What might emerge if you bring the “other side” closer – metaphorically or literally – to the work side? How might this serve to enrich your imagination on a daily basis? How might this enhance the quality of your thinking and problem solving? How might that look practically speaking?
As the challenge of making sense and seeing positive possibilities place ever greater demands on leaders, it is important to bring more and more of ourselves to the task, and to ensure that we create rich spaces for our imagination to flourish and grow. Every leader I have worked with has an “other side” – or many. However, it often takes some coaching to see how those “other sides” can inform and enrich their leadership. My challenge to you then is to see how and where you can bring one (or more of your “other side” into the space where you do your thinking and problem solving and imagining of possibilities.
