The Giant Leap No One's Made (Yet)

Thousands of people have been trained in Clean Language. They love it. They see how it fits their values. It works for them: they get better information from people; the people find their own clarity, insight and motivation; they feel heard and understood; everything’s much less stressful.

Then they go back to their workplaces and... then what? How does Clean go from 'a useful technique' to 'the core of how we operate'? From individual small steps to an organisational giant leap?

As far as I know, no organisation has fully made that leap yet - but several want to do so.

Future posts will look at the nuts and bolts of how to make it happen.

But first - and congruently with Clean - let’s explore our Desired Outcome. How will we know when we get there?

Photo by Good Free Photos on Unsplash

I’d love to just go with Mike Burrows’ True North (from his Clean-inspired Agendashift process): Everyone able to work consistently at their ideal best:

• Individuals, teams, between teams, across the organisation and beyond

• Right conversations, right people, best possible moment

• Needs anticipated, met at just the right time

… and, I think that might be a little bit optimistic - and maybe a little vague.

So, when an organisation is operating from Clean Principles, what, specifically, might we see and hear? Here’s what I’m thinking:

1. Information Flow

• People reflecting language back, especially when things are difficult - using someone’s actual words rather than paraphrasing

• Questions inviting people to attend to their own experience: “What do you notice?” “What’s important to you about that?” “What kind of X?”

• Checking understanding before responding, especially in disagreement

• Listening as skill and practice - not just something that happens, but something consciously developed

• People distinguishing between what happened and their interpretation of it

• Requests for specificity and examples: “What will you see or hear?”

• People going directly to source rather than assumptions or secondhand stories

2. Problem-solving/Decision-making

• People expressing wants rather than don’t-wants - “I would like X” rather than “I don’t want Y”

• People make things explicit (for example, who decides) and are willing to clarify and answer questions about process as well as content

• Constraint inspires creativity - limitations seen as generative, not just restrictive

• Exploration happening before solution-jumping

• Multiple perspectives actively sought before deciding

• Minimal advice-giving: “What needs to happen for...?” rather than “You should...”

• People owning their decisions rather than deferring upward

• Solutions emerging from people closest to the problem

3. Relationships/Conflict

• Disagreement normal and expected

• In disagreement, checking understanding first, curiosity about difference

• Pausing and turn-taking - discipline around who speaks when

• Reflecting language back especially when things get heated

• People able to change their minds without losing face

• Less gossip, less triangulation

• Conflicts resolved between the people involved, not escalated

4. Innovation/Adaptation/Learning

• Emergence from actually hearing - new possibilities arising from genuine listening, not predetermined

• Conscious metaphor choices in organisational language - awareness of how language shapes thinking

• Permission to experiment and learn from failure

• “Let’s try it and see” as normal practice

• New practices spreading organically rather than by mandate

• Ideas emerging from conversation rather than top-down

• “What did we learn?” after things go wrong

This is my current thinking - and very much a work in progress.

I’d love to know: What am I missing? What would you add, remove, or refine? What observable signs of Clean Principles in action have you noticed - or would you want to see?

In future posts, I’ll look at the practical questions involved in making this shift. Where do you start? What gets in the way? And what does leadership look like in an organisation operating from these principles?

For now, I’m curious about your experience. What resonates? What doesn’t? Please comment!