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KEYNOTE - THE MESSY MIDDLE
BY DAVID CAIN, SENIOR ADVISOR, COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
On Thursday during our annual conference, we had the opportunity to hear again from the human spark plug, Rebecca Ryan describing the “Messy Middle”. Below are parts of her blogs that she wrote recently on this very topic along with the concept of “Oxen don’t pivot”. In this Year of the Ox, we are in the “messy - between the old REBECCA RYAN middle” and expiring ways and the new and emerging ways. This is a time when we don’t have answers. Instead, we need great questions that can penetrate to the core of the issues and see afresh what’s before us. THURSDAY’S KEYNOTE SPEAKER
2021 CSMFO CONFERENCE | ANNUAL CONFERENCE MAGAZINE
There was a lot of good energy coming into 2021 fueled by a new year, new vaccines, and high hopes for an end to quarantine. I read a lot about the need to pivot. Let’s slow-think this. “Pivot” means making a sharp turn from one direction to another.
When you hear “pivot” today, do you get the sense that leaders have a playbook, know where they’re headed, or have a vision of what “winning” looks like? I don’t. At a recent conference I asked the following question: Is your team more focused on the sidewalk (near-term) or the horizon (longer-term)? Twenty-to-one (roughly), attendees said “Sidewalk.” That mirrors nearly every conversation I’ve had since the start of the year. No one knows where they’re going. They’re just trying to muddle through. Or worse, they’re trying to get “back” to a broken future. These are not the conditions in which to pivot. If you pivot while looking down at the sidewalk you may lose your balance or hurt yourself. 2021 is not the year to pivot. We’ve already made the pivot. Covid-19 forced us to pivot from schools and offices to homes and Zoom. The Pandemic Wall was making us pivot: to reach deeper than we ever have for resources we never realized. We have lost so much and there’s no going back. We have already pivoted. So, if 2021 is not the year to “pivot”, what are we going to do?
In my pro basketball days (that’s me in the photo above with the red circle around my head), I was a master pivoter. On offense, I would pivot to throw my opponent off-balance and create opportunities for myself or teammates to score. Pivoting on offense was part of a well-practiced and intentional set of plays designed to win ballgames.
