Organisational development - a bit like Calvinball?

Yesterday's post from Wendy Wickham (as you may see from my comment) got me to thinking.

Things change so fast at the moment, we can never be sure that anything is going to happen in exactly the same way twice running. While it may be tempting to say that this is like a game of (insert sport of choice here), the major difference is that, by and large, in sports the ground rules remain the same. And when they do change, there's a bit of a fanfare. The new rules are distributed to all clubs and associations. All refs/umpires have to bone up on them in order to be able to manage a game.

If we had to have that kind of fanfare every time things change in the environments for which we are designing learning and performance support resources, the poor trumpeter would never get a chance to draw breath!

While we're in the process of dealing with the rollout of a new system over here, HR comes out with a new requirement, based on the latest directive from the government. While we're busy making sure everybody knows how to comply with the new HR issue, the new system has to be tweaked and a new procedure introduced to deal with that tweak, so... You get the picture.

If you are a Calvin & Hobbes fan, you are no doubt familiar with Calvinball. If you are not familiar with this cartoon, it's high time you addressed this major hole in your life!

I would have said that it was impossible to list the rules of Calvinball, but someone has decided to give it a go, apparently with Bill Watterson's help and/or approval. I would like to suggest that the most important rule of the game can be found at 1.9. In fact, the whole game hinges on this one thing: the only permanent rule is that Calvinball can never be played the same way twice. It is also very important to note the caveat at the bottom of the list: This rulebook is not required, nor necessary to play Calvinball.

A bit like life, then.

There have been times when Watterson's insight has taken my breath away. Then there are other times when I take something he says in one place and apply it in another. I'd be hard pressed to say which this is.

One thing worth noting is the role of Rosalyn, Calvin's intrepid babysitter. She is the only one brave enough to take on the job more than once. She needs the money and Calvin's parents need an occasional break. The relationship between Calvin and Rosalyn is one of mutual loathing - not an approach I am recommending between learning professionals and the people we support! However, one evening, she agrees to play Calvinball with her young charge. After a moment, she figures out the lie of the land and they have a whale of a time together. She even manages to use the non-rules of the game to get Calvin to go to bed at decent hour!

Perhaps this is where we are going wrong. Instead of trying to impose control all over the place and redraft yet another set of rules whenever there's a change, perhaps we need to learn to go with the flow, making only occasional use of whatever our particular equivalent of the babysitter flag turns out to be.

After all, tomorrow it might all be different again.

Wheeeeee!