Ten Days Into my 365 Photos Project

Toward the end of last year, I started contemplating doing a photo-a-day project. It’s exactly what it sounds like: Take a photo a day, and publish it, preferably on the same day. I pretty much decided that I already had too many commitments in 2015 and that I wanted to cut back, but I just couldn’t bear to scrap the idea entirely.

Then, on New Year’s Day, I woke up, and saw this nice light pattern on my wall, which I caught on camera. Then I decided, “Screw it. I’m going to post this as Day 1, and see how far I get. If I end up giving up, no harm done.”

So I posted it. Ten days later, I’m still doing it. (You can follow my project on Flickr.) I felt ready to give up on both Day 2 and Day 3, but I didn’t. Instead, I got clearer about what I was trying to accomplish, and why.

I decided that my main goals were to document my life and to practice. If I had to choose between posting a mediocre photo that told a more accurate story of my day versus a gorgeous photo that was largely irrelevant, I would go with the mediocre photo.

This immediately raised several problems, the main one being that I don’t lead a very glamorous life. I’m usually indoors in front of my computer or in a meeting. I decided to take this on as a challenge. It would force me to exercise my storytelling muscles in a more creative way. At worst, it would encourage me to get out more — a very nice side effect.

Another problem was that I didn’t always have a camera with me. This was surprising, given that I feel like I’m always carrying my camera around these days. But within the first few days of the New Year, I found myself missing out on what I thought were good opportunities. I have a smartphone, but I don’t like its camera. Yeah, yeah, I know that the best camera is the one you have on you, but I was having trouble getting over this.

By Day 7, I had to confront this problem head on. I knew I was going to have court-side access during the pre-game warmup at the Warriors game, so I brought my camera and long lens, expecting to take some cool pictures of the players. But the arena wouldn’t let me bring my camera in, because the lens was too big.

I was disgruntled, but I knew I had to get a picture, so I got this one of my friends with my phone. And I love it. It’s technically unremarkable, but it means something to me personally. Maybe I would have taken a better one of the same subject with my good camera and lens, but maybe not. Constraints are good.

The last problem was that I had to get over myself. This could take an enormous amount of time if I let it. I’m not a professional photographer, and I’m not trying to be. I want to get better, but I have a bunch of other things going on in my life. I need to be okay with improving at a realistic pace.

When I started taking photography more seriously, I started getting more self-critical. This improved my photographic eye, but it also prevented me from putting myself out there as much. One of the reasons for my improvement these past two years is that I simply share less. That’s legitimate — curation is a huge part of photography — but I could probably improve even faster by putting myself out there more, even if that means exposing inferior work.

Furthermore, taking good photos requires a lot more concentration. Sometimes, I find myself giving up on taking pictures entirely, because I just want to focus on whatever it is that I’m doing, and I know that any photos I end up taking will be mediocre as a result. If you look at my meeting pictures over the past two years, you can gauge the level of my involvement in the meeting based on the quality of the pictures. When I was facilitating, the pictures ended up being mediocre (or sometimes nonexistent), because I was devoting 100 percent of my concentration to my job at hand.

I’m trying to manage my standards and just publish something once a day, focusing on the benefits of practice rather than worrying about my self-critic. I’m enjoying it! I’ve already started to notice key opportunities for improvement, and I’m looking forward to being able to see that improvement over time rather than worrying about not being there yet.

Most of all, I love having a journal of my life. I was never able to keep a daily written journal, even when constraining myself to bullet points. But a picture journal seems easier and a lot more gratifying, and it’s amazing how a single picture can trigger a lot of memories.

It’s also an incredible way to recognize life patterns. This past week, you can see that I was around lots of people, which was great, but not typical. Next week will be similar, but the week after, I’ll start bearing down. I’m curious to see what new patterns emerge and how this feedback mechanism changes my behavior (hopefully for the better).

Learners and Teachers

In his Foreword to Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art, Michael Chabon writes:

It is the way of confidence men and tricksters to sell you what you already own; but a great writer, in so doing, always finds a way to enrich you by the game.

The same applies to great teachers, too. Pondering this as I think fondly and appreciatively about one of my great teachers.

Thanks to Neil Kandalgaonkar for recommending this book.

Five Lessons on the Craft of Collaboration from Photography

As a collaboration practitioner exploring a new path, the best thing I did this past year was to take up photography. That’s right, photography. I did it because I wanted to do something creative that had nothing to do with my professional life. Not only did it bring me tremendous joy, it unexpectedly made me better at my professional craft. When I left Groupaya one year ago, I felt like I was at the top of my game. I didn’t do any work this past year that resembled any of my work the previous ten. Yet somehow, my skills are significantly better now than they were a year ago.

Rest, reflection, and new directions clearly had something to do with that, but photography took my game to the next level. It reminded me of the importance of craft and what it feels like to be at the earliest stages of one’s learning journey. It got my creative juices flowing, which had ramifications in everything that I did.

Earlier this year, I shared eight lessons I learned about facilitation from photography. Now, I want to share five things I learned about the craft of collaboration from photography.

1. Framing is everything.

In March, I went on a photo walk with my friend, Eugene Chan. I marveled at how he saw and captured things that I completely missed, even though we were in the same place. It was all there in front of me. I was just looking at different things.

At the end of the day, photography is about drawing a tiny rectangle around something you see. Good photographers understand what elements make up good pictures (e.g. light, lines, textures, colors). They gravitate toward those elements, but there are still infinite possible ways to look at the same darn thing.

So much of the craft of collaboration is about getting people to understand each other’s frame, then finding a collective frame that works. It starts with honest-to-goodness listening, something that we so often pay lip service to, but rarely actually do, much less do well.

It continues by exploring the “right” questions together. So often, the “right” first questions are, “What are you trying to accomplish, and why?” It’s amazing how catalytic these questions can be, and yet how often people forget to ask them to each other or even themselves.

(It’s no coincidence that the practices of listening and asking generative questions are at the heart of Changemaker Bootcamp.)

2. Craft takes work.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway this year was how much work goes into getting a good shot. In April, I took my very first photography course from Lauren Crew, who is an absolute superstar. One of our assignments was to photograph fear.

If I could have taken a self-portrait upon hearing this assignment, my work would have been done. I was intimidated and stumped. However, rather than succumb to paralysis, I decided to just do the work, with great guidance from Lauren and lots of inspiration from my classmates. I journaled, and I riffed. I came up with silly concepts, and I went with them to see where they would lead me.

Every step that I took led to new insights and ideas. Even when I finally had concepts that I liked, the final product often ended up being very different from the original concept. The above photograph was probably my simplest and best from the class, but it was the product of several hours of playing, reflecting, and refining.

Craft is a process. So much of collaborating effectively seems improvisational, but people forget that you get good at improvising through practice. Practice is an exercise in frustration, little victories, and lots of patience.

Toward the end of my tenure as a collaboration consultant, I started forgetting this. I was expecting outcomes — both from myself and others — without being realistic about the process. Ironically, my reputation was built on helping clients avoid this exact trap. The world is rife with magical thinking about collaboration. “Add just the right amount of pixie dust, and voila, you have a high-performance team!” That’s not how it works. Collaborating effectively takes work, and it’s not always pretty in process. You have to expect and design for this if you want to be successful.

How do you do that? First, set goals that are realistic. With my photography, I’ve stopped expecting that, with “just one more month of practice,” I’ll be shooting like Gary Winogrand. Instead, I’m setting targets that I can actually achieve in timespans that are realistic.

Similarly, with my collaboration practices, I’ve always placed a huge emphasis on getting clear on goals. This past year, I’ve shifted the way I set goals to defining a spectrum, and I gut check these by exploring failure scenarios. These are all things I’ve done in the past, but I’ve systematized these practices so that they’ve become habits.

3. Seek feedback.

This past August, Lauren had a showing, and I took a few friends to go see it. At the show, I asked my friends, “Which pictures do you like? Why?” Neither of my friends are photography enthusiasts, but both of them shared great insights. We didn’t always agree, but it all helped me get clearer about what worked and why. Most of all, it was just fun. As we were leaving, one of my friends exclaimed, “I’ve never really talked about photography this way before. I like it!”

That conversation was like a mini-version of Lauren’s class, where we would spend three hours (often longer) giving each other feedback. Lauren’s class was simply a manifestation of what photographers all around the world do. Seeking feedback is the cultural norm, not the exception, and there are structures in place to support and reinforce that culture.

This is almost universally true with mature crafts. Writers have writers’ workshops. Musicians have master classes. Collaboration practitioners have… what?

It’s incredible to me how rare real, honest-to-goodness feedback is in business. It’s not part of our broader culture, and the only thing that resembles a structure that supports this is the annual review, which is primitive structure at best. If we truly value improvement, we need those structures so that we may start shifting our field’s culture. This was a huge part of my motivation in starting Changemaker Bootcamp.

4. Track your progress.

In team settings, I’ve always been good at establishing a culture of feedback. I’ve been less good at tracking progress. If you’re not doing both, then the cycle of feedback can feel like a hamster wheel or, worse, a wheel of negativity.

The beauty of being a beginner at something is that progress feels more tangible. I can point to a long list of things I do with my camera now that I wasn’t doing a year or even three months ago. The beauty of photography in particular is that your pictures serve as a way of tracking your progress. By simply reviewing my pictures over the past year, I can see the progress I’ve made in a very visceral way.

In order to capture the picture above, I used a telephoto lens rather than a wide angle in order to compress the background and get that beautiful layered effect. I increased my shutter speed in order to get more contrast and highlight the sun’s rays. Perhaps the most skillful decision I made was to focus on this particular tiny rectangle of a much larger, equally breathtaking view. I made all of these decisions in a matter of seconds. I would not have been able to do that a year ago.

There are two components to tracking your progress successfully. The first is simply taking the time for reflection. Most people skip this step to their detriment. The second is to come up with good indicators. This is really hard, especially when it comes to something as broad and as soft as collaboration, but it’s necessary if you truly want to improve.

I find that many high achievers are incredibly hard on themselves. I don’t mind this. High standards make for better work. The flip side of that is that you also have to be honest with yourself about acknowledging progress and success as well. I’m not talking about self-compassion here, although I believe in that also. I’m talking about self-honesty. Without tracking, it can feel like you’re never making any progress, when the truth might be the exact opposite.

5. Enjoy the ride!

I’ve been practicing all of these things in both my photography and my work. I recognize the importance of framing. I’ve acknowledged the work that’s required for my respective crafts, and I’ve established realistic expectations and goals. I constantly seek feedback, and I’m tracking my progress. I’m doing all of these things, and yet I still sometimes feel impatient or frustrated. If I’m not careful, I risk falling into a cycle of negativity.

Photography provides this wonderful safety net. The very act of capturing a moment is truly magical and delightful. Looking at my pictures from this past year always brings a smile to my face. I’m so fortunate to have experienced so much beauty and so many wonderful moments with people I care about, and the fact that I’m able to capture any aspect of that is truly a gift. Moreover, it’s a gift that I can share, which makes it even more gratifying.

In my own professional life, I’m seeking ways to have a bigger impact. Part of that is about getting better at my craft. Part of that is about being more strategic in when, where, and how I apply it. I’m happy to be doing this. It’s what I need to be doing.

But at the end of the day, when I’m in the moment of creation, when I’m watching my craft bring groups alive, regardless of who’s in the groups or what they’re doing, I feel a lot of joy. I love doing this work, and the fact that it is inherently social means that I get to share my experiences with others. Regardless of my larger goals, photography has reminded me that it’s a gift to get to do this kind of work. I’m grateful for that reminder.

Changemakers, Want to Learn With Me?

I’ve learned an incredible amount over the past decade helping changemakers work more collaboratively and skillfully. (If you don’t know me or are not a regular reader of this blog, you can read up on my background.)

It was a fulfilling, but difficult path, and I’d love to find ways to make it easier and safer for others who are similarly motivated and with similar values. This was a big motivation for founding Groupaya, and I loved every chance I had to do it.

Even though I’ve left, I’m still fortunate to have great people requesting my help. I say no to most requests, but if the project is small or informal enough, I’ll occasionally say yes. I’ve been using these projects as opportunities to give associates real-life opportunities to practice, with me at their side giving guidance along the way.

I’d like to do a lot more of this. I’m curious if there are other changemakers out there in the world (or who at least read my blog) who would be interested in working and learning with me on small-scale (for now), real-life practice opportunities.

Here’s what I’m looking for:

  • Living in San Francisco. If you’re not here, I still want to know you, but right now, I want to focus my energy on people who are local.
  • Passion. If you’re in it for consulting leads, go elsewhere. If you’re in it because you’re passionate about changing the world, about activating the potential of groups, both large and small, and about learning, then I want to know you.
  • Beginner’s mind. This is the big one. I want people who are anxious to learn at all costs and who aren’t too high-falutin’ to get their hands dirty. (Literally, in some cases.) Motivation and attitude are far more important than experience. Definitely don’t flash your OD / OB / OL degrees or your facilitation certifications or your daily consulting rate at me. I don’t care, and it will likely bias me against you.

You don’t have to be a consultant, aspiring or practicing. In fact, I’m particularly interested in working with changemakers embedded in organizations.

Interested? Drop me an email (eekim-at-eekim-dot-com) or leave me a comment below. And please share this with others who might be interested!

Technique, Practice, and Craft

Last week, Sports Illustrated published an article about Georgetown’s basketball program and its coach, John Thompson III. Georgetown has a long tradition of producing skilled big men, starting with Thompson’s father in the 1970s and 1980s. And while Thompson has continued that tradition, he’s gained a reputation for something different:

Much has been made about the Princeton-style offense that Georgetown runs under Thompson, about how difficult it is to defend and prepare for. But what is unique about Georgetown’s system has little to do with anything that is written in a playbook. Everything the Hoyas do offensively is based on reading the defense and reacting to those reads. Most systems involve a player being told something along the lines of: cut here, run off of that screen there, set a pick for him and roll to the basket, lather, rinse, repeat.

Georgetown’s theory is different.

Thompson doesn’t tell his team what to do on any given play. He doesn’t give them specific instructions, rather he teaches them, from the day they set foot on campus, how to make that decision for themselves based off of what they see on the floor in front of them. In his words, “the ability to just be a basketball player is something that we stress. Don’t be a position.”

And that is the most difficult point to get across.

“A lot of freshmen want to be told specifically what to do,” he said. “The difficult part becomes understanding that they have to make the read, because they’re so used to being told where to run in the play next.

“It’s new for most players to have to make reads and have to make decisions based on how they’re being played and how the defense is set. But once you grasp that way of thinking, I think it is very simple.”

I’ve loved basketball my whole life, but I’ve never played it competitively. So I’m intrigued by what this actually means in practice. I totally agree with it in theory. However, before you can learn how to make your own decisions, sometimes you have to learn things by rote.

I recently heard chef extraordinaire Jacques Pepin on the radio talking about cooking, and he gave a wonderful definition of technique:

For me, technique is very important. Technique is really a repetition, repetition, endless repetition of a certain movement, whether you use a knife or whatever, so it becomes so engrained, so part of yourself that you can afford to forget it, because it’s there forever.

You learn a certain movement, a certain reaction over and over and over again until, as Pepin said, “you can afford to forget it, because it’s there forever.” That, to me, is the essence of craft, whether it’s sports, cooking, or my own craft of collaboration. Learning certain things by rote ultimately gives you the freedom to express yourself.

After a recent playoff game, Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers had this to say about his point guard, Rajon Rondo:

“He’s got to be in attack,” Rivers said. “I thought the second quarter he was attacking and attacking. I thought he was reading a lot instead of playing on instincts. I think sometimes his IQ hurts him at times. He’s trying to read the defense, but you can’t read and play with speed at the same time.

“We go through it a lot — at least Rondo and I — about, ‘Rondo, just trust your instincts. Your speed has to be part of it. Your instincts will take over. You’ll make the right decision.'”

Doing any craft well is all about trusting your instincts. You get those instincts by doing your thinking in practice rather than in the moment.