Barack Obama has just made the boldest announcement that any US President has ever made to try and resolve the Middle East question, Palestine and Israel. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the proposal, it is interesting that Obama is taking action to break the cycle of perpetual violence and retribution that has been the hall mark of this conflict.
Only two weeks previously the highest volume of internet traffic on any single issue occurred, after the killing of Osama bin Laden. 5000 tweets per second over a period of around four days! Both of these issues got me to thinking about the importance of cycles in our lives.
Retribution is a difficult cycle to break after it becomes entrenched and this is true of all cycles, we want to develop cycles in our lives that enhance the well-being of those in our networks and result in a feeling of inclusiveness rather than trying to change bad cycles or routines. The change was successfully made in Northern Ireland, creating co-education rather than segregation of protestant and catholic children was the formula that worked in that environment but it is rare to achieve this success.
Once you begin to communicate your value into your networks and catalyse the foundation of a movement, it is critical that you tell a story that resonates and establish a routine that everyone expects to see your message at the same time each cycle. The cycle is more important than the content of your message in the early stages as you need to set up the habits in other people’s lives to expect to hear you, if it’s difficult in the early stages start with once a month then increase the frequency from there.
Some fans of Batman will remember from the TV series in the 1960’s, “Tune in tomorrow, same Bat-channel, same Bat-time”. Cycles become a routine and are hard to break, harness the comfort that people get into with routine.
Take care,
Trev
“Building Champion Communities”
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