Unsnap from the Grid

You have been programmed to snap.

Snap to the grid that is.

And I believe we have to unlearn to snap.

We have to unsnap.

I am sure you all have come across some software that has snapping guides, digital magnets to help you stay centered, or aligned, or in synch, or in tempo.

Photoshop is well known for this. You also have it in Powerpoint to help you nicely center your images in the middle of the slide. It is even more apparent in “creative” software like Sketchbook, Procreate, and of course Final Cut Pro. The richest metaphor is probably in music creation software like Ableton Live and Apple’s Logic Pro.

Quantization is a good example of snapping in music software. A human beat/drummer is normally not 100% on the grid. So, if you are a really bad drummer, you can ask the software for help and let it quantize (read adjust) your beats to the grid. Then it sounds perfectly to the beat. Maybe too perfect, as it then sounds mechanic, not imperfect “human”. Of course, there are some additional functions to humanize again the too perfect beat, and so on.

Before Logic Pro quantization:

After quantization (to the 4th Note):

In a more corporate environment, especially post-COVID when we have to/want to do everything on-line – “virtually” – we are getting snapped by tools like Miro and Mural. Especially Miro comes loaded with tons of templates. I am not picking on Miro or Mural, I am just using them as educational examples to make my point.

Example of Miro board templates

This all sounds very exciting, but I am afraid we are getting snapped into a scripted illusion.

This became apparent during a sparring-session with one of my clients, who asked me to review the prep work for a virtual leadership “off-site” (no pun intended ;-).

Wow! That looked really impressive: Miro board after Miro board, scripting a 3-day workshop in all its glory details. To be honest, I personally felt “boxed”. But apparently, the executives participating in the workshop felt they were doing a great job and were pleased to see how everything got nicely boxed. It gave a feeling of being in control.

The illusion became complete when I learned that the workshop was in support of the number one priority project of the company, and it became apparent that none of the participating executives had any intention whatsoever to collaborate with the others. One guy was appointed as project lead and 100% of his time allocated to this, but the other 14 project members had at best 10% of their time locked down. And this for the company’s priority one project.

They fully satisfied filled 20+ online boards, and then… nothing happened.

Unsnapping is similar to unstucking or unfreezing. A good metaphor for stuck/unstuck is the Chinese Finger Trap. You are getting stuck by only seeing one solution to get out of the trap: by pulling. The trick is to stop pulling and to start twisting.

Unsnapping is about unfreezing yourself and to get into your human rhythm/pace/tempo, without being quantized.

Unsnapping is about surfacing and seeing stuff that are de-railing the client without them noticing. Like putting in your face that the participants to the number one project have no intention to work together.

To see that twisting is also an option.

Unsnapping is not comfortable. Because it confronts you with being scripted, being programmed, and noticing that you have become a cog in snapping machine. Unsnapping may feel anxious. Because you are in unknown territory. Anxious as in my blog post from the Travelling without Moving series.

I am experimenting with some clients to offer an “Unsnapping Service”. To un-bind people from the “grid-lock”. To let go of the grids and snaps and re-finding your agency out of the grid. To sustain the creative tension that makes real change possible, to avoid snapping-back out of the creative tension.

I am using tools and techniques such as visual and audio collisions, artistic interventions, weirdness, and intentional silence. In some sense you could call me an elegant disruptor and connector. Connecting the unexpected. Disrupting through experimental and free imagination and association.

In most cases I am invited as an observer, but with a license to intervene at will or on command, a license to snap/unsnap, a license to provoke.

Josie Gibson from The Catalyst Network suggested I may be onto something. And that maybe I should start considering an Unstuck Manifesto or at least Unstuck Principles. Maybe, if I get unstuck from the grid of outdated practices 😉

Any views/suggestions/critiques warmly welcome. You can react in the comments field of this post or contact me in private.

Credit: the initial seed for unsnapping came during a conversation with Scott Smith (@changeist) and John V Willshire @willsh from Smithery. I am just playing around with that initial idea.

Warm regards,