Bringing Light and Heat to Shake things UP
Light changes mindsets. Heat changes systems.
Some people change when they see the light. Others change when they feel the heat. Caroline Schoeder
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about awareness building and knowledge sharing and community collecting. But how are we coming together to put new ideas into practice? To follow up to take action?
As was shared in this previous School of Thought post,
We fail to act not because we do not have enough information, but because we haven’t understood why we should care or we don’t know what to do. I mean, awareness is raised. Then what? We need to do more than build awareness if we want sustainable change.
For example, there is a lot of talk around how schools need remaking, with beautiful calls to action everywhere - posts on LinkedIn, threads for those still on Twitter/X, books on what to do, and workshops on how to do it.
But little is changing.1
WHY?
How to influence true changes in humans - whether changes in our systems or changes in our mindsets- has plagued us since the beginning of time.
Is it better to be gentle or better to push?
Is it better to lead with a soft touch and a guiding light?
Or do we need a firm hand and intense heat?
And how do we even follow the stories to explore the change happening?
How do we document the light and the heat and the change?
As School of Thought is about to gather as a community in person, we’ve been focused as a team on how to come together to as a collective to commit to action. Here is how we’re framing it.
The Big Idea
There is a theory in social psychology around light vs heat based approaches.
One of my favorite authors and thinkers, Dolly Chugh, has thought a lot about this. I recently caught an episode of podcast called The Connection where she was interviewed by Marty Moss-Coane. Check out the episode here.
On the pod, Dr. Chugh shared:
When historians study social-justice movements, they find that movements that only have heat or only have light tend to not make as much progress. Successful movements have both a more moderate and a more radical flank…. Dr. Dolly Chugh
So what does this mean for those who want to use new learning or research to take action?
Welcome to this edition of School of Thought, where we take evidence based ideas and make them usable. Join us.
Available now: The Visual Factor Ebook Contact me if you’d like a free copy.