Having a clear out recently I came across two pieces of paper. They are things that must have caught my eye enough at some point that I printed them out. Seeing them side by side I was struck by just how differently these two mind sets approached the world.
The first one has been produced by a local authority children services team. I don’t remember how I came across it but it looks all too familiar. Almost any team or department in almost any social business has probably produced something like this. In fact, if I’m honest I used to produce things like this too. It’s the sort of map of misery that can get leaders in a social service quite excited. The more examples of being broken that a service can find, the more things there are to fix and the more there is to fix the greater the need for the service or charity.
The social sector is all too quick to view the world through the misery lens……
The second piece of paper is very different. It comes from a communities eye view of the world.
It is just a list of questions.
The questions come from a Nurture Development post called The Good Life Conversation. They’re open questions. Questions that seek to find out more about the other person; about what they have done in the past, what they do now and what they hope to do in the future. Where the first piece of paper conjured a world full of dead ends and negativity this piece of paper suggests a world full of strengths, possibilities and life.
The questions aren’t meant to be printed off, placed on a clip board and read out verbatim to people we meet in our community. But they are intended to help us approach new relationships in a more positive way; one that takes an interest in finding out what makes others tick, what gifts they have to share and what hopes they have for the future.
Pondering these questions might give those of us who work for service providers good cause to pause and reflect. What if we started our conversations more like this? It’s not about pretending that no one faces problems but it is about recognising that focusing on a deficiency or condition can prevent a far more enabling conversation about what’s strong and what an individual might have to contribute to, and share with, their community.
Picture credits
A Camerados living room in Blackpool
Mapping misery by Will Lilley
John Wade 
Seen far too many diagrams like the first one that look good – on the face of it – but say little aside from telling you how good the author is (or thinks they are) at putting coloured circles on a word document. Nothing positive changes as a result and they gather dust somewhere until they’re found in a tidy up!
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