Part 3 in a series on meaning
If you have decided now is a good time to do meaning-making and you have a clear path for how to get from an initial idea for meaning-making to others embracing that idea, you now need to decide how to frame up the idea in a way that is clear and compelling. Here are some ways to play with that.
Know where you are starting and where you want to go.
First, think about whom you want to do meaning-making with, what their current thinking is about your idea and what you want them to think about it. For example, do they think people with low incomes, if given money (rather than donated goods), will waste it? Do they think nonprofits are filled with waste, fraud and abuse? In either case, you may want to change how people think. Or do they not think much about the idea that you want to do meaning-making around? If, for example, you want to make sure every technology serves the public interest like Latanya Sweeney advocates, people may not think about technology that way at all … yet.
Focus on building, not fixing.
Connect the meaning-making to people’s powerful desire to build, not fix. Trabian Shorters of BMe talks about the large population of builders (39M and counting) in the U.S. These folks don’t want to talk about fixing things, especially things that aren’t working so well. Instead, they want to build the next thing. If these are the people you want to meaning-make with, talk about what it takes to build a democracy that works for more people rather than focusing on “fixing threats to democracy.”
Try this idea when starting from scratch.
If you are starting from scratch to create meaning, consider using metaphors. This gives people an anchor with something they currently know to get them to consider a different future. While I don’t love that meaning-making like “energy independence” or “energy dominance” puts wind in the sails of Big Oil, I appreciate the power these metaphors bring when attached to energy to build momentum behind an imperative that sticks. In Axios, there is a case for an AI Marshall Plan, using the familiarity of the Marshall Plan to serve as a blueprint to prepare for the AI revolution. Farm-to-table, Head Start and Brain Drain are additional examples to get creative juices flowing.
Try these ideas to get people to rethink.
There is a Japanese proverb, “If you get on the wrong train, get off at the next station.” Sometimes your job with meaning-making is getting people to see that they are on the wrong train and motivating them to get off.
If the people you want to meaning-make with think one way about an issue and you want to push them to a different way of thinking, what will you need to do first to get them to rethink? In the book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg says that if you want to change a habit, you first must disrupt the habit. That goes for habitual thinking. For example, if you know that when people think about your issue, they break into a false binary — such as jobs versus the environment — you may need to first lay the groundwork that those two are compatible, not at odds. The Walton Family Foundation does this when it talks about “natural infrastructure” and “nature-based solutions” (using a metaphor as noted above).
If you are dealing with conventional wisdom or a deeply seeded belief, you may need to show a leader displaying “epiphany thinking,” which is parting the curtain from how they used to think to how they think now. This gives others space to follow suit. Former President Barack Obama’s evolution around gay marriage support showcases this.
Emphasize the thinking and behavior that you want to catch momentum — not the opposite. The problem with some democracy meaning-making today is that it highlights norms heading in the wrong direction, such as growing support for political violence. While this is a problem, for meaning-making, the better strategy is to highlight the behavior you want to see more of, such as the number of people who denounce political violence and call for unity.
If people don’t see beyond an issue’s constraints, offer them a new category related to a familiar category. Leaders did this when they poked a big hole in “shareholder primacy” with the new category of the triple bottom line, which considers profit, people and the planet rather than profit alone. Fast fashion, manosphere and extreme weather offer additional examples to focus attention.
Sum up a problem that we need to prioritize solving with a term you can popularize. Enshittification, a term for online platform decay, is an example, offering why digital monopolies are bad and regulation is needed.
Last, consider whether you need to focus on the problem and who is responsible for it, or the solution and who can get it in place. Often, we spend valuable meaning-making time on a well-known problem, emphasizing consequences and who is to blame. While those may all be true, that focus can have the reverse effect than desired, decreasing people’s confidence that the problem is solvable and devolving into arguments about whose fault it really is. Is having a tit for tat over villains really creating the meaning-making you want? Stay out of this quagmire by focusing instead on the solutions that are ready to deploy and who is responsible for getting them in place. This brings about the change so many people seek.