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Nadworny: Liminal Thinking

In life, it’s frustrating when people resist good or new ideas. You’re left wondering why people will opt for a reality that often doesn’t seem to make sense. But recently I discovered a new book that helps us understand what’s really going on, by an author who’s long inspired my work in human-centered design.

Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray is a relatively short, easy to read book that attempts to help us understand why people think and do the things they do. Gray helps organizations figure out how to convince people to change. To do that almost impossible work, you have to understand people and yourself.

Liminal Thinking describes a state of ambiguity that’s necessary to navigate change; to understand and continually evaluate your own and others beliefs. What it gets down to is the tension between beliefs and reality. According to Gray, the two may not have much in common - and what we think is reality, is actually our beliefs about reality – meaning we can be wrong about a lot of stuff.

One thing in the book that jumped out at me and put the election in a bit more perspective is a chapter called “Create Safe Space.” In it, Gray uses a tool called SCARF, which stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. The idea is that people need to feel that these needs are being met or they’ll react negatively.

I’ve witnessed this myself in Burlington’s New North End recently, when many long-time residents reacted angrily to some pretty common sense ideas. Gray’s thesis would suggest that they resist change because they feel a loss of status, autonomy and fairness while they see these same things bestowed on the young professionals who’ve moved into the neighborhood.

And yet, SCARF demands are pretty reasonable. They’re what we all want. And in Liminal Thinking, Gray shows that when we consider only logical and even “fact-based” arguments, we miss the underlying beliefs that clearly contribute to our behavior - whether we’re leading a company or just trying to get people on board with an idea.

Gray even applies this concept to families – fertile ground indeed for irrational behavior.

But if we’re willing to start grappling with why we believe what we believe, we can actually change things for the better.

Rich Nadworny is a designer who resides in Burlington and Stockholm.
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