The “Point of Contact”

“Not knowing what to do, we start to pay real attention.”
David Whyte – The Three Marriages

In his most recent book The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship poet and management consultant David Whyte tells of a time in his life when he was teaching rock climbing. He describes the way in which it seemed to him that everyone who was a beginner was bound to put their foot on the rock face in such a way that it was almost inevitable that they would slide off.

Reading his description it seems clear that people really struggled to orient themselves to the mountain, and more specifically to the small piece of it they were climbing, in a way that felt unnatural. Surely in order to be safe from falling the best place to be is as close to the rock as possible? What David points out is that this puts your feet at a downward angle and thus makes it all the more difficult to maintain contact with the mountain. More importantly, it makes it difficult to have a “point of contact” that is secure enough to push off from.

Here is how he generalises the idea of a “point of contact”.

“The point of contact is what allows us to take the next step. Sometimes the point of contact is through the next necessary small task completed; sometimes it is through understanding the depth of our exile, the disenchantment experienced in the here and now, the impossibility of it all. Eventually we realise that not knowing what to do is just as real and just as useful as knowing what to do. Not knowing stops us from taking false directions.”

I really like this metaphor because it reminds me of the need to slow down and of the variety things that I could do when I next find myself, a team I am in or a whole organisation drawn to move forward but unable to know where to go and what to do next.

What follows isn’t an exhaustive list, nor is it in any particular order. It is simply what has occurred to me in this moment.

• I could pay close attention to where I am and what is going on in the landscape that is my work or my life?
• To do this I could heighten my attentiveness, especially to those things that are familiar.
• I could ask myself – does this way of thinking or doing still work for me?
• I could ask myself – what kind of a challenge it is that I’m facing? Is it, for example, a challenge based on the need to:
  • Understand and work with competing commitments or a contradiction in values?
  • Cultivate new capabilities?
  • Transition from one pattern to another?
  • Protect and sustain something that is at risk?
  • Do something that I’ve never attempted before?
  • Respond quickly in a time of crisis?
• I could “Hug the Bear” – walk straight at that which scares me most and embrace it for what it will teach me.

The reality is, of course, that each person, team or organisation’s “point of contact”, the leverage they need to move forward (onward and upward if I stick with the mountaineering metaphor) is unique.

This reminds me that I won’t necessarily find that point by rushing about, by doing only what feels safe or by repeating existing patterns. I will find it by paying attention to all that is around me and discovering something that is already there, but which I have not yet noticed.