The Illusion of Pattern ...

Evening Folks ... I've been out of town for a couple of days ... I had an interesting flight, read a couple of interesting books, and had a couple of interesting meetings ... all in all an interesting couple of days ... One of the most interesting aspects of it all for me was how after-the-fact I'm now looking back and realizing that somehow I've construed it to be all about one of my top fascinations ... PATTERN. That probably demands a bit more of an explanation. Really when I say PATTERN I mean ... PATTERN RECOGNITION, i.e.: the ability to notice for and perceive patterns that are emergent around us. Specifically, the work I do emphasizes the ability to recognize patterns that people operate ... individually and in groups (small and large). This resides close to the heart of what I refer to when I speak about Social Influence. For years I've been working at defining patterns that people use in all sorts of social situations ... communicating, decision-making, leadership, etc. In the process I've identified and defined a number of recurring patterns in numerous domains. I've spent quite a bit of time codifying these patterns and working with them around the idea of improving performance, e.g.: team development ... leadership skills ... Yet for about the last four years in an accelerated, escalatign way I find myself thinking more and more aloud that PATTERNS ARE AN ILLUSION ... THEY DON'T EXIST!.

What exists that we call pattern are the descriptions we use to contain disparate entities ... objects, people, ideas ... and, in so doing we group these disparate entities together in seemingly logical sets that after the fact appear to be part of a pattern we identified and not one we imposed.

My work has become about getting my clients to the position where they can stand outside of ... or maybe beyond ... pattern, at least long enough to recognize whatever patterns we think we see we've created. The freedom thus attained allows them to freely go back to imposing pattern on anything and everything with the awareness of recognizing that the patterns they are imposing don't exist. We make it all up ... and, knowing we make it all up gives us the ability to choose what we will be making up before we do ... allowing us to be more selective and discriminating in the outcomes we produce ... on our own and with others. Knowing about the illusion of pattern hails as one of the great secrets of social influence and social power ... and the ability to create social impact. When you realize that every pattern we perceive we've created ... either on our own or with others ... we are able to shift the frames within which we experience our realities ... on our own and with others ... we even possess the possibility of shifting the realities of others as well. If the idea of shifting the realities of others seems to carry a manipultative, malicious or even nafarious overone to it for you consider that this may be exactly the power we grant to organized media and virtually all artists that we pay any attention to whatsoever. A great book, or painting, or film ... any great artwork has the potential to shift our reality. I'd go so far as to say they have the potential to shape our realities individually and collectively. Sometimes the artists do this unwittingly, without the preconceived intention of shifting or shaping the realities of others, but shifting and shaping them nonetheless. And, there are some folks who will shift and shape realities with great intention. Intentional or not our realities are often shifted and shaped when we come into contact with powerful ideas, powerfully presented. George Lucas did this with Star Wars ... the Wachowski Brothers did it again with The Matrix. Individuals who are able to hold and convey powerful ideas consistently and coherently are particularly powerful ... Mother Terresa, Marin Luther King, Ghandi ... and there are numerous other examples I could just as easily mention. I'll leave this for now with the idea that we are likely to be either victims or victorious when it comes to being influenced by the patterns we perceive all around us ... and the first step begins when we decide what those patterns will be before they find us. Best regards, Joseph Riggio, Social Ontologist Princeton, NJ