Took a few days off last week to rest up, so a shorter one today on the value of... rest.

What's the cultural tipping point?

Turns out, there’s a range. No social movement has failed if 3.5% of a population becomes actively engaged in it. Or maybe it’s bigger than that: 25%, the size a minority group needs to be to shift the consensus of a majority.

Whatever the percentage, it starts with at least somebody saying something about the status quo. They seed doubt or try something no-one else is trying. But it’s more than that. Take this video of someone dancing at a festival, it’s worth the 3 minutes:

“Absence of support is taken as a show of mass rejection”

Is how Matthew Lieberman puts it. There's another version of that video above, where you can hear the people recording it mock the guy dancing (only to want to eventually join in).

That’s the power of being a courageous supporter or 'first follower'. That person who backs up that initial - often challenging - calling out of ‘the way things are done around here’. It's about how we show up and being a good ally.

Mass rejection can also be exhausting! Applied to the day job of trying to improve ‘wicked’ problems, it can lead to burn out and depression. As the WEF wrote recently: “there is increasing evidence that effective change can only be achieved if the wellbeing of the change-maker is secure.“  My question to you: how are you feeling? Where would you sit on the graph below?

Gradually, then suddenly.

But we want to improve things, right now! Maybe there’s a comfort we can draw from how Hemmingway described change as “gradually, and then suddenly”.

Take the concept of compound interest, of making something just 1% better every day. A year later would make that something 37 times better than it was at the start. You define what ‘better’ is.

It’s the exponential curve underpinning the spread of Covid-19 and because it isn't linear we aren't great at seeing it. It’s also why change feels slow, because at the early stages that improvement just doesn’t seem like it’s coming fast enough. What James Clear calls the plateau of latent potential.

Everything is relational

So while stuck in that ‘valley of disappointment’. Remember the power of relationships to keep you going through it, and to build the support for it along the way. As Tyson and Angie talked about in our opening session everything is relational. Rufus Jones once said, “I pin my hopes to quiet processes and small circles, in which vital and transforming events take place.” Who knows, maybe you’ll be that tiny domino that knocks down the huge one.