The 4 Ps exercise
Passion, possibility, prohibition, and pedagogy
When I wrote about The 6 Motivation Languages I mentioned another exercise that was like Snog, Marry, Avoid and I said I would write about it soon; so, here we are. Hello!
All right, gotta bust out the dictionary, with additions.
Passion: strong and barely controllable emotion; an intense desire or enthusiasm for something; a thing arousing enthusiasm; [things you do for free or would pay to be able to do].
Possibility: a person or thing that has the potential to become or do something, especially a potential candidate for a job or membership on a team; that which is likely or achievable; [things you are willing to do but requires coercion or reward].
Prohibition: the action of forbidding something, especially by law; [things you will not do, even if coerced].
Pedagogy: the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept; [topics you would like to teach or learn]. Note: Added this one recently thanks to an Agile Coach I met at Agile Midwest; we traded.
The exercise for the individual
Create four lists, one for each of the Ps. Begin capturing the things that fall into each bucket. You don’t need to prioritize them or anything though it could be interesting if you do. Then designing the life you want becomes an exercise in maximizing the time you spend doing the things you are passionate about, minimizing the time you spend doing the things you’re not passionate about (possibility), avoiding situations that increase the risk of having to invoke your prohibitions, and allowing time for pursuing your education (pedagogy), which may serve to increase your time doing the things you are passionate about.
The intent here is that it’s not about getting a degree, or a job, or what have you (a destination). It’s about the pursuit. The journey and experience itself for its own sake. Anything else is a side benefit to the pursuit and avoidance of the things in those buckets. With that said, whatever works for you.
It’s also not easy. Just fair warning there.
That’s for you individually. It’s something you curate and refine over time. In groups though it can get a little weird if you try it in a group; so, you typically won’t be delving into the making of lists with each other.
The exercise for groups
Tuckman’s Model of Group Development is a good model despite the detractors. It has 5 levels or phases that groups constantly slip between. For example, every time a person is added or removed, the group goes back to forming because the group has to recalibrate to this new setup. When we introduce a new person to a team the same thing happens. Members of a group that once said anything they wanted may begin censoring themselves because they’re not sure how this new person will react. This is one of the reasons some coaches begin with ice breaker exercises.
This is one way to do it. You do you though.
For 8fold, when we bring on a new practitioner that person is first invited to an event. We begin that event by having the group (including the new person) go through their top 3 to 5 passions, possibilities, and prohibitions (we may start doing pedagogies). Then we all work together on whatever we were going to work on before inviting the new person in. At the end, the group decides whether the potential new practitioner should be invited to be a full fledged practitioner or not. Then that person decides whether they still want to be a practitioner or not.
I’ve also used this exercise to facilitate teams to determine their values, principles, and practices (culture).
If you give the exercise a shot, please provide feedback by whatever means you feel are appropriate. You may also find the following of interest:
