Today a reflection from a learning from the latest Facilitation Shindig in London on the phrase:
Keep the road under the show
The photo above is from the 2018 movie of Mortal Engines, the Philip Reeves book series.
In Mortal Engines, Reeves created a dystopian world in which cities are mobile, always literally moving forwards while life continues in the city day to day. The largest of those cities is the one pictures, London.
Now, imagine a city moving along slowly and inexorably, consuming resources and other smaller towns while again the life of the citizens goes on within the city.
At the Facilitation Shindig, Gary Austin of Circle Indigo shared the phrase:
Keep the road under the show
Gary mentioned this in context of a project he worked on much earlier in his career, one that had many moving parts, people, elements. For this project, that phrase was their mantra, a play on words of the old phrase “keep the show on the road”.
The meaning of this linked closely to a term I use and have written about:
Proactive Resilience can be linked to one’s personal performance and it can also be linked to the performance of a team, business, organisation, project.
The phrase “keep the road under the show”, to me, means keeping a focus on a) the big picture of the direction of travel rather than the day to day details, and also b) what needs to be done to ensure things have the strength and resilience needed over time.
It was wonderful to take a little time with the shindig group, at this time of the start of the year, to talk about such terms and consider what we each need as individuals as well as how we can support our clients.
The Shindig process itself is one where experienced coaches and facilitators come together for a day every few months to pause, reflect, gather themselves, learn from each other. The Facilitation Shindig itself, therefore, is highly valuable for those involved in keeping their own “road under the show”.
So, what do you proactively do to manage resilience for you and your team?
What do you do to keep the road under the show?