Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

An old technique that always surfaces confusion and moves us towards clarity.

Me: Let’s draw a picture of this so I can understand it better.

Person A: We don’t need to waste time with that. We all know what it is.

…a little while later…

Person A: See, we set it up like this (writing on the wall).

Person B: No, it’s more like that (scratching out and writing something different).

Person A: No it’s not, why…

Person C: Yeah, Person B is right. We changed that last week. Didn’t you get the note on that?

Person A: Change? Last week? What change?

Person B: You know (even though Person A just admitted ignorance). And this other thing isn’t quite like this, either. It’s more like this here (writing new information on the wall).

Person A: Are you persons sure of this?

Person D: Of course. And then we have to add all this other stuff down here (drawing in a new section of the wall).

Person A: What is all that?

Person B: Yeah, what is that?

Person D: That’s what we did last year. Don’t you remember?

Person B: I wasn’t here last year. Why didn’t anyone tell me about that?

…and so it goes.

Am I smarter than all these other persons? No. I’ve just seen this happen a few dozen times before. Let’s draw a picture. Proceed with caution, but proceed.