Phil Redmond: Steps to progress

Feb 22 2008 by Phil Redmond, Liverpool Daily Post

Steps to progress

PROGRESS. Often hard to separate from process. Hi-viz jackets, those luminous yellow jackets or vests now in danger of becoming a fashion accessory, may be indicative of process overpowering progress.

At one time, you would only see a hi-viz in a high-risk situation, signalling both the wearer and the situation as one to avoid. In our risk and litigation averse society, they have proliferated to the extent that people now use them anywhere and everywhere and, being people, they no longer take them off when leaving their perceived high-risk areas.

They no longer feel as though they stand out, because they don’t, which is the most worrying point.

It is well known that we tend to overlook the obvious, hence the old saying; the best place to hide something is in plain view. And why the majority of accidents happen within close proximity to home. People are conditioned to look for the unfamiliar.

So, if they no longer stand out because we are now so used to seeing them, will hi-viz become in-viz? Process overpowering progress?

Culture is no stranger to the dangers of process stifling progress, whether around decisions on funding, ticket allocations or the comings and goings of personnel. Too often, too much time is spent discussing the process rather than the progress, itself becoming a form of culture. Decisions on funding, for instance, will always have to go through a process, especially if connected to the intricacies of public finance procedures, and the bigger the amount the bigger the process the longer the decision making, which only makes the creative disappointment and demotivation deeper if unsuccessful.

At the same time, some folk are better than others in mastering the grantspeak that a, typically, form-driven process creates so that sometimes success is due to administrative abilities rather than creative capabilities. Process not progress.

This is one of the reasons I am keen to develop the Open Culture project, especially the Cultural Clearing idea which is aimed at, basically, providing short cuts for like-minded people.

It is still in development, but the concept is sound. To provide a platform for the meeting of the minds with the ideas to those with the resources. A form of cultural dating agency perhaps? The caveat, as we have always stressed, is that some ideas may never find a matching mind! Just like a real dating agency?

This is why most successful film or television production companies always have multiple projects in development.

They make progress by managing the process. Knowing decision-making is going to be slow, they do not sit on their hands and wait, but get on with developing different relationships for their next idea, then the next, then the next. Not letting the process stifle the progress.