The current COVID-19 period has turned the world, the nation, and the built environment industry on their heads.  Few industries have been spared from negative impact due to this phenomenon. Whether directly or vicariously, every piece and part of the economy has felt the pain of this pandemic.

Being upside down presents new challenges doesn’t it? Everything seems disoriented and confused. The traditional right-side up security is now distorted as right seems oddly wrong.

We have a unique opportunity during this COVID-19 period to apply different thinking to the near future. Is there a better world out there we can’t see due to our right-side-up orientation? Is it possible by changing our orientation we will be able to solve many of the problems and challenges that have plagued us for too long?

Mark Holmgren offers a good description of Upside-Down Thinking, 

“Upside-Down Thinking is both a mindset and a tool to use to look at things in a totally different way. One who is engaged in such thinking is bound to deploy wicked questions to be sure, but Upside-Down Thinking is a cognitive-creative methodology and is about more than crafting inquiry; it goes further to pose new realities or potential realities that run contrary to how we think and how we see our own identities within the context of our work. Moreover, Upside-Down Thinking has no loyalty to the status quo or to current tools or best practices. Its purpose is to give life to the contrarian within us and to see our world through eyes that wish to see something quite different from what is there.”

Inside-Out Expression is yet another change in expressive orientation. When we think inside-out we open the dialogue to a more voluminous voice… the voice within that never stops processing. One that is ever-seeking answers to the wicked problems asked through upside-down thinking.  

Inside-Out Expression is normally silent to outside ears, but ever audible to inside ones. We’re told we talk to ourselves more than any other person though most of this is happening inside. On any given day, we are self-talking most of our awake hours and it continues while we’re sleeping.  Dreams are said to be the outcome of sub-conscious realities often triggered by self-talk. The question we need to be asking ourselves is the nature of the content in these talks.

Inside-Out Expression turns silent self-talk into audible expression risking the possibility of awkwardness to get to new answers. When we give ourselves and each other permission to express our inside-out self within the context of problem solving and creative endeavor the possibilities towards breakthroughs grow exponentially.

It all looks a bit strange doesn’t it?  Visualized in literal terms we’d all be standing on our heads spilling our guts about what we’re really thinking!  But is that really so bad? So prohibitive?

What if we created a new reality where honest, intelligent, collaborative professionals could safely gather to think differently, allow for large thoughts, not always tethered in one-to-one constructs, to run a circuitous course towards meaningful conclusions? What if we allowed such thinking and voice to not always end with period punctuation? Maybe a string of new seed themes can be strung together by commas? Or maybe an encouragement to assemble a new inventory of provocative questions would be appropriate?