Good enough for now, safe enough to try (GESET)
Striving for the illusion of perfection can cripple our self-esteem as human beings, and completely stifle our progress as a team or organisation. Instead of being overly critical, blocking others for no valid reason or never getting out there out of fear of not being perfect enough, get into the GESET mindset!
(c) Sociocracy 3.0
GESET is our internal abbreviation at collaboratio helvetica for Good Enough for Now and Safe Enough to Try (GESET). It is a concept stemming from Sociocracy 3.0 (S3), one of our core methods. GESET can be used as part of the S3 consent decision-making process but it is also a general attitude. To us, it means not getting stuck in details, giving each other trust and freedom to act, and staying agile as we move forward.
For those of us working in complex systems where everything is basically unpredictable when applying linear logic, perfectionism has no place. For those of us working in emergent fields, with innovative technologies where there is no benchmark, no one who’s done it before exactly like this and no best practice, perfectionism makes even less sense. An agile, collaborative and self-organised team in such an environment can only get things done and learn by prototyping - testing things and improving based on the results and learnings. In order for this to work as smoothly as possible, getting into the GESET mindset has proven extremely valuable.
Example of application:
Whenever someone presents something to you they want your opinion on or perhaps even need your approval to move forward with, ask yourselves the following questions:
Do I have any immediate improvement suggestions?
Would doing this harm us in any way?
If you have replied no to both questions, congrats! You have just deemed this proposal as Good Enough for Now and Safe Enough to Try (GESET).
Sources
https://sociocracy30.org/_res/posters/S3-Intro-Course-Posters.pdf (page 26)
Consent-Decision Making Demonstration by James Priest (Sociocracy 3.0), the last part of the video
Photo by Katya Austin on Unsplash
Nora Wilhelm is the Co-Founder and Catalyst of collaboratio helvetica. She has a background in youth engagement and active citizenship (European Youth Parliament) and specialised in collaboration, self-organisation, ecosystem leadership, systemic change and social innovation. Beyond facilitating multi-stakeholder processes and social innovation labs as well as promoting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), she is a renowned young leader, advocate and speaker, recognised for her work by the Swiss government, UNESCO, Forbes 30 under 30 and other institutions.