— Dianne Collins
Where we often find ourselves
In 2011, I accepted a consulting assignment to manage two critical projects for a large corporate client. Both projects needed to deliver fully functional and tested software every month. It was very important to their business.
However, the catch was that both projects had never delivered on time. The development group was under enormous pressure to fix it.
Never wanting to pass up a challenge, I accepted the assignment and got to work. I managed to deliver both projects on time (just barely) for the next 12 months before leaving the company.
It didn’t take long to discover that this project’s biggest challenge was the incredibly burdensome project controls and overhead placed upon it.
Every step had to be meticulously planned, documented, approved and reviewed at the company’s highest levels.
Interestingly, here is the stunning twist to this story. It only required minutes for the developer to make a few simple changes that were needed each month!
At one level, the controls made sense. A small careless mistake could result in the loss of billions of dollars for this company. From a human perspective, it was soul-crushing work for everyone involved.
I faced a real crisis. I had progressively managed and delivered more complex and challenging projects, but now I was struggling with paperwork, bureaucracy, and compliance. This project didn’t feel worthy of my time.
It took an enormous amount of effort and commitment to get the job done every month. There was little satisfaction in dealing with all the resistance and heavy-handed oversight and compliance audits.
Discovering observer created reality
Fortunately, Dianne Collins published her masterpiece in 2011. It’s a fantastic book, Do You Quantum Think?
Dianne’s book brilliantly brings the reader an understanding of applying quantum physics principles to our everyday life and world.
One of those principles is the observer effect, which states that there is no reality until the reality is perceived.
Dianne brings this principle to life by showing us to apply it every day:
“Further examination shows that by making different choices, not only would our perceptions of the outcomes change, but also the very things we were observing would also exhibit traits that would not have appeared had we not looked for them. You are changing reality simply by observing it.”
In her book, she goes on to make this intriguing statement:
“In other words, what you choose to observe can not only nullify your ability to observe another complementary aspect. It can render it nonexistent. The difference tells us that what you observe not only hides the complementary aspect from your sensory awareness, it renders it imaginary altogether.”
Taking this all together, I think one can say that most of us don’t use the power of observation to our advantage. Typically, we’re using it to our detriment.
Putting the observer to the test
I decided to put Dianne’s idea to the test.
Rather than wallow in my situation, I decided that I would instead take the position that I was experiencing this project for a reason. My work that would later become Forward Thinking Workplaces was emerging, so I felt this experience would inspire my work and help me be more empathetic to challenges people faced in the workplace.
Not only did this change in perspective ultimately elevate my experience working on this project, but it brought new energy and opportunities with others inside and beyond the company.
I had discovered and experienced the intriguing power of the observer effect and have applied and benefited from this idea in many ways since that time.
I highly recommend Do You Quantum Think? to gain a deeper and expanded explanation of the observer effect and much more.
My interview with Dianne is published in my book The Future of the Workplace. Read a preview of the interview at How to Be a Powerful Agent in the World.
What will you choose to observe differently today?
I challenge you to put the observer effect to the test.
What will you choose to observe differently today?
I’d love to hear how this works out for you.
Then please email me at bill@billfox.co or share and discuss it with others in the Forward Thinking Pro community space.
To your forward thinking life & success!
⏤ Bill
Bill Fox, Author and Founder at Forward Thinking Pro and Forward Thinking Workplaces