Day 121 - Context

Part 2 of my little mini-series concerning events and their impacts. Last time I talked about the importance of timing and how that can influence the overall actual impact of an event. But often just as important as timing is the context of an event, the background against which that event might take place.

Things are rarely black and white. It is rarely the case that something is completely one thing or the other. Shades of grey permeate all aspects of our life - not THOSE shades of grey though, I'll be steering well clear of those! And it is the same with events, the context is so important to determining the impact which a particular occurrence will ultimately have.

The first thing to remember with events is that the impact will be inherently different for all observers of that event. For example, the impact of a train delay is inextricably linked to your other travel plans. A minor train delay can have essentially one of three major impacts (1) it might make you late for your next connection - negative impact (2) your previous connection was late but the delay has allowed you to make this connection - positive impact (3) you don't have a connection - neutral impact. One event, three contexts and so three net impacts.

But there are other scenarios in which context is vital. Some occurrences of the "same" event can have vastly different impacts dependent on the other conditions and criteria. For example, losing your keys is usually much more of a concern when you are trying to get into somewhere as opposed to getting out. The critical event is essentially identical but the impact is significantly less in one scenario than the other.

We have to be careful to take context into account when analysing an event and the impact it is having. The same event won't always have the same impact. The severity of the impact is also subject to the context - we are back again at shades of grey rather than a black and white view of things.

One of the things I know I have been poor at in the past is overreaction - overplaying the impact of something without stopping to really think about the context. Treating things as a "disaster" without really taking the time to actually consider what the impact really was.

So it is key to take a step back from events and assess the impact properly. Don't just assume that the impact is always the same for similar events and try to consider the positive contextual aspects as well as concentrating on the fact that it could be a disaster. And also think about the scale of the impact, as it is rarely at one end or the other.

I touched last week on events in which time and context were both key factors in determining an overall impact and in truth it is more often the case that the impact is a function of both of these rather than just one. Rarely do you have time without context (or vice-versa) and the interplay between the two is important in determining the overall impact.

Timing and context are both inherent factors to an event and you often don't have a significant amount of real influence on these. Usually the best you can do is try to prepare and to minimise the negative impact from the event. This leads on to the factor that I want to talk about next time, the reaction to an event.

In many ways this is the key element, as this is the one that you have the most control over and the one that you can manipulate with a much higher degree of freedom. So in the next blog I will look at this, at how the event impact can actually be shaped by what takes place AFTERWARDS, rather than before and during.

Till tomorrow, Tom