The Drim Manifesto

1. The Fact: Dramatic Improvement is always feasible - in every single situation.
2. The Key: Leverage - the more challenging the situation the greater the leverage.
3. The Problem: We can't see the leverage points or opportunities.
4. The Solution: Use universal leverge patterns as cognitive scaffolding to find the next level of leverage opportunities.

It's a never-ending feast!

1. The Fact

It doesn't matter how challenging the situation is - or how much time we have - we can always secure dramatically better outcomes and experiences than we are currently securing.

It's perfectly - unavoidably - natural to be skeptical of this claim, but it is demonstrably, unequivocally true.

There are no exceptions: every single situation can be improved dramatically - no matter how intractable it may seem.

2. The Key

Dramatic improvement arises from leverage.  Dramatic improvements can only be caused by leverage.

Truly challenging situations are challenging because they're dynamically complex - strong and complex interactions between the situation's  elements.

So the more challenging the situation (the greater the dynamic complexity) the greater the leverage - the more dramatic the potential for improvement.

3. The Problem

There is always another level of leverage – hidden, in plain hindsight, in the reality beyond the one we can currently see. The problem is that we can't see those leverage points, until we see them, because they are beyond our current capability to see - not because they aren't there.

One of the primary reasons that we can't see leverage points, is because they are counter-intuitive to the previous level of insight.  It's only when we see and truly understand them that they begin to make sense.

4. The Solution

Although unconscious incognizance prevents us from seeing the next-level leverage points themselves, it doesn't prevent us from seeing the repeating patterns that they follow.

Once we can see the patterns across the challenges we face - and the patterns across the interventions we can think of (especially the counter-intuitive ones) we can use these patterns as templates and exemplars – cognitive scaffolding – for finding the next-level leverage points.

The Drim Dimensions

The dimensions are really the top level of a deeper taxonomy - and each dimension contains and applies to every toher dimension.

Feel free to adapt this set of Drim Dimensions to suit your world, toolset and way of thinking - this set is merely one way of looking at things.

We advise you to familiarise yourself and take advantage of this first - as there are many thousands of hours of research, thought and work behind their selection.

1. The Flow Dimension

1. Flow-RATE is concerned with improving the volume produced by - the capacity of - the situation or thing.
2. Flow-TIME is concerned with how long it takes for something to be produced.
3. Flow-QUALITY is concerned with the value of what's produced by the situation or thing.
4. Flow-COST is concerned with how much investment (sum of the inputs) is required by the situation or thing.

2. The Ingenuity Dimension

The problem with ingenuity is that it's extremely challenging - biologically - to come up with new outside-the-box solutions and insights.

Deliberately generating and integrating alternative ways of enhancing key dimensions of an evolving solution prototype enables us to escape this physiological constraint.

Applying patterns that resolve the common contradictions between physical properties accelerates things even further.

3. Change Dimension

The problem is that people are so familiar with the old way that they can follow it automatically, while the new way is unproven, untested and full of risks and kinks. 

The solution is to collaborate in creating simple frameworks for identifying and mitigating risks and ironing out kinks - and to give people the opportunity to become adept at the new way, before abandoning the old way. 

4. The Mastery Dimension

The problem with learning new things beyond our current capability is that we learn best from (many) mistakes - and opportunities are relatively uncommon, so it takes a long time to achieve it.

The solution is to deliberately identify the most common remaining success and failure modes - and their earliest symptoms - ahead of time - so that we can apply deep practice techniques to grow our capability, at increasing speed, in the face of growing complexity and under increasing pressure, over time,

5. The Synergy Dimension

The problem with creating synergy is that our brains are wired to see conflicts, differences and incompatibilities far more easily than similarities, combinations and combatibilities.

The solution is familiarity with the most common forms of synergy - and how it can be created from the most common forms of dysergy (lack of synergy) and antergy (anti-senergy).

This enables us to deliberately idebntify and capitalise on synergy opportunities. 

6. The Meaning Dimension

Meaning and purpose - immediate or ultimate  - drives all human activity and provides huge untapped opportunity for dramatic improvement.

The challenge with keying into meaning is that it is elusive and not as well-defined, logically grounded, accessible or easy to articulate as we may like to think.

The secret is to recognise that it's fundamentally about our significance within the world we choose to live in - and how we relate to it.

The Dramatic Improvement Method

It's nearly always better - and possible - to make incremental imrpovements, repeatedly, over time.

Occasionally a paradim shift is required, however - although it's nearly always possible to migrate to the the new paradigm in a staged way.

So, the Drim Method is actually a never-ending cycle, in which the previous solution is the either the next solution requirement or the cause of the current challenge and state.

The Drim Method Flowchart

Move down the flow-chart until your solution is good enough - for now.

1. Keep a look out for triggers.
2. Scan for leverage opportunities.
3. Look for Drim Story matches.
4. Look for Arena Solution matches.
5. Look for Drim Dimension matches.
6. Develop a (set of) custom Drim DImension solutions.
7. Develop a (set of) custom Drim solutions.

1.  Look for a Drim Story Match

Stories are fantastic vehicles for conveying, storing and disseminating drim solutions.

1. View your challenging situation as a story.
2. Look for parallels - even if only partial ones - in your library of dramatic improvement stories.  
3. You'll find that very few stories will have no parallels at all with your story - although it may seem that way at first.
4. Work out how to apply the underlying princiiples from the matching stories to your one.

2.  Look for Arena Solution Match

1. Browse the related personal and/or organisational arenas (e.g. Relationships, Ingenuity, Marketing, Sales) looking for matching elements to your situation.
2. Choose a specific solution - or set of them - from the collection within that Arena.
3. Work out which elements of the arena solution apply most directly to your specific situation.
4. Take a crack at applying the elements that don't match, to your situation - you'll be surprised!

3.  Look for a Dimension Solution Match

1. Identfy which of the Drim Dimensions (Flow| Ingenuity|Change|Mastery|Synergy|Meaning) will have the biggest impact - all will apply in some way.
2. Identify solutions in the relevant dimensions that apply to your situation.
3. Adapt and apply them - independently at first, then in combination - to your situation.
4. Enhance your solution until you're happy with it.

4.  Develop a Custom Drim Solution

1. Choose an Arena (Marketing, Sales, Production, etc) from the Solutions in the Main Menu.
2. Choose a specific solution - or set of them - from the collection within that Arena.
3. Identify which of the solution elements seem to apply to your situation directly - and which don't seem to.
4. Apply those solutions to your specific situation.