It took me years to realize that what we see is not all there is.
As an engineer I was taught that all you needed was a goal or objective – you could then build a solution to meet that goal.
That may be the case if the goal is simple – like losing weight.
But many people know that the process of losing weight is complex and problematic – we experience a fog of opinion, misunderstanding and cycles of success and failure.
Success depends on how you walk into the fog and find your way out again.
Now, the method I reach for, when trying to understand a situation, is to draw it – using rich pictures from soft systems methodology and rich notes from my own research.
Listening, talking and drawing together helps us explore the situation, peer through the fog, and understand what types of actions are possible given the constraints and limitations around us.
Navigating complexity becomes much easier if you can make unsaid and invisible factors explicit and visible.
Explore first. Then act.
Handcrafted insight 