What We're Thinking
Ideas I have found useful
Success in navigating complexity requires a particular outlook or mindset, which includes a commitment to staying in the present as much as possible. I’m always surprised at how challenging my monkey brain makes it to do that. Staying in the moment requires letting go any worries about the future and any assessments from the past.
A risk at all times, but even more acute now.
A little over a week ago we had a kerfuffle over the departure of a number of senior administrative staff from the US State Department. Remember that? I know. It seems so long ago. A quick refresher: on Jan 26, four career Foreign Service officers, each of whom served under both Democratic and Republican administrations left the agency.
Looking for lessons.
I write this from my office in London, where I sit following a largely sleepless night. Before the first polls closed on America’s historic election night, I hosted a lovely dinner with a handful of friends and colleagues where, mercifully, very little conversation was devoted to the campaign or the potential results that were only a few hours away.
Seeing the system sometimes means looking in the mirror.
Lately, our news in the US has been full of stories about young men who have committed crimes of horrific violence. Stabbings. Shootings. Bombings. Mass killings. Terrorism. Last week I came across this thoughtful analysis in The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/2dh48Ms
Fear is a signal you might be about to learn something
In an earlier post, I wrote about the connection between uncertainty and learning. There I tried to make the point that uncertainty is a condition that is pre-requisite to learning, and that the present moment is the most uncertain place we can inhabit because we never know what is going to happen next.
There is another aspect to uncertainty, one that has to do with our reaction when we find ourselves confronted by it.
