Posts tagged Alan Lightman
New Leadership Superpower: Super Systems Thinking

Thinking is hard. Planning is hard. Figuring out why what you are thinking and planning isn’t working is harder still. But in a fast-moving world, we are often doing our thinking and planning on the fly. We are taking action even as we are still processing important considerations, and we are regularly trying to remedy problems as they are happening—the proverbial changing-the-aircraft-engine in mid-air dilemma.

There are many reasons why this approach is often unsuccessful. A not unsubstantial cause is the pressure we all feel to be productive quickly. That stress can feel unrelenting and pushes us to want to “solve” or “fix” things fast. Because so few of the issues in our universe are “stand alone,” considering the implications of choices can be a time and energy consuming activity. Doing so involves generating sequences of if/then reasoning, often with many branches along the way. And that exercise produces considerable data which requires precious time for reflection. We’ve even given a pejorative name to how that can appear to others: “analysis paralysis” reflects both our penchant for rhyming terms and our bias toward speed.

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Harnessing the Wired World

In his book, A Sense of the Mysterious, (Vintage Books, 2006) physicist and author Alan Lightman includes an essay called: “Unwillingly Trapped by the Wired World.” Lightman’s piece and a New York Times (2010) article called "Growing up Digital. Wired for Distraction," by Matt Richtel caught my attention and prompted some of my initial deeper thinking about our connection to the wired world. While both of these pieces struck me as helpful to the high school students and their parents with whom I was working at the time, and, as I think more broadly about the world of work in my current leadership consulting role with SmarterWisdom, I see the need for us all to harness our use--and overuse--of technology. Ensuring that we have time for the reflection and learning that helps us access our inner wisdom is even more crucial at this moment. As we all cope with the myriad demands and changing landscape of our lives during Covid, finding a way out of our involuntary entrapment, and thus ensuring our continued potential to dream and imagine, is vital to leading a fulfilled life.

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