Great article - filling in the blanks is necessary to survive - but if you do not know you are filling in the blanks you could be reducing your prospects of survival.
As a pathologist I catch myself all the time seeing what I ‘ought’ to see. Conclusion: not to work alone. Your writing points me toward some obstacles I encounter in teaching. We use a microscope that thanks to the ingenious optics makes maximum use of the tiny part of our retina with great resolution. Today we often use a picture on a screen rather than sharing the microscope, on which we would see the exact same field with similar resolution. When we look at a computer screen or projection our eyes take in individual fields, then our brains stitch them together. Thus making your students see what you see is not always easy. I can understand when I am being told : « you are making this up « !
Wicked good! I love the way you weave together seemingly disparate stories and perspectives into a persuasive, integrated POV.
Has there been a third way to challenge our mental models revealed to us lately (or perhaps a variation on self-scrutiny): “learning from surprises”?
Among all that we have experienced over the last two years, surely one dynamic has been the series of shocks to our conventional mental models around global health, war and peace, inflation, civil society and so much more. These surprises have often been fractal - at a global, national, organizational and individual level - as we might hope, since wise decision-making is vital on every plane.
These surprises are, if we exploit them, rich with insights about our blind spots as well as our sources of complacency.
He proposes that we do not oscillate between periods of high and low uncertainty, but rather between periods of high and low complacency. Indeed, just when we think uncertainty is low, we likely are at a time of high complacency and vice versa.
To overcome our perceptual handicaps, one priority might be to identify which assumptions we are both most reliant on and most complacent about. An easier skill to name than consistently to act upon, but still, think of the prize if we do it well!
Great article - filling in the blanks is necessary to survive - but if you do not know you are filling in the blanks you could be reducing your prospects of survival.
Excellent as usual
As a pathologist I catch myself all the time seeing what I ‘ought’ to see. Conclusion: not to work alone. Your writing points me toward some obstacles I encounter in teaching. We use a microscope that thanks to the ingenious optics makes maximum use of the tiny part of our retina with great resolution. Today we often use a picture on a screen rather than sharing the microscope, on which we would see the exact same field with similar resolution. When we look at a computer screen or projection our eyes take in individual fields, then our brains stitch them together. Thus making your students see what you see is not always easy. I can understand when I am being told : « you are making this up « !
love to read your « stories »
May be nothing to it, but the cover of the Heuer book does not have a "The". Is this another erroneously fulfilled expectation?
Wicked good! I love the way you weave together seemingly disparate stories and perspectives into a persuasive, integrated POV.
Has there been a third way to challenge our mental models revealed to us lately (or perhaps a variation on self-scrutiny): “learning from surprises”?
Among all that we have experienced over the last two years, surely one dynamic has been the series of shocks to our conventional mental models around global health, war and peace, inflation, civil society and so much more. These surprises have often been fractal - at a global, national, organizational and individual level - as we might hope, since wise decision-making is vital on every plane.
These surprises are, if we exploit them, rich with insights about our blind spots as well as our sources of complacency.
Speaking of which, have you read Morgan Housel’s recent blog post about “Endless Uncertainty”? (http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/endless-uncertainty/ ).
He proposes that we do not oscillate between periods of high and low uncertainty, but rather between periods of high and low complacency. Indeed, just when we think uncertainty is low, we likely are at a time of high complacency and vice versa.
To overcome our perceptual handicaps, one priority might be to identify which assumptions we are both most reliant on and most complacent about. An easier skill to name than consistently to act upon, but still, think of the prize if we do it well!
Superb!