Each month, I share three articles that made me stop, think, and sometimes rethink my own assumptions. I hope they stimulate your thinking as much as they did mine.
Goals in Complexity
Chris Corrigan explores the uneasy fit between fixed goals and complex work. Drawing on Dave Snowden, he argues for establishing a direction of travel, understanding the present situation, and taking several safe-to-fail steps towards the adjacent possible. A useful challenge to approaches that decide the destination first and assume the route can then be planned. Read the article
Why Some Conversations Don’t Need a Script
Rod Naquin draws on research into interactive alignment to explain how people in conversation gradually begin to use similar language and develop a shared understanding, often without consciously trying. He also offers a simple conversational practice called the three-word echo. An interesting account of how conversation can help us think together without requiring a formal process. Read the article
Telling Is Listening
Drawing on an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin, Maria Popova challenges the familiar idea of communication as information passing from a sender to a receiver. Human conversation is portrayed instead as a mutual, embodied and relational process in which speaking and listening continually shape one another. It connects beautifully with interthinking and the idea that a real conversation can change everyone involved. Read the article
Knowledge Letter: Issue: 315 (Subscribe)
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Image Credits: Midjourney
(Public Domain)
