via youtube.com
Most of us hope that for every problem there is a cause and a solution that has a direct link - poor health needs more medicine. Poor educational outcomes - more teachers and tests. Poor economy - more credit and so on. The world of politics is especially prone to making these simple connections. Most large organizations have not time for anything else.
But today most of our problems are at best Complex - meaning that there can be no direct causal linkage. What is causing global warming? How should I as a teen prepare for the unknown future? What is causing my business to fail? Why am I depressed? And so on.
The only way to find answers to these kinds of problems is to look for patterns. We find them best not in evidence and in statistical data but in stories. When we see enough story, a pattern will emerge. Now we have NOT a cause and effect but a Pattern where we can see the tendencies or probabilities emerge. For instance, we know that a certain kind of parenting will tend to produce the best chance of a child being on a trajectory for reaching optimal development. We know what this pattern is. But this is not a sure thing and a child who does not have this optimal parenting might not be condemned - but mostly is.
Today many of our challenges go beyond Complex. They are Chaotic. Such as what is the sustainable future for Media or Food Systems? What is a new kind of Credit that works for most people?
Here we can only send out "Expeditions" to the Future - experiment. For the answer CANNOT be known by analysis or forethought. Once enough experimentation is done, then a pattern drawn from the stories will Emerge.
So for all of us that are interested in finding a sustainable food or media system, there are two steps.
Experiment widely - follow the stories of the experiments and look for patterns.
If you want to fail - it's easy - keep trying the old ways harder!
