Muddling along

Give it our best shot

Keeping our fingers crossed

Flying by the seat of our pants

Testing the waters

Hoping for the best

Muddling through

How often in our work do we hear these expressions? While they may be said in jest there can be an underlying truth in terms of how people are facing particular challenges in their work. It would be unusual to see these terms in a business plan, they are certainly not associated with the language of rational strategy yet they are definitely part of our everyday experience.

This may in part be a reflection of the challenges of facing the white water referred to in the previous blog. Our business plans and goal statements try and smooth out the white water, they generally tell the stories of a cause and effect, linear world.

In his book ‘Learning as a Way of Being’ Vaill suggests that we find systems thinking too difficult to contemplate, we don’t want everything to be connected to everything else, we want these simple cause and effect chains so that we can take action and get results.