Sunday, September 15, 2013

Keeping it simple

Our everyday lived experience is often complicated and uncertain... so how to cope?

The human brain has evolved to engage with reality on the basis of simple rules-of-thumb (heuristics) that we can readily recall, share and apply at short notice. No heuristics are universal truths but some are useful under certain conditions.

Here are a few of my favourites on Change and Improvement. These are not listed in any particular order - it depends on the situation at hand and the needs of those involved:
These and many similar heuristics could be distilled down into the following set of three (thanks to Insoo Kim Berg & Steve De Shazer):
  1. Identify what works and do more of it 
  2. Identify what doesn’t work, stop doing it and do something different 
  3. Take some small (safe-fail) steps in the direction you want to move
In many ways heuristics are like keys - they are easy to carry and open the door to a richer set of possibilities.