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We Can Only Improve Life and Work Systems That We See & Acknowledge
Life is made up of a series of systems that put together create a whole. We can operate within those systems without understanding their existence. When things go wrong we identify a piece of the system and call it a problem. If we don’t see the systems that we are a part of we can’t do anything about them. We can’t replicate, improve, or expand them with any sense of authenticity. With general awareness comes the ability to fix symptoms, but as long as we are unable to identify the system and what makes it up, we are helpless to do anything meaningful with it.
I ask a co-worker to explain the system she uses with her notebook because I love to learn about what other people come up with and am eager to improve what I do. She says there is no rhyme or reason to it. All the pages in her notebook are flat. When she finishes her to do list on a page she folds it down from top to bottom cross wise. The next page to be completed is turned from bottom to top. This quickly reveals the flat pages that have to do items left on them or that are available for use. An outsider can easily see that a system exists, but she did not realize she had created one until she took the time to explain the steps.
“You see, but you don’t observe.”
