The Power of Systems

“The system didn’t work, or you didn’t work the system?”

Or to use another sports cliché, as Wayne Gretzky may have said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Why Wayne? Why do you skate to where the puck is going? Can you explain your deep philosophical system? By the time we finished asking that question, Wayne would already be gone, to where the puck is going next. There

In other words, it looked like the thinking was derailing me. But it wasn’t the thinking. It was my relationship with the thinking.

Instead of listening for what he agreed or disagreed with when she spoke, this system would have him listen for the value in whatever she was saying, whether he agreed or disagreed with her point of view.

We play the system-improvement game, not the self-improvement game.

The heart of the systems paradigm involves shifting our language, actions and attention away from inside the head—from the world of mind and psychology—towards the world outside of us, the world of action.

“Oh, I see what’s going on. You still think it’s your job to have all the answers.”

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

What? I didn’t know what to say. Flip it and reverse it? She said, “It’s from a song by Missy Elliott.”