ROCKET SCIENCE
Two words today instead of one. I guess it’s two-word Tuesday.
ROCKET SCIENCE is used as a phrase to convey something that is highly complex, detailed, or confusing. A synonym in this context is BRAIN SURGERY. Both are also areas where the stakes are high and misinformation can have disastrous consequences. And something where a team working together in complex ways is the only way to do it safely.
I thought of this phrase while in a meeting planning some of our future developments and hearing: “We can be in the Cloud but we need Oxygen support.”
What we do is tremendously complex and detailed. But we can overcome the confusing part.
When the information (before we get to it) is confusing and we figure out how to present this clearly, that is when others APPRECIATE what we do—they recognize the confusion that we resolved. And that is GREAT.
When the information is clear (but wrong) and the confusion is not apparent, we need to both recognize it and then convey it in clear ways without being misleading. When this occurs and we do it well, then others APPRECIATE what we do on a different level. That is EXCEPTIONAL.
If you can make the confusing simple in an accurate way, please do. If not, keep asking why it is so confusing – if you ask the right question, maybe someone else can answer it in a simple and accurate way.
Unite Equity Muses | Ask ethical questions about co-designing a fair-free-flourishing future
9 年Some great points about clarifying confusion. However, complexity is not the same as complicated. So-called wicked problems do not have fixed, defined and static solutions. EBM is good at complicated problems whereas it has many limitations in dealing with complexity. This is an important technical difference in using complexity language. For example, EBM is inadequate in addressing the macro level complexity of reversing the epidemics of unhealthy habits. Reductionism and RCTs were not designed to address wicked problems.