the journey and the destination
I know the journey is more important than the destination, but destinations provide an essential point as they mark somewhere to head towards. All journeys start with a single step, and for me, this journey started a little over three years ago. I have spent this past period considering the question, “How do we make Better Decisions.” This question was refined to become “How do we make Better Decisions with data.” This expanded into “How do we make Better Decisions with data and be better ancestors?” My journey can finally see a destination.
However, I am now facing a more significant challenge.
Having reached the destination zone, I want to leave a mark, and it's straightforward to imagine planting a flag. The hope is that when the flag is planted some of the team back at home can see that you've reached the final place. In most circumstances, the destination is not in the Line-of-Sight. Therefore you pick up the flag and wave it, hoping that somebody with binoculars can see you waving your destination flag. If someone sees you, they relay it to the others that the advance party or pioneers (risk-takers and general nutters) have reached the destination. In innovation and invention land, you're tempted to stay at the destination, hoping that the others will follow you to the same place. Waiting there means you eventually run out of resources, this being cash or budget. Having run out of resources, you're faced with the reality you have to head back to where everyone else is as nobody is going to follow you to the destination; it is too risky. On arriving back at home, there's a bit of a party and a celebration. You relay your stories about the journey and how wonderful the destination is. After a few hours of partying, everybody heads back to their homes, leaving you wondering how to persuade others to go to the destination as well.
There are a series of videos on YouTube of a single dancer who starts to dance to music, and over periods of 5-minutes to several hours, the dancing crowd grows until everybody is dancing. Early adopters and supporters join the pioneer, and eventually, they are joined by the followers who make the crowd. (2021 #covid19 note, what is a crowd and what is a party?)
The next day after your return, everybody gets up and goes around their jobs and business as usual. What is now needed is to convert the excitement of the destination into a language and story that the first supporters and early adopters can relate to and join in. What is tremendously difficult is constructing a straightforward linear narrative and step actions, meaning the crowd can also join in and desire to get to a new destination. (crossing the chasm) For businesses right now, this is the digital transformation, data, circular economy, ESG, climate change, AI, ethics and sustainability. The pioneers have been to the destination, planted the flags, imagined the better fruits, but we have to drop the complexity of the issues and find a better story for us all to get there.
The journey I have been on for the last few years is understanding how we make better decisions. This means I have had to unpack numerous topics and dependencies deep in the messiness of models and complexity. Unsurprisingly there are only a few who are also motivated about understanding the complexity and philiosphy of better decisions, it is my burden. We are converting what we have found at the destination (how to make better decisions with data and be better ancestors) into a language that fellow supporters and early adopters can engage with and discuss.
BUT
I am now desperate for expert support to convert the ideas into straightforward narrative and actions that the crowd in the town can take on board and start their journey, but knowing where they are going has been discovered. My struggle is that I find it hard to dumb down the complex into a tweet as it cannot possibly embrace the complexity. I continually flight myself as I can see the simple is not truly representative. The PhD virologist of 30 years is given 1 minute to explain virus mutation on the news. The simple becomes fodder to the vocal and easily upset in social media land as it is easily misunderstood and taken out of context. I spend more time trying to justify (to myself) why I am using simple concepts to explain complex ideas.
Tribe, I need some help. Is there anybody out there (a nod to Pink Floyd) who is willing to spend the time in a small community helping to refine the words, language, stories, ideas and concepts into a straightforward linear narrative that portrays actions and activities, which means we can all take steps on a journey to making Better Decisions? This is not a job it is a vocation. Journeys are so much more fun when we do them together, and the next part of the journey is to do it all together. I'm looking for early adopter and supporters who can share their destinations so that together we can create a better narrative about decision making, governance and oversight.
Are you willing and able to help form and write a narrative to enable others to come on our journey?