How “systems thinking” can level up your work — and your life
Four blind men came upon an elephant in the forest.
They had never experienced this massive creature before. Slowly, they each reached out and touched a different part of the elephant.
“It’s like a snake,” one man said as he felt the long, supple trunk.
“No, it’s a column,” pronounced another, leaning on the muscular leg.
Another jumped back as he heard the animal’s cry. “It’s piercing, like a trumpet.”
The elephant began to move. The fourth man stood, frozen as the ground shook: “It’s an earthquake!”
This ancient parable from the Indian subcontinent has been passed down in many different forms. But the moral is almost always the same:
We often think our own, partial experience represents the full truth, even though other people have different experiences and truths.
Everything is a system
The elephant story is a reminder to approach life with empathy; to step into…
