55 Minutes

<p>Albert Einstein is credited with saying If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend fifty-five minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions. This book is about how to use those metaphorical first fifty-five minutes wisely. If we want to be successful when we innovate act or try to change the system we need to get serious about understanding the problem. But problems don't exist in a vacuum. They are enmeshed and ensnared in complexity. Moreover the kinds of problems we face in our workplaces institutions and society at large are the results of systems. </p><p></p><p>Unfortunately the world that most of us inhabit is focused on those last five minutes-rushing headlong toward a solution without having understood the problem. This happens in virtually every industry organization and sector of society. It's one of the reasons most new businesses fail most public policies are reactive and innovation (whether commercial or social) spends far too much time in the unicorn-seeking land of hackathons design sprints and slick pitches where confident answers make poor substitutes for authentic understanding. We work in solutions-driven companies we expect governments to deliver rapid fixes and we ask schools to teach and test for the right answers instead of asking new and better questions. </p><p></p><p>This book is an atlas an expansive compendium of foundational practices concepts frameworks and tools for mapping and navigating systems. It will help you ask better questions and see deeper forces beneath the problems and symptoms visible on the surface. To those who lament that the system is broken the system is rigged or it's a systemic problem this is a guide to understanding those systems and hopefully feeling less helpless alienated and confused. The world is not linear binary or static. It is rich with complex systems and it is changing rapidly and radically. But in order to keep up we need to slow down and think. Set your watch to <em>The 55 Minutes</em>-your compass amid complexity. </p>