Daniel Coyle

And if you had the capacities, if you follow those instructions, you would get a Ferrari at the end.

Complex things are alive.

They change as you interact with them.

So the kind of litmus test is like, is this more like building a Ferrari or is it more like raising a teenager?

Like there's no list I could give you to raise a teenager.

There's no set of instructions you could possibly follow because everything you do changes the system.

And so our world is divided into these types of problems.

Like building a house is a complicated problem, but dealing with the contractors, that's complex.

Getting to know your neighbors, that's complex.

So, and with complex problems,

it's best to explore into them and learn.

The scientists would call it probing.

With complicated problems, which are sort of basically Legos, you want to analyze, you want to get expert opinions, you want to analyze it, get to an answer.

But with complex, it's best to test and to walk into them and to step into them, because you'll learn.

And then you learn and then you step a little further and you learn and then you step a little further.

And so this distinction of understanding, all right, which kind of space am I in right now?

Am I in a complicated space where I need to get an expert analysis and get the right information and do it?

Or am I in a complex space where I need to open my mind, I need to step into it and I need to see what happens and respond to that.

And I think a lot of modern life is assuming and pushing us to assume that things are complicated when in fact, they're complex.

When in fact, there's no really clear answer.