When you go fishing, and get a “birds nest” in the reel, it’s complicated.
Line everywhere. Only hope you have to untangle it is a slow, methodical unravelling of the mess. Maybe let’s start at the end…
When you watch a school of fish move, it’s not complicated, but it is complex.
Simple back and forth, turning. However, you can’t predict anything, particularly from up close.
Zooming out, you can start to see the school showing patterns, maybe following tides or temperature over longer timeframes. But there’s no way we can slowly “unravel” the behaviour to figure it out. We can only seek patterns.
Complicated problems mean we need to decide on a starting point and then figure it out.
Complex problems mean we need to zoom out and look for emerging patterns.
Deciding what kind of problem you have in front of you is important.
[Shoutout to Natalie Nixon in her book The Creative Leap for bringing this up.]
