UNKNOWN

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.

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.

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 The 55 Minutes—your compass amid complexity.

James Stauch has authored or coauthored many guides, scans, and trend analyses on a range of contemporary social issues. A social innovation and systems change educator and consultant based in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada, he serves as Co-chair of the Banff Systems Summit and as Complex Systems Strategist with ATCO's SpaceLab. James is a Visiting Fellow at the Skoll Centre at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and was the founding Executive Director of the Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University, where he developed social innovation, leadership, and systems-focused learning programs for undergraduate students and the broader community. James has also been a foundation executive and philanthropy consultant, which included designing and managing Arctic and Northern programming with the Gordon Foundation. Having chaired several national and international grantmaking networks and consortia, James is currently a board member of Alberta Ecotrust Foundation and a member of the editorial advisory board of The Philanthropist journal.