It’s rare that you can solve a problem by operating at the level of the problem. You are more likely to find a solution by going “up” one level of abstraction/organization, or “down” a level to wrestle with more detail.
Leaders and managers in every organization should study and understand Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems, because leaders must think outside the circle.
Kurt Godel was an Austrian mathematician and logician who proved in 1931 (at age 25!) that no system can prove its own assumptions; you must have information from outside the system to prove its base assumptions. The information inside the system is incomplete. Think of it this way: If you can draw a circle around something, you need information from outside the circle to understand everything inside the circle.
What does this mean for leaders and managers? When you face organizational challenges, you need information from outside your regular working system to appreciate what’s going on, and make improvements. You must get outside the trees in order to understand the forest. Solutions are rarely found by working exclusively within the existing system. That’s why outsiders can often spot problems or leverage points that insiders have missed.
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