Episode 84: Can you be a good leader without also being a systems thinker?

Authority Issues

In this episode, Kendall and rachel talk about:

• The art of mending things beautifully (the words rachel was trying to remember are Kintsugi and Sashiko, in that order)
• The art of mending things not so beautifully, aka hacking off the bottom of your favorite pants and adding bits of your favorite shirt so they fit better (Kendall subsequently found some photos, but none of them from after the shirt addition...)
• Why Kendall sounds echo-ey (also, maybe this is why there's an annoying echo of rachel throughout this recording, apologies)
• Why we're talking about systems thinking: https://twitter.com/johncutlefish/status/1518361842342453248 (no longer pinned)
• Context, and why it rules from orbit
• How seeing the big picture can be frustrating when one has limited power or scope
• Optimization, in a shockingly nerdy gaming analogy
• When it's hard to share context due to business volatility
• Wait, what actually do we mean when we say systems thinking?
• How systems thinking is actually largely about understanding people and their motivations
• A former podcast guest we both think is a super impressive systems thinker but did not name ;)

Thanks to John Cutler (@jcutlefish on Twitter) for a thought-provoking list!

Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3