Stories.

Most people's work is disconnected from their Widget.

They go to their office, occupy themselves for eight hours, go home.

They know that they've done a good job because nobody told them that they didn't and they're still getting emails on the All Staff mail list. 

Most importantly their boss puts money in their bank each fortnight for them to forward most of it into their mortgage. 

Sure, they make things. Emails, reports, meeting agendas, minutes.

They go to quarterly staff meetings and listen to a boss tell them about how the Widget is going with PowerPoint slides in support.

Once a year they sit down with their boss who tells them how they've performed and what courses they need to do because We're A Learning Organisation. 

So they go to the professional development seminars with relief at the novelty of being away from their desk and eat mints with the other seven perky strangers on their table as an expert projects PowerPoint slides with dot points about innovation with anecdotes about Fortune 500 companies and other stories to inspire them to be better. 

We love stories.  They connect us to something bigger.

Good decision making is story telling.

It has a heroic arc that gives us meaning. 

It's heroic because it's our conscious act to embark on the journey and accept its possible consequences and take responsibility for them.

It's superior to what most call decision making which is actually an instinctive sneeze-like response to a stimulus.

Our journey begins with the ascent of a hill where we sit at the top and take in the view of the Widget.

Wow. We never realised how close our desk was to it.

Good decision making is a journey that takes us out and back again to our desk and it won't look the same afterwards.

That's what a Learning Organisation is. 

'We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.'

- T.S. Eliot 'Little Gidding'.