![\"theory-practice\"](\"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/theory-practice.jpg\")
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I\u2019ve finally realized that it\u2019s not what<\/em> I knew that has been important, \u2026 it\u2019s been my way-of-Seeing<\/span><\/i><\/u>. \u00a0A capacity that helped me \u201cknow\u201d (or <\/span><\/i>believe I did) by providing a way for me to see through organizational complexity to its simple root causes.<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s wrong with that?\u00a0 After all, Oliver Wendell Holmes deeply longed for that capacity:<\/p>\n “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity,<\/em><\/p>\n but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMy problem\u201d is not that I could do that\u2026but that I believed<\/u> what I saw.<\/u><\/p>\n The cartoon above perfectly captures how those B<\/em>elief-<\/em>creating,<\/em> Eureka<\/em><\/span>,<\/em> sense-making epiphanies that integrate \u201cseeing\u201d and \u201cbelieving\u201d happened for me\u2026 and subsequently became a way-of-thinking that impacted the professional roles I found myself playing in the spaces between \u201cTheory\u201d and \u201cPractice.\u201d<\/p>\n Its major value proved to be its portrayal of organizations as already connected<\/u><\/em> systems.<\/u>\u00a0 Those of us who urge others to be \u201csystems thinkers\u201d often overlook the perceptual paradox facing those who lead and manage organizations: \u00a0the fundamental element that makes a system a \u201csystem\u201d — relationships among its parts<\/u>— in most cases, can\u2019t be seen.<\/em>\u00a0 We accept their existence based on \u201ctheory\u201d or \u201cfaith\u201d (the latter considered a belief <\/u>in the unseen<\/em>.)<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s my<\/u> \u201cproblem\u201d? <\/strong><\/p>\n This condition had direct consequences for the rest of his life. For me, it\u2019s become an on-going, frustrating struggle I once expressed in a blog: \u00a0Copernicus\u2019 Curse and Galileo\u2019s Pain<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 as this became my natural way-of-seeing and understanding, it enabled me to ask \u201cdifferent questions,\u201d and also to see, first why some schools \u201cdifferent answers\u201d were working; and then, how many of those answers were interdependent and connected.<\/p>\n But, as I learned, those who could not \u201csee\u201d those sense-making connections<\/em> had trouble understanding how these \u201canswers\u201d related to the \u201clarger\u201d (and inter-connected) problems they were dealing with.\u201d<\/p>\n So, to help others see <\/em>what I believed <\/em>(and could not unbelieve),<\/em> I\u2019ve sometimes employed metaphors such as another \u201cmirror\u201d — Alice\u2019s Looking Glass.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n Possibly forgotten by many who only know Alice from her \u201cAdventures in Wonderland<\/em><\/strong>\u201d is that her learning adventures didn\u2019t end there.\u00a0 Lewis Carroll in 1871 wrote a sequel — Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This time, Carroll used a mirror as a portal through which he could present a different view of in-the-room reality \u2013 one that also could expose truths that weren\u2019t obvious before. This site, similarly, is purposefully structured around a different portal or window (see Welcome Alice<\/a>) that, like Alice\u2019s Looking Glass<\/em>, is intended to elicit different questions that can point to potential answers already \u201cin the room.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice\u2019s<\/em> thoughts that will be reflected in this series of occasional blogs come not just from the different theory ground into that lens, but from experience continually viewing through it actual practice in a major school system \u2013the Montgomery County MD Public Schools. That story is told elsewhere on this site.<\/td>\n\n
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\n What does Alice <\/em>see?<\/p>\n ![\"alice\"](\"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/alice.jpg\")
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