Upstream

Organizations are constantly dealing with urgent short-term problems.

simulations aren’t supposed to be perfect predictions, just credible ones, and ideally, the parties involved get multiple opportunities to practice.

book Click Here to Kill Everybody is essential reading for anyone involved in setting the policy or norms for networked technology.

Have you come to accept problems in your relationships that might be avoidable? Sometimes a bit of upstream thinking can open up new possibilities. “After twenty-five years of marriage, my wife and I thought we had very little in common and rarely had meaningful conversation,” said Steve Sosland of Fredericksburg, Texas.7 “When we did talk, it often sent me into fight-or-flight (typically flight) mode. My wife just wanted to talk things through. We had no ground rules for working through the issue.” Several couples close to them had divorced, and it spooked both of them. “Over coffee one morning on our back porch, we discussed our friends’ divorces. One of us asked the other, ‘Are we headed in that direction?’ The answer seemed obvious. We decided to sit together and discuss what we could do to prevent it. We really didn’t have an answer, so we agreed to return the next morning to discuss it again, and the next, and the next.” What they both wanted was a way to have safe discussions—to talk through any issue, no matter how hard, without remorse or regret or hard feelings. It made sense to them to have a physical place where these conversations would happen. So they bought a hot tub, and that’s where they had complicated conversations. It just seemed to work. “After several years, we built the home we always wanted and of course we put a Jacuzzi on the back deck for our ‘hot tub’ conversations,” he said.

“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.”

“Be impatient for action but patient for outcomes.”

Change won’t come without action. At the same

Change won’t come without action.

Downstream work is narrow and fast. Upstream is broad and slow(er). You can bring a homeless person a meal today, and

Downstream work is narrow and fast. Upstream is broad and slow(er).

Macro starts with micro. When we think about big problems, we’re forced to

Macro starts with micro.