Essays on decision-making inside complex systems.

Rita Hausken

When my son was two, doctors told me he had five years to live and that there was nothing to be done. I could not accept that as the answer. I went looking for someone who thought differently, and over the years that followed I was part of bringing treatment into the world that had not existed before. He lived to twenty-seven. That is where I learned the thing I work from now. The official answer is not always the right answer. The problem in front of you is rarely the real problem. And the quality of a question can change the direction of a decision. I work with leaders holding a vision the system around them was not built to hold. My work is to stay in it with them, not flinch at the stakes, and stay with the real question until the next true move becomes clear.