Originated by Alfred Korzybski (Science and Sanity, 1933) and extended by Gregory Bateson (Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972).
Treats every model, dashboard, and plan as a partial picture of reality, and asks where the picture and the ground have drifted apart.
When to reach for it
Metrics, forecasts, or frameworks have started to stand in for the things they describe, or an argument has turned into a fight over definitions.
How it runs
- List the models and measures the team relies on most.
- For each, name what it leaves out.
- Ask when those omissions would change a decision.
- Schedule regular contact with the raw reality: sites, data, users.
- Where model and reality disagree, trust reality and revise the model.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
- Any step: Tools that serve every step: habits of thought and checks on the thinking itself.
Go to the source
- Science and Sanity, 1933
- Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972