Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. I have a very good friend joining me from Eugene, Oregon. His name is Ron Schultz. And Ron and I have known each other so long that his hair has fallen out. But anyway, this is his is Review, I'm gonna say the 25th anniversary of a book called Open boundaries that we're going to be talking about today. And this is creating business innovation through complexity. He co-authored this book with Howard Sherman. So a shout out to Howard Sherman as well. The first real

Ron Schultz
Howard is still dead.

Greg Voisen
Okay, so he's still dead? Well, we put a shout out to him wherever he is. But the book is a new addition with the revisions is excellent. This is actually this is 25 years, it's actually been 27 years. I think it was 1995. But the reality is, is that the content of the book is still applicable as much applicable today, as it was 25 years ago, but has been updated. So again, the book is open boundaries. Look for it. We'll put a link on Amazon. Ron, I want to tell our listeners a little bit about you. Ron's written and coauthored and edited 25 published books on social innovation, meditation, emergent science and entrepreneurship. In 2014, he received the social innovation leadership award from the world CSR Congress. Among his books are creating good work, the world's leading social entrepreneurs show how to build a healthy economy. That was in 2013, the complex Buddhist doing good in a challenging world. Again, same publishers this one and open boundaries, which that's this book that we're talking about the 25th anniversary edition. In addition to his book publishing credentials, Ron has written hundreds of nationally publicized magazine articles and had an extensive career in television and film. Ron has spoken and lectured at the Skoll World Forum and the world CSR Congress, the social enterprise World Forum, the Oxford jam and numerous social enterprise Alliance summits. I did his undergraduate work at the California State University, Northridge, which is recently accepted his archives for his collection. He's also on the board of directors for the Tom and for Bradley Foundation and the Institute for study of coherence, and emergence. And as I said, he lives in Eugene, Oregon, he transplanted himself up there a few years back. So, Ron, you know, you and I have known each other so long, but you co-authored this book with Howard. And at this point, it's like 27 years ago, if you would tell the listeners, how complexity played a role in innovation 27 years ago, and what has changed relative to our current complex business environments, as it relates to this because this, if anything's happened, our worlds have just sped up even more, and they've become more complex.

Ron Schultz
Well, what has to be understood is that complexity didn't start 25 years ago, 27 years ago, it started. It was, since the beginning of time, and probably before the beginning of time, it was this as a definition of complexity, very quickly, you and I interact, something emerges out of that interaction that is greater than the sum of our two parts, and not wholly contained by either. And when we start including more people than us, in that, in that interactive process, things get very complex. In fact, those people who are in relationships with another person who have discovered the relationship to become very complex and very quick. And so the impact on business has always been operating out of this complex environment. What's happened is we really haven't we haven't focused on it. We haven't recognized. We've been trapped in old ways of thinking, in this case, we're coming out of a mechanistic universe, that it wants everything to fall into certain predictable patterns. And the part of that's interesting, most interesting about complexity is that that predictability is not possible, because things are constantly emerging, emerging in constant change.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, the complexity part of it. It it's seems and I'm sure it's like you said, complexity has been here since the dawn of time. But it seems in the world in which we live, especially with the amount of technology that we have to deal with, and how much we rely on all of this, you and I hear making a call, that's a great example of how this world has become even more complex. You state that the process of forming and informing has always played a major role in this book. What is the paradox is by the very nature of complexity, that cannot be fully formulated, because it's is continually emerging, speak with the listeners about the slippery nature of complexity thinking, because it is very slippery, let's face it, you know, it's pretty hard to put boundaries around it, you say, open boundaries. That's why the book is open boundaries, because it's, it's tough.

Ron Schultz
Yeah, well, the use of the word slippery is very interesting and very apt. What we're really looking at too, is the notion that the, because of the emergence, because of our sense of things, interacting and emerging all the time, we can't hold on. And that slippery nature is about our grasping, trying to hold on. And it's one of the issues that has caused so many problems in this in, in and around our world is our need to grasp and hold on to things and keep them as they are, as opposed to allowing them to emerge to change. And the same thing is certainly true within our, our business. Foundations and, and institutions, we want them to be solid. And in this case, they're not there. In fact, they're, they're constantly changing. And so that emerging blog, and is, in fact slippery, because you can't hold on, there is no grasping. And, and that's an important quality in this whole process is to understand that within our the work that we're doing, if we're trying to hold on to something, it's just going to slip out of our head, we'll speak about

Greg Voisen
that, because uncertainty seems to be the word that's used. As a matter of fact, in business, there's an acronym, and I'm, I can't recall it right now, you probably can. And there's four letters, and one of them is uncertainty, right? It's like dealing with uncertainty, there seems to be in this emerging evolution of the times in which we're living today, much more uncertainty, I can remember what seemed to me. And again, this is perception only, that the world was a lot more stable. And, and again, I think that's biased thinking, I would agree that it's biased thinking. But at the same time, as a human being in the way we're made up and the way our brain works, and neurologically, how we fire, and our amygdala and how we hold things in this little brain up here, it has a very difficult time, wanting to make that change it fights, it definitely fights moving to this, as you call it, let go. You know, it's like, there is people I mean, you look, you're the one with all the background and training in Buddhism. And, you know, I have a quote on my wall over here, you know, the Dalai Lama says, you'll be remembered for how many people you loved, who loved you, and how much you let go, right? I'm paraphrasing, and it's that let go apart, then I have a feeling that everybody listening to this show has the most difficult time with?

Ron Schultz
Well, it is it's hard, letting go is in notion of letting go is hard. But what I what I've often said, especially when I'm teaching people meditation, is that it's not so much about letting go. It's about holding on. And if we're not holding on to something, we've got nothing to let go. And it's in in that context. I can understand letting go easier. It's I get there easier, because I'm not holding on. Stopping to let go up. And that's the whole practice. That's the whole idea of is it within a complex adaptive system. And that's what we're talking about here are systems that are able to adapt that in that change process. If we try to hold on to it. All we're doing is killing it or not allowing it to change and emerge as it wants to do and the whole notion of the systems you and I are complex adaptive systems. The whole notion of us It is constantly moving and changing that whole process of in the Buddhist, Buddhist area, it's called impermanence in the business area, it's called that damn change. Another yet another change operation, the thing is, is that it's always changing. Everything that we're doing that is adaptive system is changing the old. And that's why people were so low, let go of the mechanical unit set system that is very predictable, that when you build a widget, you build the same widget over and over and over again. And the system doesn't change, if you feel comfortable, think that they feel comfortable. But what actually happens is that stops them from really moving into something new about Lean, which is the root of innovation. Yeah.

Greg Voisen
And along with that, which is another Buddhist term, which is used, it's the acceptance of what is right, it's like we, we sometimes have a preconceived notion, as we're inventing something, making something doing something that we think it should turn out a certain way. And when we resist, we're not accepting what is or what's trying to show up for us, which is the emergence of the development of this product service, whatever it might be. Because we think it's got to happen this particular way. And in your comments, on the myths of the closed system, you state that in stark contrast to the Newtonian closed system, open systems are not mechanical, but emergent, I think that's important to note here, speak with the listeners about open systems and their emergent properties, because that's really, what the essence is,

Ron Schultz
yeah, well, we have this delusion, illusion that we can close our systems, especially systems that involve people that in systems that are, that are adaptive, that we, we, we think that if we can close them, we can predict them, we can protect them. And what we understand, of course, is that it's kind of why we build fortifications, we think that these fortifications are somehow going to protect us, when in fact, they don't only protect, they may protect us, but they also lock us in. So we can't go beyond those bounds. And we get stuck in those places. And in business, we're constantly having to adapt to what the world is shout out to where we're showing up. And so we have to view our systems, we have to recognize that our systems are open by their very nature, and that the closed system is the unnatural system. And so we can, we can recognize that our systems are open, we can be willing to follow that emergent process that will invariably app because, you know, we cannot do that, you know, any, any biological system, any living system is going to interact with something else. And out of that something new will emerge.

Greg Voisen
And at least find it fascinating. Ron, how over the years, you know, I've had so many people on the show, we're almost at 1000. And as you're speaking, I'm thinking of interviews I've had with Ken Wilber, who got involved in actually codifying what he thought the systems were inside of companies as well, right? So, and he used color codes, red meant that it was a very caustic all the way down to a color system, right. And the reason I brought that up is because Frederick Ledoux, who wrote a book who's over in France, I was talking with somebody about yesterday. And it's really about what we're talking about here that open boundaries, right? The open boundaries, this emergence, this being able to not think we've got to have a closed system, but innovation is the key. So you state that businesses know they must innovate to survive. And this is true, I don't think you can force innovation. And unfortunately, that's kind of what a lot of these companies who attempted to do, but then innovation are incompatible with the company's principles. You state that businesses know that they must innovate to survive, but that innovation, that they are incompatible with the company's principles are often produced confusion rather than growth. I'm speaking with us if you would about the principles, models, rules and behaviors that interfere with true innovation, because, you know,

Ron Schultz
I think that that's, that's a bit of a misunderstanding around there, okay? That they can't they can't interfere, if we're not addressing principles, models, rules and behavior is really how things happen, how things change and why they don't change. So the notion here is the principle of an organization, our environment, we don't change our principles, we go in with a certain way, we want to create the best product, the best products in this market, we want to become the number one. So the comms are, what we're trying to attain what our organization wants to accomplish, and that doesn't change, those stay pretty much the same. But in order to meet that principle, we create models that are constantly changing, we're trying to model what it takes to accomplish that principle. So we create a model or a representation of that it's not, the model is always changing, it's never complete. And in order to make that model happen, we have to have certain rules that govern the behaviors that will build that model that will create that model. And so what ends up happening is that when our model changes, which it will, it always, we also have to go back and change the rules that govern that, and the behaviors that were governed by those rules. And so if we don't do that, if we're if we if we have a new model, and our old rules are still in place, we're not getting we're not getting the behaviors necessary to create that new model, it's pretty safe. So it's a kind of a continual process of updating, and in our rules and our behaviors, to meet the new model to build the new model. And when we refuse to do that, or we don't do, we don't recognize that we have to do, we don't get what we want. And the change that we would like to happen doesn't. But if we do, if we maintain that what can emerge is often inconceivable, as I remember,

Greg Voisen
it being referred by Margaret Wheatley, as this these ecosystems, right inside companies, I'm sure you're familiar with Margaret Wheatley, his work well. And it and she would state things like you know, you can't have that innovation, again, like you guys are saying unless you have this opportunity for people to create another it's creating

Ron Schultz
a culture that

Greg Voisen
is consistent with that. Now, we know many companies have done a very amazing job, Apple being one to allow this to happen, Patagonia, you know, let my people serve all of those things. You want to comment about the creating the ecosystems that are necessary for innovation,

Ron Schultz
the ecosystems exist, what we have to do is just recognize that we are part of that ecosystem, we were part of a great, you know, it, we speak thinking that we're somehow separate from our ecosystem, that's probably part of our problems, in terms of addressing that, because we are very much a part of all of those different process. And to define one, you know, to define the environment of a business, as a separate ecosystem, oftentimes, immediately sets it up for a form of failure, we have to recognize that what we're doing is really connecting is connected to an entire ecosystem of our universe. And that each process of this that we that we're involved in, there's a there's an emergent process that builds it and builds it builds it so that it is all part of one system. But at the same time, that system is interactive. And that when we try to define it, by an ecosystem here and ecosystem there, what happens is we shut we start closing down those what we call open boundaries. Now it's you know, there was a thing called of yours. There is a thing called self-organization, which has been very big in this process and people have misunderstood Heliot says, businesses Aelia Okay, anyway, the fellas, we've defined this notion of self-organization Previous areas dealing in India triggers, you know, though businesses. What he said is that there is the self-organization, but it requires boundaries. It doesn't just happen in and of itself, it needs to be bound. It needs to have that that area around it. And this is the whole notion of promoter does is it provides that container that will allow for self-organization to take place. So that new thing can emerge, but at the same time it has that permeate permeable quality that allows it to open up into the world, the bar.

Greg Voisen
Agreed, agreed, you know, I think it's I don't know if this is the right term, but use it, it's having trust that the system will actually self-emerge itself evolve, right?

Ron Schultz
But you can certainly, you can absolutely have trust in that. Because it's, you know, as we say, it's one of the few things that it's guaranteed about business, that is going to change.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, yeah, it is true. And I think it's around the resistance of understanding about these, how this works. Right? That really is the thing that, you know, cogs up, it creates a lot of messes, a lot of messes. So, you know, you mentioned in the book that if Einstein was still living, that he had the inclination and capitalize on his theories and discoveries, that he'd be the CEO of the largest company on the face of the earth. I thought that was great statement. And I agree. But he didn't commercialize all those things that he thought about. And many people sense has commercialized what he thought about and made lots of money off of it. Yeah, him and Tesla and a bunch of others. What is business? And how can it thrive and embrace new ways of thinking?

Ron Schultz
Well, as we know, it needs, it needs to embrace new ways of thinking, in order to survive. And you know, business is a is a complex set of, of interactions, to produce something that that is something that you want to produce, there's something that you want to accomplish. And that's in business is about the process of doing for profit. And it can be for naught nonprofit, as well, those organizations are also equally as complex. But it is an organization process. And the notion of being able to maintain and evolve to a new way of thinking is merely being open to the process of that emergent, that emergent process of things, change of things interacting and new things coming out of it. Because the whole notion of that is that it's what can emerge out of an interaction is both new and now, which is what innovation is about. But it's also important to understand complexity is agnostic. You know, good things can emerge, bad things can emerge, non-neutral things can emerge, it's that interaction is not necessarily going to produce a positive emergence. So we have to have some discretion, some way of looking at things are discerning what is good and what isn't good. And that's what characterizes the business that stays in business, from a business that goes out of business, is that ability to discern what works and what doesn't. But it's also been open to that new way because we can find, we can find that path. It's like creating new neural net.

Greg Voisen
Well, it is because, you know, we have to adapt and adopt, we have to cope, you know, complexity thrown at me or uncertainty thrown at me or whatever it might be. It starts with the individual inside these organizations to be able to understand how to work with it, how to how to be a partner with it.

Ron Schultz
Yeah, we tried to, we tried to sanitize out the unsanded the uncertainty, that's a real that's a real mistake. Because it's uncut. We're uncomfortable with that uncertainty with not knowing that's what things to be predictable.

Greg Voisen
And well I'm part of that run is the system you were talking about. The systems inside the principles inside the company, the beliefs inside the company. You know, if you have a top line manager, let's just talk about that, you know, and I work under him or her whatever and they are pushing Need to get something done? I don't have the time maybe to wallow, which actually, if I could wallow, right, I probably make a better decision. They're literally looking for decisions to be made, because they believe that it's driving profit, the longer it takes to innovate something, the more money it costs us, you know, you can the list is a mile long, right. And it does require that everybody in the company, understand these principles, more clear

Ron Schultz
rules of behavior and the relationship with those. Yeah. But what we also need to understand is that complexity, and this is the place where we fall down and what blex complexity can't be managed, right? Because it was predictive nature, it can't really be met as it can be led. And so that's why leaders have to recognize the complex nature of their organization and lead them and not just try to manage them, because managing them is a continual system of posing the system, so we can get a better handle. Right? That's what judgment is about. And this is not in the paradox is, is the harder you hold on. Quicker, it slips away.

Greg Voisen
Now that's so true, you know. And in that, I want to talk about chaos for a second, you provided a definition, according to Mike McMaster in the book, can you speak with us about the difference between chaos and complexity as it relates to innovation in business, because

Ron Schultz
I think the best way to do that, Greg, is to use what we call a phase transition, which is actually very simple. So if we think of a block of bikes, as being assault, and as the sun beats on that block of ice, it goes through a phase transition and melts and turns into a puddle of water. And that puddle of water is the complexity out of which things can move, because a puddle of water can mix and it can feel other places within that water can find new avenues, and new interactions and new places to happen. And then what happens in that system, it goes through another phase where it evaporates, and it turns into a gas, and it evaporates up into the universe. And that is, and that's where chaos is that that dissipation of the water into that gas form becomes chaotic. And what you end up having is you have these little islands floating about, and so that there's real no real coherence within them. And so the complexity, the watery area, that in that phase transition, is really where we have the greatest ability to affect change, because the it is bounded, there is a membrane around that pedal that allows it to interact with other parts within that. And the this whole process is gets oftentimes gets old, that's too chaotic. When in fact, what we're saying is we're we don't we, the whole notion of the complexity scares us too much. And we don't even get to it. So when we kind of extend it out beyond the boundaries of what is really complexity into this area. Have little pockets that can't be understood.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, and again, is this as simple as this might be, to understand, it's difficult for our brains and us to, to actually implement, it's a lot easier to talk about than it is to really implement it on a regular basis, especially in a working company with hundreds of employees who are all interacting with one another and have to deal with this. And if you would define there's adjacent possibilities. You state in the book that the businesses that succeed are those that are first within an industry to see an adjacent possibility and to act upon it. Okay. And you and I have talked about adjacent possibilities before. And I hear the term being used. I'm not certain there's a clear definition for the listeners. So I'd love to give them a clear definition. And then how you think adjacent opportunities come about for somebody to capitalize on

Ron Schultz
the adjacent opportunities. So those adjacent possibilities also, what I call the case of communities are those possibilities that are one step away from where we are right now. They surround us, they every time we make, we make a choice, every time we make a decision, something new emerges. And none of that emergence, there is also emerged as a new set of, of these adjacent possibilities. And what it is about in our, from a human perspective is recognizing what they could be what they are there, they're right there. And it's a matter of seeing, again, they're agnostic. So some of those possibilities suck. And they, they are not going to deliver what we want others, others of those possibilities are going to be the next step in the whole process of innovative process of our business. And so it's a matter of really being open to those, and being aware of what they might be and what they could be. And as I said, an adjacency is the closest we can have to where we are right now. So it's just one step away from where we are, but we're surrounded by those adjacent possibilities. And the second part of your question is, how do you act upon it? You know, it's about the about right, first of all, it's about recognize about being able to see it in about seeing it that it is it is something that that makes sense for the organization. And that is that is part of it, that falls under the principles of it. Because it's within that system of principles model of rules and behavior that we can make that change to that new JSON possibility. And but without that, without recognizing to relationships, that pick a possibility that isn't appropriate for the organization, and just go down, rappel into something that really pull the whole company down.

Greg Voisen
I think Rita McGrath I had her on here. And one of the things that she speaks about is seeing around corners. Those adjacent possibilities, opportunities, as you might say, are a result of being aware. And you're actually aware, and you're looking for ways to kind of almost, I don't want to say this, but I'm just gonna say it predict what's going to happen, right? In other words, to have this little crystal ball and say, Okay, I, I, you know, we take data in from all kinds of places, we assimilate this data. And we rely on data, many of us are making decisions based on a lot of data that's being fed to us, whether it's through the Internet, whether it's through our employees, whether it's through other vendors, it's people on the outside, we hear from, and we hear things and then we go, ah, an opportunity. You know, this is something that I could seize. And I love the fact that if you are aware, you can almost find an adjacent opportunity somewhere, frequently. I mean, there's all kinds of examples of people finding them. Let me

Ron Schultz
let me define a little bit. So that there are we, the environment gives us cues as to what is about to emerge. If we don't see it, exactly. We don't know exactly precisely what's going to happen. But there are cues within the environment that says this is about to happen. And it's those people who can recognize those few who are the ones who can open up to those adjacent opportunities, possibilities it is in it is to a certain degree intuitive. It takes a level of ability to be open to, to what you're what's around you. And if you're if you're looking, if you're used to looking at this kind of narrow world, this narrow focus that that is, as a way of kind of filtering out all this stuff and all that we can miss the cues. And what we often talk about is how do you create huge spotters within an organization who can see what's happened. The Marines had a great example of this, they call them creative contributors. And because when they went to smaller units, they each unit needed to have this creative contributor who could kind of stick his head up metaphorically stick his head up above the hole and kind of sniff the air and get a sense of what was going on around them. Because of that very nature of exposing themselves in that fashion. They're easily killed, because the Marines will tell you and so that they become somebody that needs to be protected within the organization. And so they're the ones who can who have that ability to see not necessarily predict but at least be able to read the cues. Yeah. and be able to, to bring that back as a as a means of to operate the organization more effectively.

Greg Voisen
And I always like to use example, you know, I happened to hear this story about a woman and accompany back east Made in America. And some of the great examples of how people are innovative in that space. And one is that they, she decided to make customized books. So we know that the world today, the way it's evolved, you know, you can order a book off Amazon, and literally, it's almost produced the same day and it comes out. So she gets these presses and she customized books for people, anytime of the year for birthday holiday, with Ron's picture in it with picture of his dog with whatever produces his book. And last year produced 500,000 books that were customized the people were off the internet, right. And you because people love customize things, they like things that they can hand to Ron and say, hey, Ron, here's the you know, the picture of your family, and I put it in his book. And they built the story too, and the cartoons around it, right. In other words, the whole character thing. And it's fascinating how somebody is quickly able to take an opportunity, and push those books out, literally within days, to people who are putting them up the pictures up on the net, using the net to get them organized and put into a book printed in color, send it back out and use it for Christmas or holiday, a birthday, a bar mitzvah, whatever it might be, but literally has made a very, very successful business. And I love stories like that, because it's just, it's just fascinating as somebody sees an opportunity, an adjacent opportunity, and seizes it right. They didn't go oh, well, Simon and Schuster has to make all those books, because they're the ones that do it. No, I can make those books on my own. Those presses are cheap. Now. I can either rent one, I can buy one I can do whatever it was. It's just great. It's great to see.

Ron Schultz
Well, it's having that courage, if you will, to, to act on. Because what happens is, there's always this plethora of new opportunities that are coming at us. And it's the notion is to see what happens with a company like that is that they're able to pick up the cues as and move toward that, as opposed to having to look behind them to try and find what has emerged. Right. And that's the real key is that, how do you how do we train our workforce to be able to see what's coming toward them? Rather than having to look behind us? Because as soon as you look back, somebody has a competitive edge on? Yeah.

Greg Voisen
Well, you if we use what you call champions, language, businesses are made of ideas, ideas, expressed his words, then the critical barrier to innovation is stuckness. You said, and in adequate ideas and formulations? What are some of the questions that we can ask to determine if our ideas are viable, and discard the ones that are no longer useful? And this is very appropriate this time? Because we were just talking about it. You have a list of questions in the book. Yeah.

Ron Schultz
They're newly invent investigations, allowing people to invest to really look at what their organization have different pieces in? And the answer to that question, Greg, it's really in the question, that the ones that are no longer useful. How do we how do we recognize what's no longer useful and what's getting in the way of our process? Now? What happens? You know, I'll give you an example. That is that everyone had to go into your refrigerator. And they're invariably Well, at least in our urine, invariably, invariably, things in the back of the refrigerator they've been got that haven't been cleared out. And after a while, they begin to stink. And you recognize that this, this process is there. And so the notion is, it's not those things are no longer useful. And they're causing an impediment within the within the system itself. And it's causing an impediment up in the room themselves. So you get rid of those things. And those are, those are pretty obvious things that have to go. But we have to really look at is this something that it's useful? Is this something that is producing the cities adding to our model that is helping us produce adequately produce what we're trying to accomplish? And if it's not, then we have to let go of, and again, it's part of that process of trying to figure out what, what to hold on to and whatnot, hold on. It's a really a discriminating awareness and understanding that discernment of what it is that it is working what it is, and being blind

Greg Voisen
And now it's true. I mean in. And when you ask that question of anybody, any business, right, what you're trying to see is kind of, I'm gonna call it the delta between, okay, I do these things, this doesn't work. How come you haven't let go of what's not working? You're still doing it, you know, it's the old shit still back in the refrigerator. Right, right.

Ron Schultz
You and I work at, you know, I've worked in the nonprofit sector a lot. Yeah. And in the nonprofit sector, there's an awful expression about trying to get something done. Sometimes you have to kill the puppy. And the issue is nobody wants to kill the puppy. But the thing is, is that it does, there are times when that doesn't work, that's gonna upset all the people for PETA. But the notion is, is that sometimes that's not to do it's time. And that's metaphor, please. Right? Sometimes it's, it's, you know, we have to get rid of what we love, we are clinging artists to, we really want this, this is good, it's gotta work. And we try it and we try it and runs us, and we run them into the ground. So we have to recognize when is something not working, be willing to have that discernment to recognize when something is not working? And recognize it also understand that we're surrounded by other possibilities?

Greg Voisen
Yeah, yeah, it you know, it kind of closes you get pretty myopic when a lot of that stuff gets stuck in the back of the refrigerator. And once you clear it out, and you have the willingness to clear it out, you realize you've made room for either more, or you've made room to see what you have better, and say, Hey, these are the things that I use, why did I buy that other stuff? I didn't really need it anyway. Right? So that's a great example. Well,

Ron Schultz
innovation is also a notion of, of not only what is missing, but what can we put in that place of something that's missing? Yes. But it's not necessarily that there's a part missing, when something new might go into that place? Well, let's, let's wrap

Greg Voisen
our interview up with this question. You know, the book is got a lot of great stories in it. It's an opportunity for people. And we'll put a link to Amazon to this.

Ron Schultz
Yeah, also emergent for that emergent publications.com, because that link

Greg Voisen
to them as well, we'll do both. So go and get a copy of opening boundaries, it's going to give you an opportunity to have some insights, the open your mind, about new possibilities about way of thinking, new ways of thinking, Iran, all the stories, the ideas, the wisdom about complexity, what are three takeaways that you would like to leave our listeners with? That would help them thrive? In a world of complexity? What three takeaways from this? You know, we've been almost on for 50 minutes. Now. What? What would you like to tell the listeners?

Ron Schultz
Well, first of all, you have to things change, you're gonna have to be willing to be open to that change process. And understand that any, any kind of adaptive system that you're involved in is going to change. And if you do that, then it's, it's crucial to be able to look at your models, rules and behaviors, and understand that there they are in constant relationship to each other. And then when the model changes, which is which are trying to produce according to your own principles of the organization, when your model changes, you also have to change the rules that govern the behaviors that are put in place to create them. And if you don't, that's the greatest downfall. And that's, that's one of the most important aspects of this process, because of what we were talking about in terms of a formulation and inform what happens when we formulate our ideas, and we solidify that we locked into that solidification, all the potential and all the limitations of that of that process. And if we formulate and solidify a too much, those limitations can overtake the possibilities. And then we arrived at on a ride. So it's really important to be able to open to the, to the processes that are around us to be open to the to change our, our culture, our models are constantly changing, be willing to change the rules, that we cover our behaviors, and so that we can get one of those if we can do that, we can do that. Well, I think,

Greg Voisen
again, it's exposure for remind listeners to find In alternative ways of approaching, whether it's a problem, or it's an opportunity to look at open boundaries as a way to creating business innovation, through this complexity that they're probably dealing with. And the book does a very good job ah, undoubtedly dealing with. Yeah, undoubtedly everybody is. But the book gives us this great opportunity where people will look at systems the way they might be thinking, stories that other people have. So Ron, thanks for being on insight, personal growth. Thanks for spending this time with us. Here's the book. We'll put a link. We'll have a link to our Merchant publications as well. We'll have one to Amazon, and Namaste to you. Thanks for being on. Thanks for taking the time. Appreciate it. My pleasure.