"Such a complex world demands an improvised response. Even in theory, there could never be a script — all the money and all the computing power in the world could never produce one. Things are far too complex for that. The world, even our little bit of it, changes faster than we can track. Since everything is interconnected, it is unpredictable, and always will be. Our attempts to break it down into manageable pieces are of limited use, because wholes — like families, organisations or people — have properties that don’t lie in the parts.

"Yet somehow we cope. Prosper even. We succeed in ways we can’t imagine and get results we don’t expect for reasons we couldn’t anticipate. Though we rarely tell the story like that afterwards.

"We are, in fact, naturally good at creative adaptation and there is a substantial measure of it in all that we do. We flex, respond, adjust, re-adjust, amend, re ne, tailor or tweak what we are doing all the time. In short, like all living things, we are capable improvisers." - Robert Poynton

Book excerpt: Embrace the Unexpected

Book:  Do Improvise: Less push. More pause. Better results. A new approach to work (and life)