Do I really mean, “Understand every thing!” Yes, indeed I do.  Think of it this way.  If you are going to change something, what is it about that something that you do not need to know? That something would be that which because you did not know it, it will have no effect on your proposed change or your expected outcome.  You can only know that something is unnecessary to know for a specific change once you know it.  You cannot know what you do not know.  You can be aware of a gap in your knowledge but you cannot know what is in that gap.  This is the reason why change is always an evolutionary process and a discovery process.  You are always discovering what you do not know.  It will always be that which we did not know that will divert your intended change into something not intended.

One nice thing I like about the goal “Understand Everything,” is that you can be reasonable certain that you can work on it for the rest of your life and always have more to learn. 

In the next Section on theory when I discuss memetic and mimetic evolution you will discover that there is a clear and precise mathematical reason why the more you know the more the trial and error component of change can be conducted in your head rather in the real world.  Since many changes affect the lives of others it is best that we get the change right as soon as possible.

You must strive to understand everything.  Study hard.  There is no short cut.  Some journeys must be endured for the benefit of reaching the goal.  This is not such a journey.  You must learn to love the journey, because the more you learn the more you will realize you do not know.  You will know you have come to love the journey when you become exited about how much more there is yet to learn and that it always increases.

But do be selective.  There are many who would have you learn illusions.  You need to know about those illusions, but you need not master them as if you were a true believer.

Readings and Exercises:

1. Periodically ask yourself:
   1. What have I learned in the last 10 years that I did not previously know?
   2. In the last year?
   3. In the last month?
   4. In the last week?
   5. What did I learn today?
2. Periodically ask yourself the same questions but change from ‘what did I learn’ to ‘what will I learn.’

It is especially important to understand organization and people.  It is the core study area for an optimal achieving change agent.  It is your specific knowledge domain.  You must know the knowledge domains of the organizations with which you deal, but you do not need to match wits with the knowledge domain experts in their chosen fields.  In this subject you must be the expert.  There is much to learn.  Study very hard and then try to make a change in the behavior of a person and of an organization.  Best to start with yourself.  Only through the experience of attempting a change can you really learn about people and organizations.

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(C) 2005-2014 Wayne M. Angel.  All rights reserved.