Directory · R
New here? Start with the premise →
Reality
2 min read · 447 words
Reality is the territory the system is operating in, distinct from the maps the mind keeps building of it.
The mind constructs models. The model of the situation. The model of the relationship. The model of the operator’s own capacities. The model of what other operators are thinking. None of these are reality. They are the system’s interpretations, useful for navigation, accurate sometimes, inaccurate other times. Reality is what is actually present, regardless of what the model says about it. The two correspond often. They diverge enough that the operator cannot rely on the model to be accurate without checking.
The cost of confusing model with reality is large. The operator who proceeds from a model of the relationship that no longer matches the actual relationship makes choices the actual relationship doesn’t reward. The operator running on a model of their own competence that exceeds their actual current capacity over-commits and underdelivers. The operator running on a model of the situation that is two years old responds to conditions that have changed without updating. Each of these is a navigational error caused by the map having drifted from the territory.
The mechanism that produces drift: the model is updated more slowly than reality changes, especially when the operator has emotional investment in the current model. The relationship the operator wants to continue producing the rewards it once produced gets modeled as still producing them, even when it isn’t. The self-image the operator wants to maintain gets preserved in the model, even when actual outputs have changed. The world the operator believes they live in stays in the model, even when the world has moved on.
From the chair: periodically test the model against reality. The discipline is uncomfortable because the test sometimes returns the model is wrong, and updating is harder than continuing. But the cost of operating from a wrong model accumulates faster than the discomfort of updating it. The operator who runs the test regularly catches drift early and updates incrementally. The operator who never runs it discovers years later that the model and the territory diverged so far that recovery requires major reconstruction.
The diagnostic questions: what is actually happening, distinct from what I expected to be happening. What outputs am I actually producing, distinct from what I think I’m producing. What is the other operator actually doing, distinct from what my model says they’re doing. The honest answer to any of these often surfaces drift the operator was not consciously tracking.
The map is not the territory. Update the map. The territory will not change to match it.