Are you PARALYZED by combinatorial explosion 💥?
Are you PARALYZED by combinatorial explosion 💥?
One of the important services I perform as a leadership coach and mentor is helping my clients to escape the paralysis of combinatorial explosion.
You’re probably now wondering what combinatorial explosion is. I would be too! It's a helpful concept to know and understand.
As soon as I explain it and give you some examples you will know exactly what it is, and likely see where you are getting stuck in it.
Here’s the Wikipedia page about it.
The technical definition is: “...the rapid growth of the complexity of a problem due to how the combinatorics of the problem is affected by the input, constraints, and bounds of the problem.”
That sounds highfalutin (it is math, after all), but it really just describes the nature of problems to become complex the more variables are involved. When we lose awareness of this, we get stuck.
The fact is, combinatorial explosion is all around us. You are constantly navigating combinatorially explosive problems, often without effort or awareness.
Every time you decide where to drive your car you are doing it. You can literally drive your car anywhere the road will take you. How you decide where to go?
Every time you talk you are doing it. You say one word, and that can be followed by numerous others, each of which can be followed by numerous others, etc. If we had to diagram every possible sentence we could say before saying it we would never speak.
I…
I will…
I will be…
I will not…
I will definitely…
I have…
I have not…
I have definitely…
I have possibly…
Get it? That’s combinatorial explosion. We deal with it every day in many ways without even realizing it.
But sometimes it paralyzes us. When we approach problems we’ve never seen before. Or seek growth we’ve never experienced before. Or pursue goals we’ve never reached before. And we think "Should I do this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this...?"
We (ideally) see the destination in the distance, but the path is obscured, and when we begin to think through it we are paralyzed by the combinatorial explosiveness of it.
We don’t know the first step to take. We don’t know which strategic pieces to put in place, or in what order.
There are INFINITE actions we could take. There always are, and always will be. Because reality is combinatorially explosive.
How do we pick the right words? Simple. We intend the meaning and the grammar rises to support it, deftly cutting through the combinatorial explosion.
If you are paralyzed by possibility in your leadership journey, you need to tap into the intention of your purpose so that the grammar of strategy can rise to support it.
I happen to be a master of the intention of purpose and grammar of strategy. After you talk to me you will ALWAYS be clear on what to do next to start moving in the right direction. https://calendly.com/aaronjmarx/30min