Make Almost Anything Happen: How to Manage Complexity to Get What You Want

Why aren’t hard work and knowledge enough to achieve complex goals and solve difficult problems? Mostly because of the human struggle with managing complexity. Unfortunately, these skills are not formally taught in schools or imparted to us by others. Whether you’re starting a business, inventing a product, or getting in shape, the overwhelming volume of knowns, unknowns, and uncertainties are often too difficult for our mental models. In Make Almost Anything Happen, Tim Kilpatrick walks us through the fine art of managing complexity, setting mission-driven goals, fine-tuning approaches, and working through failure; in order to achieve what we want and to address what makes us vulnerable. Kilpatrick’s framework is based on proven approaches used by scientists, inventors, and systems engineers to make sense of biology, ecology, economics, psychology, forecasting weather, and creating new products. As routine and knowledge work moves to robots and artificial intelligence, the remaining work will require managing complexity. Make Almost Anything Happen is essential reading for anyone who wants to learn the skills and framework to manage complexity and thrive in our modern day.