The difference between a scientist and a policy analyst

A man in a hot-air balloon is floating along and gets lost in a cloud. When there is finally a break in the cloud he sees a person on the ground and decides to descend to ask for directions.

The balloonist descends and hovers over the man on the ground and asks him where he is. The man on the ground shouts back, “You are at 45 degrees, 25 minutes, 29 seconds north, and 75 degrees, 42 minutes, 20 seconds west. I am standing at 100 metres above sea level, so you must be at about 120 metres.”

The man in the balloon replies, “You must be a scientist. I ask you a simple question, and you give me too much information and I’m still lost.”

The man on the ground calls back to the man in the balloon,“You must be a policy analyst. You came out of nowhere with your questions, I give you the most accurate and precise answer I can, you’re still lost, and you blame me!”

Joke told by a Dialogue Event participant to illustrate differences in perception between the science and policy communities.

http://www.csps-efpc.gc.ca/pbp/pub/pdfs/P107_e.pdf

The link between experience, stories and labelling (sensemaking)

Just had a good conversation with @markschenk about sensemaking. It's starts with noticing something happening (experiencing), then we recount what happened (tell a story) and talk about it, then we categorise and label it (eg. it's bullying). The abstract label only makes sense, however, if you have heard the story or even better, experienced what happened. However we are often just presented with the abstract term. This is especially the case in corporate communications.

Listening exercise

These lovely folk are in the middle of an interesting listening exercise where one side talks about something they care about for 3 min and the other side listens without talking. The level of interest shown by the listeners ranges from facinated to care less depending on where the facilitator stands. Then in the debrief ask how people feel when there is full listening or nothing. Great stuff.

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