In this excerpt from Seth Godin’s new book, The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved, he breaks down the conspiracy of stuck and explains the big difference between “and” and “but.”—UX Magazine Staff
Drop the Baggage
The conspiracy of stuck is built on three confusions:
- Short-term conflict avoidance
- Unwillingness to create tension
- Misunderstanding of risk
Together, these three traps maintain the status quo, enabling problems to fester and unhelpful systems to persist. You won’t be the first person stuck in this muck and you won’t be the last.
They sit quietly, unspoken entanglements, and get in the way of the change we need to make. Naming them is the first step to unlocking a better path.
Civilization exists to dampen the desires of selfish jerks. Conflict, tension and recklessness are the hallmarks of a self-absorbed, misguided outsider. We don’t want people hassling and hustling us. We avoid interactions that needlessly create tension. And our long-term success as a community requires us to avoid unnecessary risk.
When someone acts like a jerk on an airplane, the crew takes them off the plane. When a guest does this in our home, we don’t invite them back.
Society is clear about this: Don’t spit on the floor, text at the movies or drive 80 mph in a school zone. When in doubt, don’t be selfish.
When facing problems, though, it’s the three modifiers that transform these antisocial behaviors into entanglements we need to face and deal with.
Short-term conflict is appropriate when it unlocks a chance for long-term peace. The dentist who is afraid to mention a cavity today isn’t doing you a favor—they’re guaranteeing a root canal later.
Creating useful tension is the byproduct of inviting voluntary change. The fear of missing out or being left behind is the tension that helps us overcome our fear of transition. That’s why the first parent to send out invitations for the Bike Bus makes it easier for the next twenty to say yes. Tension is the positive force that leads to forward motion.
The feeling of risk is not the same thing as risk itself. It might feel risky to embrace change, but it could be the safest thing we can do in this moment. Switching careers at forty feels like jumping off a cliff. Staying in a job that’s quietly eroding your health and purpose doesn’t feel like anything—until it’s too late.
And so, the generous, non-jerk thing to do is to find a problem worth solving, and then intentionally create the conflict, tension, and feeling of risk your community needs to move forward.
The Three-Letter Breakthrough
There are two words that reveal everything about whether we’re ready to move forward or stuck in place: The first is and, the second is but. And reinforces. It moves in the same direction. I want to run the marathon and I’m ready to get tired. The second half supports the first.
It says: I see the cost, and I’m in.
But undermines. It pulls against itself. I want to run the marathon, but I don’t want to get tired. Now you’re stuck. The second half cancels the first. You haven’t made a commitment—you’ve described a wish and its obstacle in the same breath.
When someone says they want this and that, listen for whether they mean but. Because but is where the entanglement lives. It’s the word that marks the spot where fear has gotten tangled up with desire. If we want to get the things that really matter done, we must discard every but and embrace every and.
When in doubt, look for the entanglements. They’re hiding in plain sight.
When we’re intentional in our design, we are forced to confront the constraints that create the problem. Identifying the false ones, the ones that are based on exhausted systems, the status quo or entanglements opens the door to possibility.
Once we understand that entanglements can be removed, we can see (and feel) the costs of making change happen. If it were easy, the problem would have been solved already. Gabe Anderson reminds us that many of the steps on the road to a solution feel like barriers. But they’re not in the way. They’re on the way.
Get your copy of The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved, and let Seth Godin help you identify and end the invisible tug of war going on in your organization.
Seth Godin’s The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved is the handbook for this ideation—entanglement, the conspiracy of stuck, and the difference between a problem you can solve and a situation you have to accept.
Book excerpt from The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved (Simon & Schuster). Part of the You Are the Circumstances ideation cluster—Seth Godin’s S7E18 return to Invisible Machines. Related: Lie to AI and It Will Believe You.
