Complexity of Today's problems
From Part IV. of  "The Fifth Discipline"
by Peter Senge 
Openness and Complexity

Nothing undermines openness more surely than certainty.  Once we
feel as if we have "the answer", all motivation to question our
thinking disappears.  But the discipline of systems thinking shows that
there simply is "no right answer" when dealing with complexity.

A simple exercise we have used in our leadership workshops for many years 
gets at the central point.  We cover a large wall with blank paper, and
then ask the group to work together to map out all the feedback 
relationships in a particular problem with which they are wrestling.

The first time I saw the "Wall" it emerged accidentally.  In the late 
1970's, Donella Meadows led a three-hour workshop on 
third world malnutrition with respected international experts, trying
to build a comprehensive model, based on all their knowledge, of the
causes of global hunger.  Before long, the chart included everything
from economic factor, to politic to cultural values to international
trade.  In the audience, an experienced lobbyist on food and peace issues
began moaning and shaking her head.  Finally, Donella stopped the session
to ask if she was ill.  "My God," said the lobbyist.  "All my life, I 
assumed that somebody, somewhere, knew the answer to this problem.
I thought politicians knew what had to be done, but refused to do it
out of politics and gree.  But now I realize that nobody knows the 
answer.  Not us, not them, not anybody."

Divergent problems have no "correct" solution.  The more they are studied
by people with knowledge and intelligence the more they "come up with
answers with contradict one another".  The difficulty lies not with the
experts, but in the nature of the problem itself.  Divergent problems
offend the logical mind, which wishes to remove tension by coming down on
one side or the other.  Only genuine openness allows people to deal
productively with them.

Openness emerges when two or more individuals are willing to suspend
their certainty  in each other's presence.  They become willing to 
share their thinking and susceptible to having their thinking
influenced by one another.  And in a state of openness, they gain access
to depths of understanding not accessible otherwise.