ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses a common admonition that our decision-making should be objective and rational and that we should put our emotions, lived experiences, and views aside. Instead, we need to be both emotionally involved and detached at the same time.
Our emotions and cognition are physiologically intertwined making it impossible to separate them. We need to be both emotionally involved and detached (or rational) at the same time. Emotions can affect our perceptions and cause us to depart from our habits and what we have taken for granted and lead to significant innovation. The chapter also addresses some of the ways in which emotions can get in the way of our work to make meaning together.
Likewise, our lived histories, experiences, values, emotions, and beliefs are inextricably part of how we understand the world and what is going on. We are involved in the interactions that constitute the patterning of our relating with one another and cannot therefore be fully objective. What is determined to be objective, rational, and a good decision is often a product of who makes the judgement and when they make it.
The concept of phronesis, practical judgement and wisdom, essential in complexity management, is explored.
