The Struggle for Social Innovation

Social problem solving is not only slow, it is untidy.  Purposeful social change occurs through a long and disorderly process of trial and error not unlike that of an infant learning to walk. The infant tries, fails, has partial successes, learns, bumps its nose, cries, and tries again. It has many failures before it succeeds. This is why Harlan Cleveland says that “planning is improvisation on a sense of direction.”  No plan for social or institutional Improvement can be put into effect without innumerable in-course corrections.

John W. Gardner, On Leadership