"We remember the ship, not the conversations"

I’ve been listening to a brilliant podcast series on BBC Sounds about the Titanic. It dives deep into the history, the logistics, the timeline, but as I was listening, a thought struck me:

Not just the big ones, the number of lifeboats, the choice to speed up, but the thousands of micro-decisions made by hundreds of people. Engineers, foremen, financiers, junior staff. People responding to pressure, managing expectations, interpreting vague instructions, doing what seemed reasonable in the moment.

From the first sketch to the final hour, the future of the Titanic was shaped by conversation.
Negotiation. Assumption. Delay. Doubt. Compromise. Shortcut. Confidence. Fear.

We remember the ship.
But we forget the conversations that built it.

We like to think of history as a series of grand decisions made by bold leaders.
But human endeavours are shaped by the way people respond to each other in the moment.
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Where are micro-decisions being made around you today?
And what pressures might be shaping them?

Until next time,
Dermot
​The Messy Middle

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