Michael Lissack our co-workers when our backs are turned. We don't trust the basic frame- work of our jobs to remain stable for more than a week at a time. And in the end, we don't even trust our own perceptions. Trust sounds simple; in fact, to the modern ear it sounds naive. We forget how complicated and elusive the feeling really is - and how psychologically necessary. Human beings are built, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, to need a baseline of consistency. When things are consistent over time, they are predictable, therefore stable, therefore trustworthy, When that consistency is disrupted by shifting value systems and overwhelming change, we grow disoriented, disorganized, wary. We defend against that pain by paying selective attention, ignoring any data that contradict our comfy preconceived notions. The human mind was built for this technique: in most cases, we see what we want to see. We are perfectly capable of disregarding anything that doesn't match our assump- tions. Even our memories are biased, because we store new information by attaching it to something we already know. If the new information is radically different from our past experience, some of us simply won't have enough mental diversity and flexibility to find it a storage place. We also defend ourselves emotionally by satisficing, making do with satisfactory but mediocre alternatives. Satisficing takes less energy-and carries fewer risks-than confronting the lions, tigers and bears that lurk in front of the best possible solution. In a crisis, people are most likely to choose the path of least resistance and greatest familiarity. It would be quite erroneous to assume that for an unfamiliar task, a person works out a total plan and then executes it. Here the house-building analogy would not hold. The wayfinding protocol indicates people to have often only global and vague initial plans consisting merely of a few general decisions. These decisions at least allow for a start. The specific problems are then tackled as they present themselves. This approach makes good sense, given that not all environmental factors are known or predictable and, consequently, the problem cannot be fully assessed. Even starting off with a vague idea, the person can pick up new information that helps clarify the problem. The development of a decision plan has therefore, to be seen
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