Getting to grips with the beast: the potential of multi-method operational research approaches.

Many of us will be familiar with the parable of the blind men and the elephant, beautifully retold by the 19th century American poet John Godfrey Saxe. In this tale, each man in turn describes the small part of the elephant they are touching (the flank, the tusk, the trunk, etc.), declaring with confidence that they know the true nature of the object (‘It’s a wall!’, ‘A spear!’, ‘A snake!’). Saxe ends with the moral of the tale: