A very useful list from Dave Snowden which can be used to describe good tactics for dealing with complex situations: The whole success of social computing is because it conforms to the three heuristics of complex systems: finely grained objects, distributed cognition & disintermediation In an uncertain world we need fast, real time feedbacks not linear processes and criticism includes short cycle experimental processes which remain linear. The real dangers are retrospective coherence and premature convergence Narrative is vital, but story-telling is at best ambiguous Need to shift from thinking about drivers to modulators You can’t eliminate cognitive bias, you …
Share:
It had to be an Irish politician that finally suggested this! Ireland has been leading the European Union the past six months, including chairing and hosting the EU’s meetings. Micheal Ring tried a different approach to having all 27 ministers show up and read a speech. Sports Minister Michael Ring might actually have made a difference. At the Council of Sports Ministers in Brussels, the Ringer pioneered a new approach to these meetings. The usual drill sees each of the 27 ministers reading a prepared script outlining their country’s viewpoint. It’s tedious stuff. Minister of State Ring decided to change …
Share:
Inspired post by Dave Pollard today on the challenge of scale and the confusion of control. Complicated systems require few connections in order to be manageable: It is because business and government systems are wedded to the orthodoxy of hierarchy that as they become larger and larger (which such systems tend to do) they become more and more dysfunctional. Simply put, complicated hierarchical systems don’t scale. That is why we have runaway bureaucracy, governments that everyone hates, and the massive, bloated and inept Department of Homeland Security. But, you say, what about “economies of scale”? Why are we constantly merging …
Share:
Richard Straub writes in the Harvard Business Review, on a great piece about what stops managers from adopting complexity views: Complexity wasnt a convenient reality given managers desire for control. The promise of applying complexity science to business has undoubtedly been held up by managers reluctance to see the world as it is. Where complexity exists, managers have always created models and mechanisms that wish it away. It is much easier to make decisions with fewer variables and a straightforward understanding of cause-and-effect. Here, the shareholder value philosophy, which determines so much of how our corporations operate these days, is …
Share:
I hate bombs. In my 45 years I have had six friends and colleagues killed by bombs both on the Air India bombing in 1985 and in the London bombings in 2005. As a 10 year old kid living in England during the IRA letter bombing campaigns of Christmas 1978 I remember being completely terrified whenever letter came through our mail slot. I hate bombs. And this afternnon I am sitting at a Starbucks in West Vancouver, BC and the man sitting nthree tables over from me is proclaiming in one of those know it all not quite stage whispers …