Every year, to celebrate St’ David’s Day, Dave Snowden has shared a series of posts on the evolution of the Cynefin framework. This year he introduced the newest version. The framework changes, because as we use it, it has an evolutionary journey towards “better” and more coherent. Not every branch in its evolution has had helpful components, but I find the current iteration to be very useful because it is both simple to use, easy to introduce, and yet has quite a bit of depth. During the pandemic, I’ve been using this version of it to help people think about …
I travel around many different kinds of organizations. Many of them preach the mantra that goes something like “it’s okay to fail here. Please take risks and try new things!” Unfortunately, when I look around I can’t see much infrastructure in place that allows the work context to be safe enough to fail. An organization needs to build learning and experimentation into its operations, especially if it is required to respond to changing conditions, improvements in services, or new ideas. And so the idea that “we want people to take risks” is promoted, often alongside an exhortation to do so …
For many years I have been teaching Cynefin as a foundational framework in complexity and participatory leadership workshops and retreats. For me it’s the best and most accessible way to explain the differences between complex problems and other kinds of problems and why we need to make complexity-based interventions in complex systems. And while there are great ways to start learning about ontology in a lecture format, or using te examples of a children’s birthday party, I’m rather inclined to playing games as a way of understanding different types of systems before we do any teaching at all. Especially when …
Five links that caught my eye over the holiday. New Power: How it’s Changing the 21st Century and Why you need to Know A book review from Duncan Green, whose work on power, evaluation, and complexity in international development, I much admire. Seems this new book invites a shift in thinking about power from quantity to flows: Old Power works like a currency. It is held by a few. It is closed, inaccessible and leader-driven. It downloads and it captures. New Power operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It uploads, and it distributes. The goal with …
On the Art of Hosting email list last month, there was an inquiry posted by Monica Nissén asking about scaling the Art of Hosting as a leadership practice through levels of engagement. By “Art of Hosting” Monica means the four fold practice, which is the basic framework for leadership that gives our community a coherent centre of practice, around presence, participation, hosting others, and co-creation. Monica asked whether hoping these practices would just go viral in a networked way is enough, and I replied with the following, tracing a couple of long term projects I have been involved in that …