I’ve had a couple of requests to share the exercise that helps people understand Cynefin physically. I’m happy to do so here. I enjoy designing these kinds of exercises, as it gives people a number of ways of understanding the framework and I find that it actually helps the penny drop for folks who otherwise have a hard time groking the nature of the different domains. I am continuing to develop this exercise but here’s how I do it now: 1. Begin by having the group stand and clear a large space so that everyone can move around comfortably. To …
It has been a long day of travel. I left Asheville at 7:15am eastern, headed to Atlanta, spent three hours there and then was all set to leave when a woman on our flight got sick on medication and had to be taken off the plane. That set us back an hour and half and I missed my connection from Salt Lake City to Vancouver. Impressed though with Delta Airlines. While we were in the air their “Irregular Operations Team” was hard at work getting everyone rebooked on different flights (and in some cases different carriers.) the captain came …
For the past few weeks I have been trying an interesting experiment in civic dialogue. Here on Bowen Island we are in the midst of local elections. We are a small community of 3500 living on a liece of land about the same size as Vancouver, with fairly limited resources in terms of being able to fund local services. It is a beautiful and inspiring place to live, a place that almost wills one to dream about it. It inspires people to move here, to build, to steward, to preserve, to write. Folks run for election because deep down they …
Powerful day yesterday in our Art of Learning Together training in Asheville. One of the ways I teach the Cynefin framework these days is by using a series of exercise to illustrate what it is like to be in each of the five domains. The exercise I use for the disorder domain is to ask people to organize themselves according to a word that is both a verb and a noun. This causes a bit of confusion especially if people start moving to organize themselves according to what they think I told them. This is exactly the way the …
Asheville, North Carolina We are about to begin three days of learning together, Ashley Cooper, Dana Pearlman and me. And 27 other folks who are coming to something we called “the Art of Learning Together.” One of the core inquiries of the Art of Hosting, since it’s beginning has been “what if learning together was the form of leadership we needed now?” It’s not that other forms of leadership AREN’T important, but that ihis particular form is not well supported. We think of learning as something you are doing before you become a leader. Something to do before …