{"id":4931,"date":"2015-09-14T13:15:15","date_gmt":"2015-09-14T21:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=4931"},"modified":"2015-09-14T14:31:48","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T22:31:48","slug":"retrospective-coherence-and-the-road-not-taken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/retrospective-coherence-and-the-road-not-taken\/","title":{"rendered":"Retrospective coherence and the road not taken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of my favourite concepts from the complexity world is the fallacy of thinking that comes from the truth of retrospective coherence. \u00a0The mistake is that, because we can look back in time to understand causes of our current condition, we can therefore see forward in time and affect the causes of a future condition. \u00a0Complex systems are emergent, so we can never be sure what the future holds, regardless of how well we can trace how we got here.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the fact that it is illegal to sell an investment instrument without the warning that &#8220;past performance does not guarantee future results&#8221; falling for the trap that retrospective coherence gives you a reliable path forward is basically a feature of doing any strategic work at all. \u00a0It leads to planning that puts out a future preferred state and then backcasts a set of steps that, if we follow them, will take us there or nearly there.<\/p>\n<p>So there are all kinds of issues with this, and the Cynefin framework&#8217;s greatest gift is that it helps us create strategy to avoid to pitfall of retrospective coherence.<\/p>\n<p>Today though, a surprise in my morning reading. \u00a0A lovely article on\u00a0<a style=\"line-height: 1.5;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/11\/the-most-misread-poem-in-america\/\">Robert Frost\u2019s \u201cThe Road Not Taken.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 We all think we know what that poem is about: about the adventure that will ensue if we just take the less beaten path. \u00a0But you might be surprised to learn that the poem is actually about retrospective coherence and not adventures strategic planning (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Most readers consider \u201cThe Road Not Taken\u201d to be a paean to triumphant self-assertion (\u201cI took the one less traveled by\u201d), but the literal meaning of the poem\u2019s own lines seems completely at odds with this interpretation. The poem\u2019s speaker tells us he \u201cshall be telling,\u201d at some point in the future, of how he took the road less traveled by, yet he has already admitted that the two paths \u201cequally lay \/ In leaves\u201d and \u201cthe passing there \/ Had worn them really about the same.\u201d So the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. The two roads are interchangeable.According to this reading, then, the speaker will be claiming \u201cages and ages hence\u201d that his decision made \u201call the difference\u201d only because t<strong>his is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices<\/strong> (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance). The poem isn\u2019t a salute to can-do individualism; it\u2019s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives. \u201cThe Road Not Taken\u201d may be, as the critic Frank Lentricchia memorably put it, \u201cthe best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing.\u201d But we could go further: It may be the best example in all of American culture of a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Brilliant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my favourite concepts from the complexity world is the fallacy of thinking that comes from the truth of retrospective coherence. \u00a0The mistake is that, because we can look back in time to understand causes of our current condition, we can therefore see forward in time and affect the causes of a future condition. \u00a0Complex systems are emergent, so we can never be sure what the future holds, regardless of how well we can trace how we got here. Despite the fact that it is illegal to sell an investment instrument without the warning that &#8220;past performance does not &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Retrospective coherence and the road not taken http:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-1hx #cynefin @snowded @tquinlan @mcheveldave #complexity #emergence","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[53,18,56,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-complexity","category-emergence","category-featured","category-leadership"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-1hx","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4931"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4934,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4931\/revisions\/4934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}