Although one can get often trapped by complex tools (thinking that they are ‘holistic’), there are two kinds of ‘tools’ are considered to be helpful for coping with complexity: language and visualization. Through language (narrative and metaphor) hidden issues and intangible aspects in a social or organizational context can be revealed. Yet, at the same […]
Two little children were talking at the school yard of a mountain village of Greece, fifty years ago. The one was a clever boy and was doing well with his lessons, while the other seemed somehow slower and wasn’t doing his homework at all. When the first boy asked his friend why he didn’t like […]
In Greek mythology the three Fates were: Atropos (the inevitable), Clotho (the spin of the thread of life) and Lachesis (both luck and fate). According to the Greek tradition, the deeper meaning of the three orders of Destiny could be interpreted by the aid of the Pythagorean right-angle triangle and theorem (see the figure) as […]
The four classical management functions are: planning, organizing, directing/leading, and controlling. They are in a rather linear sequence, along with continuous communication and decision making. An interesting idea (and exercise) could be matching these functions with the four Cynefin domains and reflecting on the emerged combinations, which would possibly be very revealing of the specific […]
Two years ago, a Greek NGO organized and carried out a community consultation project that aimed to shed light on the consequences of the intense urbanization occurred in three neighboring communities in the suburbs of Athens. It was the first time that a research in Greece was based on narrative, which was collected from and […]
Today we spent the day as a family, along with some other couples with kids at the age of my 6 y.o. son. While the kids were playing, we the parents were drinking coffee or beer and small-talking. Trying to argue in favor of our opinion on issues concerning our kids, we were actually talking […]
As it is has been argued elsewhere, archetypal models aim to provide paradigms for human behavior and supply meaning and value to individuals, organizations and societies. They can reveal the fundamental elements and relationships of a system between or the critical stages and thresholds in a maturation process. Such models comprise certain symbolic images or […]
Some months ago, a friend had raised an interesting question that was derived from Sophocles’ tragedy “Aias” (Ajax). Ajax was a Greek warrior in the Trojan War and a friend of Achilles. Actually, he was the one who carried Achilles’ dead body away from the battle field and for this he claimed to take his […]
Complexity theorists have often indicated that complex social problems appear intractable because they are approached in a linear and simplistic way. Instead, as they suggest, a multi-dimensional approach should be employed that could probably identify the interacting elements of a complex problem space. However, in real world applications, complexity is usually understood in terms of […]
The Cynefin Company (formerly known as Cognitive Edge) was founded in 2005 by Dave Snowden. We believe in praxis and focus on building methods, tools and capability that apply the wisdom from Complex Adaptive Systems theory and other scientific disciplines in social systems. We are the world leader in developing management approaches (in society, government and industry) that empower organisations to absorb uncertainty, detect weak signals to enable sense-making in complex systems, act on the rich data, create resilience and, ultimately, thrive in a complex world.
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