I’m pleased to say that our first retreat of the year, based on the triopticon process is more or less sold out.  We’ve pulled in some additional accommodation and can if needed move some of our staff into local accommodation but it’s more or less there.  We have opened up day visitor options for people who live locally or are happy to book their own accommodation.  The venue has Arthurian connections and is in the country but only a half hour’s drive from Cardiff or 3½ miles from Bridgend Station, both on the mainline from London with easy connections from Heathrow.

We started up the retreats in 2017 and we’ve run them on three continents most years since other than the COVID period.  Planning is already advanced for one on Leadership in Australia this September and another a Complexity in the US in Oct/November then back to Wales in a year’s time.  The retreats are where ideas start in the Cynefin ecosystem and we bring together people from radically different backgrounds to explore a field.

This retreat is all about lifelong learning, and the role of education in shaping and forming society.  You can find details of the faculty on the events page.   Retreats generally attract some of the deepest thinkers (and doers) in our network and we leave plenty of space for conversations and explorations not only of the theme itself but beyond.

Given the venue, there is an optional pre-event at the National Folk Museum of Wales and a post-event at the Millennium Stadium for a major game of Rugby.  So plenty to do and for those who want to take a longer break plenty of advice is available.  We are next to the Jurassic Coast of South Wales (where I spent much of my youth with a fossil hammer and multiple canvas bags) and also the Brecon Beacons which is where I do a lot of walking.  Then there is the whole heritage of South Wales with Castles and Industrial Museums.

So if you have booked, I am looking forward to seeing you there.  If you haven’t this is a last chance …

The banner picture is cropped from an original  of Coed-y-Mwstwr created by EVO GT and obtained from Flickr,  used under the terms of a Creative Commons license

Currently preparing for a major event next week when I am due to deliver the sixth Annual Mike Jackson Lecture at the University of Hull.    I have a visiting chair in the Centre for Systems Studies whose goals are all about helping people design systemic solutions or systemic practices to the many complex problems that we face in Industry, Government and wider society.  I’m being introduced by the Vice Chancellor and ast year the lecture was given by Peter Senge which will give you some indication of the nature of the event

It is both in-person and online and you can register here for either option.  That said it would be nice to have some friendly (and maybe not so friendly) faces in the audience in person as well as via Teams!

A significant feature of the lecture is a discussion between Mike Jackson and myself after the lecture – worth coming for that alone and it’s the part I am most looking forward to.  There have been several discussions online after the Field Guide came out, all of which attracted attention and interest.

It’s important enough that this is one of those lectures for which I will prepare in advance – normally I put notes together an hour or so before going on stage.  I see this as an opportunity to lay down a definitive statement as to the current state of naturalising sense-making as a field, and to have that subject to interrogation by one of the most respected academics in the field.

This is the overall description and title:

Making sense of the world in order to act in it

The emerging field of naturalising sense-making has its heart the application of natural science to social systems. As such it is a trans-disciplinary approach combining insights from disciplines such as complexity science, anthropology and the cognitive sciences. The Cynefin framework was the inspiration behind the European Union Field Guide on managing in Complexity and (Chaos) which focuses on how to create a resilient organisation able to cope with the unknown, and even unknowable unknowns. The approach include the use of employees as ‘human sensor networks’ able to provide real time decision support, the generation of informal networks to allow the flow of knowledge between silos and a range of other methods and tools to handle inherent uncertainty.

This lecture will present both the theory and the practice of naturalising sense-making through the lens of Cynefin framework and the EU Field Guide. It will then conclude with the latest Estuarine mapping approach which represents a complex systems approach to strategy and operations, combining strategic intent and operational execution in a single framework. Connected work is also taking place on distributed models of decision making and leadership which will be used in the lecture.

The banner picture of the Business School and the Sculpture at the entrance are sourced from Flickr and used under a Creative Commons license.

The Cynefin Co, Complexability and The Cynefin Centre Australia are excited to partner to showcase Complexity in Action.  

Through a range of events across the week beginning 7 March you can join global practitioners as they share their learnings, experiences, adventures and misadventures!

This week is about offering an opportunity to explore and share conversations around how people are practically applying complexity tools and methods.  It’s all about theory into applied practice.

It’s a mix of the practical ‘how it happened’ with 

• emergent learnings, questions and processes
• safe-to-fail elements
• a strong emphasis on community engagement and capacity building
• exploring new concepts and ideas

We look forward to seeing you, and colleagues you believe might be interested, at the various events.

Monday 7 March
Yarn 4 – Re-emergence: Complexity Yarns with Indigenous Thinkers

This is the fourth in a series of webinars – Indigenous thinkers in conversation with each other about complexity.

The fourth session’s thinkers will be

• Tyson Yunkaporta, Chels Marshall from the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab (Deakin University Australia)
• Dave Snowden and Beth Smith Welsh Cynefin Centre colleagues (Wales)
• Guy Ritani (la/they/them) Creative Director at PermaQueer (New Zealand)

For more information and to book click here

Tuesday 8 March

It Happened Here … Session 1 (Using SenseMaker® to Explore Mentorship)

9.00 am – 10:00 am (AEST – Brisbane)

Ian Chisholm (Chiz) founder of The Roy Group has been fascinated by Mentorship for 25 years – and has some ridiculously strong views about the threshold between leadership and Mentorship.

With some 160 narratives already collected, this session will serve multiple purposes – a key complexity principle.  

• Chiz will share his philosophy and principles of practice
• Add to the growing global SenseMaker® database of experiences
• Explore some key concepts; like the difference between coaching and mentorship and whether both structured or organic mentorship programs can work.  
• Share what’s been discovered so far 

And, we might ask Chiz ‘Are there any surprises for someone who’s worked in the field for as long as you have’ (advanced notice question!!)

If you’re inspired already to add to collection, here’s the link ahead of the session.

To book click here

Friday 11 March

Creating A More Resilient Ecology To Manage The Unimaginable
4.00 – 5.00 pm (AEST – Brisbane)


Join Dave Snowden in this session as he explores basic practices for creating a resilient ecology. These practices include:
the need for leadership to focus on the coordination of distributed decision making (except in a crisis)
creating resilience which he defines as ‘the capacity to manage with continuity of identity over time’
the role of situational assessment in strategy
creating human and human ecosystems that respond to conditions of uncertainty
managing for serendipity not certainty.


To book click here

Complex human systems, such as organizations, communities or economies, can be modeled as networks. Network nodes can represent system components, while system interactions, such as flows of knowledge, influence, information or relationship, can be represented by symmetric or asymmetric network links.

When “networks” are mentioned, many people assume that a network means that everyone is connected to everyone else – a fully connected network. Figure 1 shows what a fully connected network of 16 individuals would look like.

Figure 1 – Fully Connected Network

From our decades of experience working with various networks, we find that as the number of nodes increases the number of connections for each individual eventually plateaus – we only have time and energy for a limited number of connections to others. Some people make more connections than others, but everyone has a limit . You might be connected to everyone else in a group of six, but as the group grows your number of interactions does not scale linearly with the size of the group. Figure 2 shows a more typical count of interactions amongst the people in this group of 16.

Figure 2 – Typical Amount of Interaction in a Group

Social media vendors also make the mistake of over-estimating their “community” and claim to have a single community of 2 billion individuals!

Figure 3 – Community size

There is no such thing as ONE community of 2 billion people! A better estimate of Facebook’s community structure would be 50 million communities of 40 persons each. Many of these communities would not be connected to each other in any meaningful way, but some will have bridges or members in common.

Like Legos, we can build very complex system models, with simple network pieces that fit together in an almost infinite number of ways. A small pattern of links forms the building blocks of networks. Networks are built with triangles.

The first triangle is shown in Figure 4 – it represents no connection between a collection of components/nodes that show up in the same place. These people might be in different networks, or they could be in the same network, but are only connected by very long paths in the network – there is no relationship or awareness between these three distant nodes . Figure 4 could be three new employees in an organization. These “satellite” nodes are probably orbiting on or more connected networks.

Figure 4 – Unconnected Triangle (Type 0)

Next we see a triangle with one link, connecting two of the three nodes. We see this pattern in new forming networks that are very sparse. Links at this point in the network’s growth may be happening by accident (those close by in physical distance) or randomly. Strangers that see each other frequently, reside near each other, or have offices close by, start to slowly form ties as in Figure 5 below.

Figure 5 – Single Connection Triangle (Type 1)

The next triangle shows a pattern that is quite popular in the networks we see – it shows up both in the periphery of the network, sometimes in the core, but most often between the core and periphery of a network. Person B knows both Peron A and Person C. Person B can “close the triangle” by introducing Person A to Person C – iff there is a benefit in doing so (iff = “if and only if”).

Figure 6 – Open Triangle (Type 2)

Open triangles are also called “opportunity triangles” because there might be an opportunity for the individuals or for the group(s) they are a member of, to benefit from the closing of the triangle. Though a triangle can be closed by luck or serendipity, usually the best way to make a connection is for the common colleague/friend to introduce the two who do not know each other, explaining to both of them why the introduction is being made and how it may be of benefit. Open triangles are particularly interesting when we are investigating innovation in/between organizations.

Finally we come to the completed triangle where all possible links are in place. This is a solid building block and is usually found inside the dense core of a network. Its strength is it’s resilience but its weakness is no/low possibility of change. Many overlapping closed triangles build a solid core, but also create an echo chamber where everyone knows what everyone else knows, and thinks like everyone else thinks. This can be efficient in getting known/simple things done, but as the organizational/community environment becomes more complex, this rigid structure does not adapt to increasing complexity.

Figure 7 – Closed Triangle (Type 3)

Yet, we found that a different distribution of closed triangles can actually help an organization learn, adapt and be agile in a complex “edge of chaos” environment. In high performing organizations, in rapidly changing environments, we found these closed triangles in places they “should not be”! Initially we were confused, but after several sense-making sessions with the clients, it was obvious why this strange new distribution of patterns worked so well.

Let’s re-visit Figure 2 – a small 16 person “toy organization” that will give us deeper insight into the power of three (i.e. triangles, trios) in organizations. It turns out that we have 2 networks in this small organization – the prescribed network and an emergent network. The prescribed network is the formal organizational hierarchy, and the emergent network reveals the important work relationships for everyone in the organization. The emergent network was not “designed” and emerged over time via the many interactions and projects the employees worked on together. We will look at both, separately and together.

First we look at the traditional hierarchy – the tree diagram in Figure 8. The grey links show the reporting relationships. Each node has a randomly assigned number instead of a name.

Figure 8 – Traditional Hierarchy (14 is CEO)

Thinking back about our discussion of the 4 types of triangles found in networks, what do you see in Figure 8?

We see something interesting, and somewhat counter-intuitive. What is it about the hierarchy? If you are still wondering, let us take a look at the second network for this organization – the emergent network. The emergent work ties are shown by the thin red lines drawn on top of the grey lines representing the hierarchy.

Figure 9 – Hierarchy and Emergent Network

Figure 9 reveals that work and hierarchy have many of the same links (expected), while also showing us red links (emergent work ties) with no hierarchical relationship. We expect an informal human network, but we did not know where it will form! The red emergent ties happened over time, via a history of projects employees worked on together. The emergent ties reveal both a history of positive work experiences between two people and also the current work assignments, which require connecting outside of the hierarchy. The emergent ties are there because of both need and choice . Had the history of work ties been different we would probably see different choice ties that may or may not be a better fit for the current need ties.

There is another way to look at the hierarchy – we can view it as a hub-and-spoke network. Yes, a hierarchy is a network – mathematicians call it a tree graph. The same connections are present whether we layout the graph as a tree (Figure 8) or as a hub and spoke diagram (Figure 10). The person at the top of the tree graph (#14) moves to the center of the hub-and-spoke diagram. All relationship remain the same, we are just viewing it from another angle. In Figure 10 we also colored the nodes by their department and we highlighted the supervisory nodes in mint green.

Figure 10 – Hierarchy as a Hub-and-Spoke Network

Again we see the hierarchical connections only. What is interesting about them? What do they provide for the overall connectivity of the organization?

Overlaying the emergent work ties network may reveal more about how the different departments are connected. Are their work silos in the organization? Are the right people working together? Figure 11 shows us another view of how these two networks intersect.

Figure 11 – Hub-and-Spoke Hierarchy and Emergent Work Ties

The above diagrams have been influenced by the hierarchical layout whether as a tree or as a hub-and-spoke. Now let’s see what happens as we allow our graph layout algorithm to take all links into account when deriving the emergent shape of the organization. Figure 12 shows us the emergent organization based on hierarchical and emergent links. Notice how the emergent links have adjusted the structure, but not changed it significantly.

Figure 12 – Emergent Shape of Organization

When we see a diagram like this we often do not know if our client intended this distribution of work. We see a large connected cluster on the right and just one department off on the left. That department is only connected to the rest of the organization via the department supervisor (01). We use these visual documents as talking documents with the client – we sit down together and discuss what we each see. Networks are great sense-making documents between the client and the consultant. The above diagram might reveal this is what the client intended. Or it might reveal a problem that s/he was not aware of. The combination of outside expertise and internal experience will determine what the documents say.

So, I asked back at Figure 8 what is so interesting about the hierarchical links?

They are ALL open triangles!

What was the other name for “open triangles”? Opportunity triangles.

In Figure 12 we can see how the grey links (hierarchy) acted as a base, or scaffolding, for the red links (emergent ties) to form. A hierarchy brings people together in common contexts. Maybe those contexts are departments, or project teams, or product groups? Either way, those with a common goal are brought together and through work they learn about the task at hand, and about the community of colleagues they are embedded in. Each project has a history that is not forgotten. Specific open and closed triangles may emerge for the current project and then they may go dormant, as other projects with other colleagues need to be done. But what once emergent trust is established former work ties can be rejuvenated for future work.

Figure 13 shows just the emergent links in the organization. Can you spot the various triangles described above in Figures 4, 5, 6, 7?

We see a closed triangle (Type 3) amongst nodes 01, 02, and 03, and there are others. An open triangle (Type2), with node 15 in middle, is found amongst nodes 08, 12, and 15, and there are others. A Type 1 triangle is found amongst nodes 02, 08, and 15. Finally, a Type 0  … this one is interesting. We are looking for 3 nodes where none of them are concurrently connected by any of the previous definitions of a triangle (Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3). How many Type 0 triangles are found in this emergent network? Bring your answer to the Exploratory during Feb-March 2021 where you can learn more about networks and complexity and how they interact.

Banner image: Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Invitation

Dear Reader, while we have your attention: we are on a determined drive to expand our network around the world. We’re certainly living in uncertain times (sic), and we believe that it will take a large collective of like-minded people to help organisations and societies navigate stormy waters, make sense of the world and make good decisions. Consider joining the Cynefin Network by clicking on the banner below. Links to eBook and paperback copies of our latest book are also available on this page.

So its Tuesday, second day of this years retreat at the Brew Creek Centre near Whistler in Canada.  We’ve just come back from an afternoon walk to the ‘train wreak site’ which makes for a good break.  A 1956 train crash (they went too fast around a bed) throw trucks into the wood and they are now a sort of art’s site, attracting graffiti artists as well as walkers.  The banner picture shows the Centre and the intext one a carriage in the woods.  Over the last year I’ve been developing the Tricotocon facilitation technique which was used for the first time, with some success, a year ago.  It was good be back at one of the nicest sites we have used, and it was a chance to lay some ghosts.  I’ll talk more about the faculty and the content in a post later in the week but for the moment we are at the half way stage and its a chance to reflect.

Now I have been developing methods and tools for most of my adult life, and over the last two decades I’ve been using natural science constraints as a key enabling constraint.  That means recognising reality: inattentional bias is life, we listen to rebut, a few dominant personalities can change the nature of an event very quickly.  Add to that some personal experience: Keynoting is fun but you tend to attract groupies and don’t get challenged too much; unconferences are fine but are easy to game, as is open space and lack challenging input; good people are not afraid to have an argument, inadequate speakers can’t cope with dissent.  I could add a few others but you get the drift.  As the earlier links show I devised the Tricotocon as an alternative.

So over the last year and several retreats, along with reviewing other people’s use, the core method has stabilised as follows with each stage being a half day – I describe one stage below. In this case we have three faculty – academics in this case – who all have an interested in decision theory but come from very different backgrounds.   We then have twenty one participants organised into Raven Trios of three people.  I’m facilitating and adding comments and there are three people recording what goes on and generally helping out.   The technique will sale significantly but starts to be problematic when participants from below nine/twelve.

1. Faculty Member one presents for around 90 minutes to silence without questions; faculty member two then responds critically over then to fiveteeen minutes followed by faculty member two.  My role is to add to that process, throw out some questions and problems.   There are no questions or discussion
2. The Raven Trios get coffee and find somewhere to have a 45 minute discussion about what they have learnt, think of questions and comments etc.
3. The Raven Trios return and each nominates one of their number to enter the Raven Circle who then spend 45 minutes discussion and comparing notes – the faculty just have too listen and learn how their ideas have been taken without the chance to correct.
4. Finally each faculty member, in reverse order, comments on what they have heard.   The whole group then go to a meal and get ready for Stage two – again no discussion.

That was Monday morning – stage one.  The next stage repeats but this time Faculty member two presents with members one and three responding.   The Raven Groups go out before, but when the Raven circle forms it is a new member of each trio who takes part.  That took us to dinner yesterday and then this morning in Stage three, Faculty member three presented with members one and two responding and the Raven circle had the one person left who had not being part of it.

So in a day and half we got a lot of input and, critically a lot of listening.  Faculty are happy to challenge each other and it can be entertaining to watch them listen to the Raven Circle.   The first Raven circle has the more confident people, by the time it gets to the least confident they have seen the process and are comfortable.

So after that we had the half day walk to complete the day.  Tomorrow I move to syntheis – watch this space