Say it in many different wayssix days beforeShared mental model spaces are challenging to grow and expand. Mental models,…Organizing and sensing connections

Complexity escape routes and listening to learn2021I was teaching the workshop on complexity this week, an outgrowth of…Solved, solvable, unsolvable2022I have been noodling on a decision-making framework, and I am hoping…Settled and “not settled yet” framings2021I was working on decision-making frameworks this week and had a pretty…Mindset transitions and coherence2021I wonder if in the framing of organizational mindsets, there’s a pattern…Tucked away in a couple of paragraphs of the brilliant paper by Cynthia Kurtz and David Snowden, there’s a highly generative insight. The authors make a distinction between the kinds of connections within an organization and then correlate the strength of these connections to the Cynefin quadrants. I accidentally backed into these correlations myself once. What particularly interested me was the introduction of connections into the Cynefin thinking space, so I am going to riff on that.

Organizational cartography2022Given that this team is thriving, the various units within it collaborate…Nudging Embodied Strategy2022The whole concept of the cone of embodied strategy is a bit…First, I’ll deviate from the paper and introduce my own taxonomy (of course). Looking at how information travels across a system, let’s imagine two kinds: connections that relay organizing information and connections that relay sensing information. For example, a reporting chain is a graph (most often, a tree) of organizing connections: it is used to communicate priorities, set and adjust direction, etc. Muscles and bones in our bodies are also organizing connections: they hold us together, right? Organizing connections define the structure of the system. Nerve endings, whiskers, and watercooler chats are examples of sensing connections — they inform the system of the environment (which includes the system itself), and hopefully, of the changes in that environment.

Flux budget and predictability footprint2021I’ve been thinking about this idea of the flux budget as a…With this taxonomy in hand, we can now play in the Cynefin spaces. It is pretty clear that the Unpredictable World (my apologies, I also use different names for Cynefin bits than the paper) favors weak organizing connections and the Predictable World favors the strong ones. Organization is what makes a world predictable. In the same vein, Chaotic and Obvious spaces favor weak sensing connections, contrary to the neighboring Complex and Complicated spaces with their fondness for strong sensing connections.

What the heck is strategy work?2022So really, what this translates to so far is a strategist playing…Jankless2021What would it be like to work in a team that experiences…Seems fairly straightforward and useful, right? Depending on the nature of the challenge I am facing, aiming for the right mix of organizing and sensing connections of the organizational structures can help me be more effective. Stamping out billions of identical widgets? Go for strong organizational connections, and reduce the sensing network. Solving hard engineering problems? Make sure that both organizational and sensing connection networks are robust: one to hold the intention, the other to keep analyzing the problem.

Tension in Shared Mental Model Space2022This just occurred to me today, so I am writing this down…Weirdly, the causality goes both ways. The connection mix doesn’t just make organization more effective in different spaces. It also defines the kinds of problems that the organization can perceive.

OO and DA2021Each presents two different configurations for the OODA loop: I’ll call them…A team with strong organizing connections and non-existent sensing connections will happily march down its predetermined path — every problem will look Obvious to it. Sure, the earth will burn around it and everything will go to hell in the end, but for the 99.9% of the journey, their own experience will be blissfully righteous. The solution to war is obvious to a sword.

Gravity and water2023I have been lucky enough to be part of the process of…Similarly, if that engineering organization loses its steady leader, weakening the strength of its organizing connection network, every problem will suddenly start looking Complex. The magic of constructed reality is that it is what we perceive it to be.

Pace layers of predictability2023One thing that stood out to me was this notion of a…Steady winds, doldrums, and hurricanes2023It just so happened that this year, many of my friends and…Triggered, intentional, and spontaneous coherence2021I’ve been chatting about organizational coherence with a few folks, and this…Prototype the problemthe day afterI was looking for practices that help expand shared mental model space…This might be a useful marker to watch for. If you work in a team that merrily stamps widgets, and suddenly everything starts getting more Complicated, look for those tendrils of sensing connections sprouting. And if you’re working at the place where the thick fog of Complexity begins to billow, it might be the environment. But it also could be the loss of purpose that kept y’all together all this time.