The Cynefin Seminar: Navigating complexity in human systems
This one-day seminar led by Dave Snowden, co-author of the award-winning November 2007 Harvard Business Review cover article "A Leader’s Guide to Decision Making" and creator of the Cynefin Framework, is the equivalent of a master class for executives, academics, Cognitive Edge Accredited Practitioners and other leaders in their fields.
Snowden and Boone’s article won the Academy of Management award in 2008 as the best practitioner paper. The paper describes the Cynefin framework (shown below) and will be distributed to all participants in advance of the seminar, which expands on the various ideas and practices in the paper.
"... introduces an important new perspective that has enormous future value, and does so in a clear way that shows it can be used... makes several significant contributions. First, and most importantly, it introduces complexity science to guide managers’ thoughts and actions. Second, it applies this perspective to advance a typology of contexts to help leaders to sort out the wide variety of situations in which they must lead decisions. Third, it advises leaders concerning what actions they should take in response."
– Citation from the 2008 Academy of Management Best Practitioner Paper Award
The Cynefin Framework
Themes
Complexity theory in human systems
Complexity theory offers a real opportunity to transform governance by doing more with less, integrating strategic intent with operational practice. However the growing popularity carries its own dangers, these range from an over emphasis on modelling to appropriating the language to older more structured approaches. Complexity in human systems has additional layers of complexity due to intentionality, identity and intelligence. Understanding these differences is key to the effective application of the theory to practice.
From Systems Thinking to Complexity
The major difference between systems thinking and complexity thinking is that the former focuses on defining an ideal future state and seeks to close the gap, whereas complexity seeks to manage the evolutionary potential of the present. Systems approaches range from three year plans, through idealised process designs to agreeing common values. These approaches have dominated management in industry and government for the last three decades and draw heavily on engineering metaphors of the organisation. Complexity theory offers an evolutionary alternative.
The New Dynamics of Strategy
Cognitive complexity offers a different and complementary model to deal with conditions of uncertainty; where the future offers many possibilities and it is impossible to know in advance which is the right option. As such it seeks to better understand the present, in order to see in which directions evolution (either gradual or punctured) can be encouraged and directed. Strategically such approaches hold options open for as long as possible in order to insure the achievement of strategic objectives against the multiple uncertainties of the future.
Creating the resilient organisation
An approach based on resilience, while seeking to prevent failure, also recognises that failure is inevitable, and often necessary to make progress. The resilient organisation focuses on early detection, fast recover and therefore early exploitation of new evolutionary opportunities. Shifting from linear planning processes that often take to long and lock down options to early, resilience focuses on multiple safe-to-fail experiments with tight monitoring to allow future coherent pathways to become visible sooner. We understand complex human systems by interacting with them.
Who should attend
- Executives in the public and private sector who need to understand the theory and the application of new approaches to strategy;
- Academics interesting in complexity theory and its application. In particular approaches not dependent on modeling but on insights from the cognitive sciences; and
- Participants in Cognitive Edge accreditation programmes wanting to understand (or refresh their understanding) of the core theory and also to understand and learn to apply advanced methods.
Agenda of Sessions
Setting the context
- What is complex adaptive systems theory?
- How does it differ in human systems from those in nature?
- How can it be explained to skeptics?
- Its use in the context of risk and uncertainty.
Cynefin - bounded applicability
- The Cynefin framework, understanding when to use traditional approaches and when to use complexity.
- Structured walk through of a full strategy process using the Cynefin framework.
Creating a resilient organisation
- New organisational forms, “beyond the matrix”.
- Generating network connectivity within and across an organisation's boundaries.
- The use of ritual and role based training to create resilience.
“Think anew, act anew”
This final session will to a degree depend on the interests of the participants. Subjects covered can include innovation, knowledge management, scenario planning, the use of social media and others.
Outcomes
By the end of the seminar delegates will:
- Achieve an understanding of complexity theory to the point where they can explain its implications within their own organisations;
- Acquire a set of methods (supported by documentation from Cognitive Edge) to apply that learning in practice;
- Attain the ability to determine the boundaries between the application of process management and complexity techniques.
Tutor
Dave Snowden has pioneered an approach to social systems based on natural science. In addition to holding various positions at Universities around the world, he was Director of a British government research programme on emergence and a member of a National Science Foundation panel on complexity research. Dave is also actively engaged in a series of government and industry projects applying complexity theory to intractable problems.