St David's Day is the national festival of Wales. There are parades, concerts and festivals to celebrate the name day of the sixth century saint who was adopted at such during the all to brief period in which Wales was a nation as opposed to a set of warring Kingdoms or a satellite of England during the centuries from the Saxon and other invasions. George Bush showed more grace than Tony Blair in making St David's Day the official Welsh Day in the US. Blair in contrast refused a petition from the Welsh Assembly to make it a national holiday against the wishes of the majority of the Welsh people who were prepared to sacrifice another public holiday to make it happen.

So I went to the English National Opera for a second time this week. Monday was for Der Rosenkavalier which is memorable for some beautiful moments, but you have to sit through a lot to get there. Today was for The Death of Klinghoffer which I have heard many times, but this was my first live performance. It tells the story of the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985 and the death of a handicapped American Tourist, the only casualty. Now I have always seen the minimalists, and Adams in particular as amount the natural heirs of Wagner and it was no surprise to learn from the programme that the original working title was Klinghoffers Tod. For me the opening chorus is the high point of the opera. Palestine exiles become jewish exiles, conflicting but sharing a common history of persecution. John Adams knew little of the history of the Middle East when he started his first opera after Nixon in China. He spent much time reading the old testament in preparation and found himself "alternating between enchantment and alarm", a phrase with which I have much sympathy. His observation that the Israeli-Palistinian issue is "the most carefully controlled and fastidiously managed debate in American political life" is regrettably all too true and prevents meaning action for change in that region.

As I left the opera at pace to make a train that would get me home at 0100 rather than 0300 my main thought was how much I missed talking with mum. If she had been with me the journey home would have alternated between political argument (we had different political positions on that conflict) and the glories of the music. If she had not been with me, then hours would have been spent on the phone the next day. She was always political, held elected office and was never knowingly not involved in a campaign. One of the founding members of Anti-Aparthite Movement and Amnesty in the UK she was always occupied in writing letters and protest. I was taken on a CND march in my pram as a baby and somewhere there is a picture of me on Bertram Russell's knee from that period. In her later years she also took up ecological issues, before it was fashionable to do so.

I think she would also have liked the fact, that in partial celebration of a famous and much deserved victory, I wore a Welsh Rugby Jersey to the English National Opera for both performances this week. She would also have been pleased with my improved fitness level - I managed to run for the train at pace for the first time in a few years without fearing a heart attack in the process.

East Kennet marked my departure from the Kennet Valley to the Ridgeway, its a small parish but was once a gift to Anne of Cleves by Henry VIII and then transferred to Catherine Howard. East Kennett Manor is where the hunt meets and marked my turning point. As I crested the hill to the old temple (now just markers in the field), which terminates the processional line to the more imposing Avebury stone circle, the sun rose above the horizon and suddenly the ground was transformed, frost brushed fields were thrown into sharp contrast with long shadows and the line of the ancient ridgeway was picked out by the light as I crossed the A4 and set off on the main section of the walk.

Its better here at dawn than at dusk, with the night coming on there is always this sense of other presences as one passes the burial mounds catching glimpses of Avebury to the left. The shadows picked out the neolithic field systems and I passed over the old coach road from Bath to London making good pace. The track is rutted by the all too frequent passage of four by fours and trail bikes. These monstrosities are destroying the ancient pathway and while we have won a particle winter ban it is not enough. I have more tolerance of mountain bikes, this has been one of my favourite trails, but they need to show courtesy. I have had enough of hearing cycle bells demanding I break the rhythm of my walk to give them priority. I am happy to share a track, but only on equal terms and not with those whose pleasure involves ruining the tracks and the peace. This early in the morning I had it to myself, sharing it only with the sky larks.

A small track lead across pasture land to Ogborne Maizey with the rhythmic sound of woodpeckers in the wood to my right. and finally I could no longer the A436 and hazarded a rapid crossing to join another bridleway that would cut round by the old railway track into the back streets of Marlborough. The Railway used to run from Andover to Swindon by way of Marlborough and was closed in the 1950s along with much of the railway network that in these over populated times we could do with restoring. That line alone would carry a large volume of daily commuters, now it is a cycle track. I was also starting to regret by enterprise as it was becoming more of an effort to walk. Our normal daily range on the Thames has been been between then and twelve miles and I was already past that. The walk into Marlborough at least held out the prospect of buying something to drink and eat which I duly achieved on a rapid diversion into Waitrose. I ate a scotch egg and drank two pints of milk on a seat in the Church Yard of Preshute Church having passed through Marlborough's High Street, the widest in the land as they failed to rebuild the middle section after the last fire!

I was now closing down, and being passed by enthusiastic dog walkers with breezy hellos, pride encouraged me to tell them I had already walked seventeen miles, British reticent restricted me to a a polite good afternoon. From Manton to Clatford the road passes a modern mansion, one of those permitted by the Government as a means of getting around planning regulations. I took the side path past Clatford Hall, which has worn into the landscape rather than being a blot on it and finally the smoke of log fires in Lockerdidge was visible. A few more fields and I was home after a walking distance of 19.2 miles at an average speed of 2.6 mph (2.47 if you include the time in Waitrose and sitting on a bench). I was pleased at that, we have only been making 2.3 on our Thames Walk and this was a longer distance with some climbs. However all I could do was head for a bath, and then the sofa as my legs locked down. I will have to get up early, for now I just need to recover. But the satisfaction of a walk of that length at a good pace outweighed any pain. Getting back to fitness was a part of the objective here and its starting to pay off.

Next weekend I will need to spend time working with timetables to manage the next section from Ogborne St George up to and past the Uffington White Horse. The route is shown below and the full photo stream is here.

Its always the danger when people react to something by swinging the pendulum rather than thinking of bounded applicability. There is a place for stories, a place for analytics and a place for critical assessment of a situation. So maybe the story telling movement should think about moderating its post-modern crusade to privilege one form of communication over others. In doing so it would itself be enriched, and would reduce the risk of doing harm.

The conversation as usual went in various unexpected directions, but one theme stimulated me to write this post. Peter asked me why (with a legitimate air of concern and incomprehension) the UK government was closing (I know they say they are outsourcing, but lets call a spade a spade) its Civil Service College. He has long championed the Singapore equivalent as an importance aspect of governance. Not just to train the future generation of civil servants, but also to allow new thinking and ideas to emerge for the future.

Aside from the loss of a centre for training and understanding we have the increasing import of models from industry which are not even fully successful there and are heavily dependent on the context of markets. One aspect of this is outcome based targets and KPIs which focus people on measurable outcome, linking reward to predefined objectives. Now we already know that outcome based targets often suffer from the law of unforeseen consequences. My modification of Goodharts Law says that anything explicit will always be gamed, and that is all too true in government and industry. I have railed against this often and will continue to do so. In a complex system, and governments are always dealing with complex systems, the number of things where a successful outcome can be determined in advance are few. But the obsession with targets mean that teachers who are good at completing learning plans are better rewarded that those who inspire pupils to learn, nurses who care for patients suffer in comparison to those who complete shift reports etc. etc.

The other thing that this approach achieves is to destroy, in a uncivil manner, the idea of service to the people. Ok there were always exceptions, but the underlying cultural norm of the civil service was to enable good governance, not to gain personal reward. Security, a good pension etc were personal benefits, but achievement of commercial levels of reward but rarely part of a civil servants life. They joined, in the main from University and matured in a culture of service. Now they are just another bunch of middle managers. We really need to understand that intrinsic motivation is almost inevitably damaged by extrinsic reward, and that is a loss that if continued will be impossible to recover.

Now I first came to Singapore over 15 years ago to speak at a conference. I was working for IBM then, and was still in the early naive days so I decided to stay on for a few days in case I could do anything. I got completely ignored, and couldn't even get into the IBM building to check email so I gave up and played tourist. Subsequent visits both in and IBM became a lot more packed with little leisure time. Although my whole family have been out with me at various times. If you come to a country once or twice a year (more frequently at times) you get a better sense of change than if you live there.

The food courts are as good as ever, and I went out for a meal with out developers and support people last night. As they are mostly Indian and vegetarian we ended up in Little India. At this point you just sit back and let the experts order. One dish (looking for the name) involved purring mango juice into a small edible basket and eating it whole. Tonight its Tai, and I have already had the statutory chicken rice, my all time favourite. Much is the same, much has changed. The society is now larger, it is more distanced from the bad times; its worth remembering it was a basket case forty or so years ago and now with the 50th Anniversary looming it is one of the most successful economies in the world. But with that success and size there are different tensions. I doubt there is one Singapore meta-story anymore, although there was when I first came. Growth and growing sophistication bring advantages but also dangers.

Today I want to think about some of the more common mistakes, fortunately less than seven, I am keeping it to three.

Its not an exhaustive list, but it covers some of the most common. More source material tomorrow and of course the title of this post (from Joyce) makes the important point. Its not that errors or mistakes are somehow avoidable, although some can be, The issue is do we learn and move forwards?

As I said yesterday the needs of television and commercial needs are overwhelming the needs of the loyal rugby follower. I fully expected to hear that the match would be played tomorrow, but there is no indication of that. So the French supporters who have travelled up from the south of France and the Irish fans who have flown or taken the ferry have had an expensive weekend ruined with little hope if any of recompense. I wonder why the French don't play internationals in the south, as that is where Rugby is based, then a late evening start in Marseille of Toulon would be reasonable.

We need a rebellion of rugby followers, those who make the atmosphere, who create the revenue streams. Enough, is enough.

The building of the Millennium Stadium meant that the physical structure of the site changed. Glamorgan Cricket moved a short walk up the River Taff to Sophia Gardens, Cardiff RfC shifted to the cricket pitch and the current Millennium Stadium was built in time to host the 1999 World Cup. There was a sense of continuity around that, it was not major disruption. Matches then were always played on a Saturday at 1500 (or 3pm in old time) and standing room on the terraces was cheap. As you could afford it you moved to seating in the stands or maybe those new fangled hospitality boxes that were opened up on the banks of the Taff. Before the match you had a drink in a city centre pub, ate in any one of many establishments. You could do some shopping, or leave those members of the family who were not rugby fans to carry on in town. At the end of the match the crowd spilled out on to the streets of the capital. Saturday and rugby at the Arms Park were a ritual part of the stability of life.

With the move to Leckworth all of that changed. Now one had to drive to the ground or get the bus out from the centre. That has some very practical implications for those of us coming down by train for evening matches (now all to frequent to feed television audiences) as the ten minute walk from the stadium to the station allowed you to catch the last train east. But to queue for the bus, then walk from Westgate street meant that public transport was not possible. There are no pubs by the new stadium (well there is one, but nothing like the richness of the City Centre). No where to eat but a concrete McDonalds, a plastic Subway and a Marks and Spencer supermarket. You now simply go to a rugby match (or don't in too many cases); before the rugby match was a part of a whole social process. We now have an all seater stadium so the experience of the terraces (and the lower price) is lost. The move challenged loyalty; I drive 90 minutes there and back to support the Blues most weekends they play at home. I have to deal with the mess of not knowing when games will be held until a few weeks before given the late determination of television schedules, I pay a lot of money every year for two season tickets. I will stay loyal, but the experience is far less, far more difficult, far too unstructured.

The diversity of experience offered by a city centre location is and was important. Rugby is a family affair, unlike Soccer matches, home and away fans do not have to be separated, we mix, we banter, we talk about shared passion. A rugby ground has to be a physical part of the centre of a community in order to attract that community. Tonight we went back to that place which we had lost. People poured into the grounds from the surrounding pubs (as we will on Sunday in larger numbers for the international match). Cardiff Rugby Club was packed to the brim with people and with memories. Pictures of the Cardiff RFC contributions to the Welsh Teams of the 70s on the wall. The old caps off instruction from the guardians at the door was a surprise but then remembered. There was a real sense of belonging and critically of believing. The atmosphere created by the crowd during the match was greater than that created by the players (it was a victory but a poorly executed one and they really did not step up to the occasion). One felt part of something, rather than an isolated figure in a windswept half empty stadium.

Of course its not the only issue. 2003 saw the end of valleys sides at the top tier, another a mistake. OK it was the big city clubs such as Cardiff who stole the best players from Ponty and Bridgend, but they got their own back often enough at the Arms Park with fervent support, and the house of pain at Ponty deserved its name. There is talk of development sides and central contracts, following the Irish model which is attractive as an idea. Three main, properly funded teams with the key players on central contracts. Development sides at Newport and the Valleys would create some of that atmosphere of rugby as a means of situating culture. God, last night we even sang again, something that is rare at the City stadium. We need to recognise that the idea of Cynefin is critical to welsh culture and to welsh rugby, and return to that place of belonging ….

Now one of the basic Cynefin mantras is that of safe-fail interventions, and lots of them, if the problem is complex. One can only really understand a complex system by interacting with it (the probe of probe-sense-respond) and while people get that, getting them to take on board the full implications is another matter. Some time ago I decided that we needed to have a more rigid process that would force people to take the various aspects of a safe-to-fail experiment into account in design, so we created a form. its still in use, but I have also been working on some basic principles to expand on that. So here they are:

Its worth noting that an experiment that fails may provide a better route forwards than one which succeeds.

It is important to realise that a lot of conflict happens in the complex arena. The reason for this is that many theories can be coherent to the facts, so a right answer cannot be determined by further analysis (that is for complicated problems). By allowing anyone with a coherent theory to construct and implement a safe-to-fail experiment you radically reduce conflict in decision making.

All of this is part of the new advanced Cynefin course that is being developed - and there is a short term opportunity to be part of the first outing of this. A client asked for a day next week, and said they were open to a public course rather than a private one. So if you are interested you can book here.

David says that people are at the heart of the process and the definition of a problem should not start with technology and its difficult not to have sympathy with the statement. I wonder though if this is still the case. these days the speed of change of technology and the sheet capabilities that are opened up mean that sometimes we start with the technology and the people follow. OK the focus should remain the same, but the starting point is more open.

Now I admit that in saying this I need to acknowledge that a decade or so ago I could well have written David's post, arguing the same position. To be fair to myself I used to contrast techno-fetishits with new age fluffy bunnies (the origin of my use of the term) over a decade ago. However at that time I was only just starting to think through some of the implications of complexity science in human systems and realising that evolutionary biology and cognitive sciences had to be added into the mix. It took some time to think that through (see my post about new and old wine a few days ago). So with that partial apology for past sin out of the way let me move on.

I think we need to start to realise that technology, in particular transforming technologies may well be the starting place for practice. Its an old adage that if you have a hammer everything is a nail, but its also true that once you have a hammer then you can do something with nails. Think of the radical change that Twitter and to a lesser extent Facebook have wrought not just for passing around information but on the whole question of human identity. We are these days formed by our virtual networks as much as by our physical ones. As they gain capability, then they enable and sometimes enact competences of which were unaware or had abandoned as too difficult.

So, as I think its time to move on from knowledge management per se, so I think it may be time to move on from the technology v people debate which was an essential part of the knowledge management period. Maybe its time to stop waiting outside the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?.

I'm working with another professional at the moment, my accountant who is very good at dealing with the consequences of my failure to regard regular book keeping as a important task. She also has qualifications, experience, training etc. etc. Thanks to the consequences of increasing age I am seeing more of my Doctor is also the product of a seven plus year process of training, examination and practice. So I am sorry Jurgen, but the statement that Nobody is a professional is arrant nonsense. Yes of course its good if people choose to behave in a professional manner, but they need to be one first. Behaving like a professional smacks of a superficial con trick, pretending to be something without putting in the effort to acquire the necessary skills and experience.   

Thats the problem with sound bites, and the soundbite generation. It may sound clever, but its too easy to make a vacuous statement. Then when challenged you have to back peddle fast, trying to pretend you meant something other than you said. Far better to think first.

Luke 5:36-39

Its been a busy week in Washington with a packed agenda and an overdue article occupying any free time so posting here has taken second place. However today saw a lunch with old friends Alicia Juarrero and Mike Lissack along with a new friend Stuart Umpleby of GWU. Mike, at a meeting in Bedfont Lakes many years ago told me I had to read Alicia's Dynamics in Action, and that book along with conversations and work with Alicia (one memorable project in Singapore) have contributed a lot to Cognitive Edge. The constraint based definition of complexity and safe-fail to give just two examples. Conversation ranged from plagiarism to politics but we also focused on a common concern: the growth of acceptance of complexity thinking is to be welcomed but far too many people are now leaping to use the language without really thinking through or understanding the implications.

Either way to return to the subject. I think we have several different problems, or types of behaviour:

• Putting old wine into new wineskins
  There are a whole group of people who find the language of complexity attractive, given their prior ideological position. Self-organisation, emergence, natural systems and so on, coupled with some wonderful images and the raw science all make this a form of validation of past practice. For this group natural systems are often held to be of high ethical worth, although they tend to talk of deer in sylvan glades while forgetting the cockroaches.. Self-organisation is seen as an alternative to control, rather than as a compliment and there is general lack of appreciation of constraints and their role in enabling evolution. Nothing changes in terms of what this group do, its just the language around the practice that changes.
• Putting new wine into old wineskins
  This is a more subtle problem, where people understand that complexity is different, but wrap it up in conventional language to make organisations more comfortable. They fail to realise that new language leads to new thinking and that using old language will simply allow novelty to dissipate. I think the motivation here is often a lack of courage, or an unwillingness to commit. That is OK with some changes in theory, but not in phase shifts, or paradigm changes. A major problem here is that it ends up in the same place as the earlier sin, with no real change no learning.

Now I am not criticising people in either category per se, I think we are dealing with missed opportunities more than maliciousness. I do however criticise those who just sweep up complexity theory along with any other bright things they find attractive and put them together in a sort of potpourri of interesting things, generally thrown together in a powerpoint slide set with lots of quotations and pictures but little thinking through of the implications.

Its also important to remember that old wine has value and new wine needs to mature. If you want to take radical new ideas and thinking you have to allow them to mature and develop, the interaction of theory with practice to develop something with taste (and I use that word deliberately with multiple meanings). The old wine still has value, but the new wine is maturing. What we need is people who know how to store it, decant it and guide people into different pathways.

In contrast Attwood's dark tale remains ever present in its topicality. It tells the story of a right wing evangelical takeover of the US. The parallel reduction in fertility arising from chemical pollution produces a perverted need to handmaids to bear the children of the powerful. I won't spoil the story for those who have not read it, but the ritualisation of the execution scene and the hypocrisy of the night club for the elite with their Jezebels, together with the need for near permanent war were for me some of the most memorable and relevant aspects of this story. It was published in 1985 (a year earlier would have had more irony) and over a quarter of a century later it remains a prophecy with a sense of immanence.

I was prompted to write this by a link in the Guardian to a new edition of the book by the Folio Society with some truly wonderful illustrations. The film is pretty good as well. I'd make it compulsory reading in all US schools but of course Elizabeth Kantor, author of The politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature has condemned it, surprise surprise.

So that was the context of the conversation, however my interest here is the general issue about how you achieve change from a complexity perspective. As a side note it's interesting how may people claim the language of complexity but revert back to older models of problem definition and solution finding; its a sure sign of someone who has skimmed the language and finds it exciting but has not thought in any depth about the implications.

I have previously posted on related material in the "Babies and Bathwater" series but what I want to focus on here is the difference between dealing with the realities of the present and attempting to close the gap on an idealised future. So let me start by making my position clear.

• If the situation is complicated then you should define the endpoint you want to achieve and engineer a solution or series of solutions which will achieve that end point. This can be linear and mechanistic (nothing wrong with that in the right context)
• If the situation is complex. then there are multiple possible alternative options and while you might be able to set a direction, you don't know any of the details and you should remain open to swapping the destination as things evolve/emerge.

The implications of that are pretty clear. Rather than trying to solve the problems of the world (or the organisation or whatever) by sitting around with a group of like minded people and creating pipe dreams about how things should be (a sort of reverse Four Yorkshireman sketch) you instead focus on what you can change in the here and now. Big movements like the Arab Spring for example are triggered by small events, but they have to be predisposed for those triggers and which will work is not predictable anyway. You also have to be realistic about the scope of what you are doing. So if you want to change organisations, three basic principles:

• You don't lecture management on how they are old fashioned in their thinking, instead you put them into situations and give them tools where old ways of thinking are not sustainable and they have to act differently. If they work it out for themselves its sustainable.
• You pick off areas where the pain threshold is the highest, for example (to pick up Agile themes) the interaction between approaches such as AGILE and the measurement and management practices of the HR function. You then create approaches that change the measurement and feedback mechanisms that work in parallel with existing methods. That new project management system (something I am working on to declare a commercial interest) can start to provide HR with better data on people and "competences" than their current systems so they choose to adopt it over time.
• Sell middle-bottom-up an idea originally put forward by Nonaka and one I respect. It's not too difficult to get senior management to buy into an idea, but it will only happen if middle management are bought in and they are the hardest.

That means you have to embed change in process, not depend on individual competence. You can't achieve change based on ideal behaviour, but you can change process and context. You also need to embrace dissent, the problem with idealists is they can't absorb dissent and learn from it, they seek confirmation rather than conflict and this fail. More on those points in future posts.

Aside on the Rugby

The good news on today's match that is that we won, and qualified for the Quarter Finals, but bad news is that we missed a bonus point by inches and this have an away match against the current champions over Easter, rather than a home match against Toulouse. Good news we play better as underdogs and I have an excuse to spend the Easter weekend in Dublin. The other good news is 5 Celtic League, 1 English and 2 French quarter finalists which kinda makes a point.

The other thing we started to realise is that rural nature of this walk will soon be lost. Our next two sections from Shiplake to Marlow and then to Windsor are the last rural sections, after than the walk is the main urban and on metalled roads or engineered tracks. The section to Mapledurham is a delight, but after that its best forgotten. From the road diversion to Tilehurst until you leave Reading the bath is rank in parts and only the delights of modern urban architecture can be seen to the right. The rule along this section is look left. The Gasometers can be sort of scenic at a mush (see right) but the river is the main attraction and with the setting sun providing a backcloth the walk returns to rural delights.

The Kennet and Avon (a walk I completed earlier this year) joins as you leave Reading and the Thames itself swells and grows. It moves less quickly, or least it appears too give the volume and depth of water. We are also in the territory made famous by Kenneth Graham in Wind in the Willows. There are many competing claims to the source of Toad Hall, and of Toad with speculation that the two may not be connected. But the river now has many a boat, but more the serious rowing club than Edwardian gentlefolk. However you can see the attraction. I am half thinking of hiring a boat once we have completed this walk and reversing the journey on the Thames itself.

Private schools abound, we passed Bluecoats (alma mater of Ricky Gervais) and we finished shortly after Shiplake College which has a wonderful visa to complete the architecture. I'd still remove their charitable status by the way, but their presence has preserved the playing fields and buildings.

By the time we reached Shiplake my muscles were starting to fee the effect. I had walked three miles more than my companions the previous week and also thrown in a solo walk from Eastbourne over Beachy Head and the Severn Sisters midweek. My fitness levels are coming back slowly, but I am pleased to say the stamina is still there. I am also remembering how much I enjoy walking, both with people and on my own (the two are very different). Pressures of work and travel have provided an excuse until I decided to take myself in hand last year and its coming. The long distance paths that are feature of the British Landscape allow for a ritual to be established and goals to be set. For a timetable fetishist such as myself, augmented by the internet there is the added pleasure of planning!