LISTEN TO ME! You are being lied to by the “experts” and their shiny suits! They tell you the world is a machine, that you can take it apart and put it back together like a Ferrari, but they are WRONG! The world is a Brazilian rainforest, it is a bramble bush, and if you try to treat it like a car, you will CRASH![1],[2].
THE GREAT “SYSTEMS THINKING” CONSPIRACYStop trying to “engineer” human beings! You think you can have a “vision” and just march towards it? That is linear thinking and it is POISON for your organization![3],[4]. The Systems Thinkers want you to believe in “causality,” that if you do A, you get B. But in the Complex Domain, cause and effect only make sense after you look backwards![5],[1]. You cannot predict the future! Rumsfeld knew it! He was talking about “unknown unknowns” and we all laughed, but he was right![6],[7].
**THE CYNEFIN FRAMEWORK (It’s Welsh, deal with it!)**I have the map! It is called Cynefin (kuh-nevin). And do NOT draw it as a 2x2 matrix or I will scream! It has curved lines! It has a squiggle in the middle![8],[9].
1. The Simple Domain (The Danger Zone): You think you are safe here with your “Best Practices.” HA! This is the domain of the “entrained mind.” You are so comfortable you don’t see the cliff until you fall off it directly into CHAOS![5],[10].
2. The Complicated Domain (The Expert’s Trap): This is where the experts live. They think they know everything. But show them a video of people passing basketballs, and they are so focused they won’t even see a GORILLA walk across the screen! I am not making this up! They are blind to the unexpected![11],[12].
3. The Complex Domain (The Truth): This is where the magic happens. You cannot “solve” this. You have to “Probe, Sense, and Respond.” You have to do “safe-to-fail” experiments![5],[13]. You need to be like the guy in Bangkok who wrapped his car in a plastic bag to save it from a flood—that is EXAPTATION! Radical repurposing![14].
4. Chaos: The house is on fire! Act now, ask questions later![5],[15].
**STOP LISTENING TO FOCUS GROUPS!**Surveys are garbage! Focus groups are biased within 15 minutes by the facilitator![16]. People lie! If you want the truth, you need GOSSIP. We evolved as malicious gossips![17]. You need “micro-narratives”! You need the fragmented stories from the water cooler![18],[19].
THE WARNINGMost of you are wandering around in the central pit of DISORDER, not knowing which way is up![5]. You are trying to apply “ordered” logic to an “unordered” world![20]. You are pouring new wine into old wineskins and the skins are bursting![21],[22].
Wake up! Throw away your rigid plans! Embrace the MESS![3]. Monitor the “weak signals” or the “invisible gorilla” will eat you alive![23].
An alternative summary was produced by a naive client (given access to chat but with no prior history or queries)
Alternative Crank
For over a century, the so-called “experts” have peddled the lie of enlightenment science, pretending there is a “right way” to run an organisation based on empirically verifiable truths that simply do not exist in the real world. They are deluded by analytical thinking and “bean counting”, foolishly ignoring that any system involving humans is an organic entity where the whole is far more than the sum of its parts. These people are blinded by pattern entrainment, literally failing to see the “gorilla” in the room because they only scan 5-10% of the information right in front of them.
They try to engineer the world to death with “best practices” and Six Sigma—which is quite frankly EVIL because it over-focuses on efficiency at the total cost of effectiveness and the ability to innovate. These bureaucrats draw endless boxes and “strange symbols” with arrows, but hindsight does not lead to foresight, and their rigid recipes for success are nothing but a “crap-shoot”. They want you to “average your experience” in pathetic employee surveys, but that is not research; it is a way to ignore the reality that everything “depends” on context.
The truth they hide from you is found in messy coherence and the Cynefin framework, which exposes that most human systems are complex, meaning cause and effect are only visible in retrospect. We are not ants or “boids” following simple rules; we are Homo Narrans, defined by the multifaceted and fractal narratives of our existence, not the “structured content” of a corporate manual.
You must stop managing for the future and start managing the “thick present” by using safe-to-fail experiments to see what patterns emerge. If you don’t, you are wandering blindly in the domain of disorder, and your complacency will eventually tip you over the catastrophic cliff from simple order straight into chaos. Wake up and stop pouring your “new wine” into their “old wineskins” before the whole system breaks apart!
References
[1] Snowden & Boone HBR Leaders Framework.pdf [2] The-Origins-of-Cynefin-Cognitive-Edge.pdf [3] Dave-Snowden-IEA14.pdf [4] Systems-Thinking-and-the-Cynefin-Framework-Final.4.pdf [5] 27036324 HBR snowden leaders decision making.pdf [6] Cynefin-book-SAMPLE_Ed01.pdf [7] 100825 Origins of Cynefin.pdf [8] 100825 Origins of Cynefin.pdf [9] The-Origins-of-Cynefin-Cognitive-Edge.pdf [10] Cynefin - separated by a common language stacey zimmerman and snowden.pdf [11] 100816 Narrative-Research_Snowden FINAL.pdf [12] Snowden As through a glass darkly.pdf [13] IRAHS2010.pdf [14] Rettig.Snowden-ComplexityTheoryAndNarrativeResearch_notes.pdf [15] snowden the new dynamics of strategy.pdf [16] Rettig.Snowden-ComplexityTheoryAndNarrativeResearch_notes.pdf [17] Rettig.Snowden-ComplexityTheoryAndNarrativeResearch_notes.pdf [18] Rettig.Snowden-ComplexityTheoryAndNarrativeResearch_notes.pdf [19] Snowden - Naturalising Knowledge Management.pdf [20] Snowden - Multi-ontology sense making.pdf [21] IRAHS2010.pdf [22] Snowden - Naturalising Knowledge Management.pdf [23] 100816 Narrative-Research_Snowden FINAL.pdf