Cognitive Edge News
Cognitive Edge Guest Blog
Our 'Free for all' Blogging stint is offered once a year and only during the festive season when both visitors to our site and our invited bloggers are reflecting on what has gone on in the current year and are planning of what is to come for the Year New. If you would like to blog on our site from 21 December 2011 to 23 January 2012, please email Dawn Lincoln your blogs and she will post it for you on the Cognitive Edge site.
24 January 2012
Management vs Tonga
I had a fantastic day Sunday last; good lunch, stimulating diverse conversation, rugby in Wales, and all in the company of Dave Snowden.
The conversation covered philosophy, literature, the strength and frailties of human nature, the needs of (all of us in) management to have a degree of certainty in decision outcomes.
Now, in certain contexts, exclusively quantitative measurements are powerful decision aids, but we fall into trouble when we extend the context inappropriately, yet still maintain our absolute belief in the power of quantitative measurement.
10 January 2012
This above all: to thine own self be true
It is very important to have a clear picture of your starting point, particularly when solving complex problems, but it is activity in which we underinvest, particularly in strategy generation. But while we are waiting for a home-grown Complex-domain diagnostic, there are other tools which can give us actionable insight, and provide a triangulation point so the journey forward can begin.
When I start a strategy project I usually work with the senior team to establish a clear (coherent and cohesive?) picture of the current external and internal business environments. I employ a number of tools including narrative research and, for probing the senior team, the Kirton Adaptor-Innovator (KAI) theory and supporting instrument.
Continue reading "This above all: to thine own self be true" »
9 January 2012
Where are we?
In a recent conversation during the diagnosis stage of a strategy project, I was asked whether I would, “put my money where my mouth is,” and price my engagement on a contingency basis. Given the large potential value generation in this project, I might have been tempted but for a lesson learnt earlier in my consulting career.
5 January 2012
Change management – a financial perspective
A number of threads on the Cognitive Edge blog highlight the frustration and difficulty in getting companies to use new tools and methods from the world of complex systems. I thought I would offer a narrow financial perspective on why companies are failing to engage with these new ways of thinking. My personal view is that one of the major reasons for the resistance to change in a company is the financial constraints on the company. For the sake of brevity and simplicity I will only consider large UK companies and how simple finance based decision making constrains change management and investment in such techniques as “Probe-Sense-Respond”. All decision making within a company is made within the constrained framework of finance and the following are the top four constraints:
1. The “free market” framework
2. Fiduciary duties of company directors
3. Motivation and decision making of senior management
4. Motivation of middle management
Continue reading "Change management – a financial perspective" »
I've always argued that that Margaret Attwood's 
Today I met up with our current guest blogger Iwan Jenkins at the 
We passed the half way mark today on our journey from the source to the mouth of the Thames. We won't know the exact half way point until we complete as there are northern and southerly options within London itself that effect the overall length. However somewhere between Pangbourne and Shiplake we reached that milestone - I set it at Tilehurst to give us a notional transition point. I must admit to some annoyance with the intransigence of local landowners which have resulted in several on-road diversions from the River itself. The first of these before Lechlade is the most irritating in part because it is a dangerous and lengthy road diversion but in the main because it misses that point where the Thames moves from a stream to a river. We had another today on the approach to Tilehurst where a glorious bend in the river has to be missed for want of a bridge over a Marina exit.
It's not often that I agree with Richard Dawkins, but his article in today's New Statesman on "reasonable doubt" is interesting. He speculates that in a two jury system you would not get a coincidence of verdict and that in consequence the assumption of "beyond reasonable doubt" cannot be sustained in consequence. Now running a two jury experiment over a series of trials and seeing what happens would be an interesting experiment. He suggests that running a parallel experiment with two judges might produce a better correlation. The experiment would be interesting and there is good reason to apply scientific method in social systems when we can.