Cognitive Edge - Guest Blog

Management vs Tonga

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:44:25 +0000

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.

This above all: to thine own self be true

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:46:41 +0000

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.

Where are we?

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:24:15 +0000

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.

Change management – a financial perspective

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:45:25 +0000

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

A turnip seed never grows into a parsnip

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:20:53 +0000

For those of us who travel extensively, one of the most valued Christmas gifts is the opportunity to take time over the holidays to read heavy books. These may not be mentally demanding nor intellectually ponderous but their physical dimensions preclude them as traveling companions; when packing I err toward the gazelle rather than the mule. On re-reading some essays by George Orwell I was struck once more by the impact the past has on our future direction, and how little overt cognisance is taken of this point in standard strategy generation processes. Snowden summed up it more succinctly than Orwell (a rare feat and a compliment) and though I can’t find the exact quote, it is close to, “the past informs the future, but does not predict it.” Nevertheless, despite Snowden’s pithiness, Orwell’s insight is still worth reporting in full.

The Price is Right?

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:08:54 +0000

It will be difficult to apply ‘probe-sense-respond’ in business because the environment subconsciously prohibits experimentation. That would be my conclusion based on fifteen years of encouraging clients to practice safe-to-fail problem-solving. We have work ahead of us to apply it successfully.

Dots and patterns: making your competitors colour blind

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:17:57 +0000

An alternative title for this piece could have been “Narrative research—a practical introduction.” As stated previously, most of my clients are hard-nosed and commercially-orientated, and typically prefer to see a cause-and-effect relationship between spending and a return. They often have a science or engineering background, and have a predilection for anything that can be measured and spreadsheeted—preferably with error bars. They have huge intellectual horsepower and readily assimilate the concepts around complex adaptive systems, but less readily want to deal with the attending implications of managing ambiguity. This preference for certainty (with error bars) is reflected in their allocation of market research spend. External reports are usually industry reports from large publication houses (also bought by their competitors) and internal research are mostly Likert scale—as is any customer satisfaction survey. Between survey periods, the numbers are poured over incessantly, but I have yet to see any business link a return on the investment for these surveys which ties in directly the resultant actions from these surveys. I think there is an opportunity to shift this experience to the better, but how can it be done?

The winner is

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:44:07 +0000

The winner is Mr Steve Dawkins, and a copy of Obliquity is in the post. Thank you too for all other responses including a number of waggish entries....and yes, Dylan Thomas did write more than "Under Milk Wood."

...and the winner is?

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:55:37 +0000

It seems that this won't be the last post after all. In the next week or so I will post a short process on how we introduce narrative research into an organisation with a high preference for quantitative research. Finally, I will introduce the concept of problem-solving leadership and how this ties into natural science and complexity. If any of the previous blogs have been of interest and worthy of further expansion, please let me know via direct email (ijenkins@mkt-edge.com) and I will try to publish further information in the time available

Create the demand to participate

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:26:32 +0000

I’m not sure if I always get the whole ‘change management’ thing. I have been in full-time employment for over 30 years, and I have seen basic problem-solving or simply getting stuff done, be cordoned off for execution by a recipe-following, jargon-laden club whose membership have derailed or even prevented business improvement. I have seen real movement, real change and genuine heart-felt challenge ignored, overrun or dismissed—to the detriment of many organisations. Let me be blunt. I have seen some ‘Change Management’ projects snuff out feedback loops; I have seem them absolve leaders from explaining weak decisions; I have seen Change Managers override warning signs, and even driven creaky transactional processes into chaos. Yesterday I heard a Change Management professional decrying a group of lathe operators who had successfully developed and implemented an improved manufacturing workflow by ‘chatting over tea,’ instead of forming a guiding coalition and then adhering to the remaining 6 or 7 steps—as per the CM manual issued in February. I kid you not.

Can using complicated tools to solve a complex problem make you ill?

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 04:58:52 +0000

My initial contact with Cognitive Edge was stimulated by a question; does anyone out there have experience of applying a complex adaptive system approach to business? The root of the question arose from an earlier one of “how do you build bodily health” and curiosity as to whether the answer to that question had insight for building organisational health. I had developed an understanding of the physiology of the human body through research and self-experimentation, and came to conclusion that our bodies are non-homeostatic open systems, but was surprised that a big chunk of medical science is derived from model of closed-loop steady state. Thus we manage this Complex system with Complicated and Simple tools (to our detriment) , and the analogy to Business seemed worthy of further investigation. This post might be controversial, so let me state that this is my journey, the views are my own, and the conclusions are specific to me. In self-experimentation, N=1, and your mileage may vary—and so on and so forth with all the other liability disclaimers.

So what. Tell me who has used it, and how I can make it work

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:32:47 +0000

I am frequently asked to demonstrate to my commercially-minded, tight-budgeted, hard-nosed, doubting-Thomased clients that there is profitable proof of pragmatic application of the insight arising from the narrative research and the Cynefin framework. This is often difficult to do because of the issues of commercial confidentiality and the shear range of contexts involved. However, the volume and universality of the request takes this topic beyond a weak signal so a response is required. I provide a variety of case studies but one tool seems to resonate more than the others, and I am sharing that with you today.

Praise the Lord! We are a musical nation.

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 23:26:23 +0000

In business we spend a considerable amount of time discussing where we are going. Yet when we introduced to other homo narrans, we seem to spend a lot of time navigating toward an understanding of the each other through references to aspects of personal history. We display metaphorically our geographic, social, intellectual, even spiritual roots. As Snowden points out, we re-establish extended familial bonds at births, deaths and marriages through the re-telling share (and sometimes embellished) family sagas. It seems to give us context about the range of conversations we can going forward; they can launching points for oral adventures, or traffic lights preventing collisions. It can of course lead to initial mis-conceptions, but I find course correction easily obtained. For example; I am Welsh, but I don’t sing. Or rather I do sing, but lustfully, not tunefully. My race does not have a genetic disposition for singing, but my culture does engage itself and identify itself through this medium—and there can’t be too many nations whose pop musicians complete their concert by leading the audience in hymn singing.

Can you handle the truth - Part II

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:54:27 +0000

In ‘Can you handle the truth - part I’ I referred to the conceptual importance of feedback loops. In part II I relate a practical, personal example of how deployment of a mechanism for feedback built sufficient trust and honesty for an organisation to re-adjust the corporate strategy . Our approach to strategy process has four parts:

Can you handle the truth - part I

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:56:33 +0000

Last year I read ‘The Ghost of the Executed Engineer’ by Loren Graham. The book focuses on Peter Palchinsky, a Russian engineer, who served both the Tsarist and Stalinist regimes. Using Palchinsky as a proxy for the Soviet Union, Graham proposes that it was the Soviet’s lack of appetite to receiving (negative) feedback that lead to a paucity of innovation in the centrally managed economy, and its ultimate failure.. In CE terms, solutions to complex problems were always treated as fail-safe, rather than safe-to-fail. The claim may be exaggerated, but should not be dismissed too quickly.
Peter Palchinsky loved presenting damming conclusions, but did so too gleefully. He seems never to have read the body language of the recipients of the feedback, and this lack of interpersonal awareness eventually cost him his life.