Let’s face it: your problems are like spoiled brats, just too willing to misbehave. And they can easily afford to be ill-tempered, irrational, incoherent, inconsistent. However, you cannot. Not as an individual, not as a leader, not as an organisation. For you must uphold some level of coherence and consistency to maintain your credibility (and I would add: your self-esteem). How can you achieve that goal if your problems obviously don’t play fair?
Reading the map – East or West?

The Cynefin framework is a sense-making model that can serve as a map to give you some orientation in challenging situations of decision-making or problem-solving. Recently, I took a closer look at how you could read this map and why it is prudent to avoid the Southern domains. Today, I’ll investigate the main differences between the Eastern and the Western domains and how those will affect your chances of success.
Reading the map – Keep to the North!

Over the past few weeks, I introduced you to a sense-making model developed by Dave Snowden. His Cynefin framework can serve as a map to give you some orientation in challenging situations of decision-making or problem-solving. Today, let’s take a closer look at how you can read this map, and why it’s advisable to avoid the South.
What’s cooking?

In a recent post I introduced you to the Cynefin framework, a sense-making model that can help you in difficult situations of decision-making and problem-solving. This framework comprises five domains: simple, complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder. Looking for a coherent set of illustrative examples, I thought about cooking with friends as a common story line. Just imagine you […]
Know where you are!

Life is full of challenging situations and difficult problems you need to overcome, full of decisions you have to make. You constantly consider options, evaluate trade-offs, make choices. And your understanding of the circumstances is of paramount importance to make such decisions well. You need to know where you are in order to prepare your next steps. Easily said, but difficult without a map. Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework is such a map that can give you this all-important sense of where you are and what you could do.