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.

The efficiency mindset – appealing, but treacherous

Much of the public debate about innovation is centred on the corporate world, where share-holder value still rules supreme, and where innovation is the key avenue to keep the competitive advantage required to excel in the market. In this environment, efficiency is the prime driver. However, his mindset asks us to implement solutions quickly. The result can be too much emphasis on solutions with too little concern for the underlying problems; too much doing with too little thinking. And that has some unintended, hideous side-effects and long-term implications.

The entrepreneurial mind – upgrade

We live in a VUCA world: it's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. These global conditions are the same for everybody, for every organisation. But different types of organisations show different kinds of responses to these circumstances, in particular in the business world. While small entities like start-ups seek to draw their competitive advantage from agility … Continue reading The entrepreneurial mind – upgrade →

The entrepreneurial mind

When you are asked to describe the essence of an innovative mind-set, you are faced with a dilemma, as expectations are high and preconceived ideas differ widely. The question you receive is often one for concrete advice: Which values should an organisation embrace to implement an innovation culture? How can an individual be more innovative? But … Continue reading The entrepreneurial mind →

Rethinking trust – in technology

We are engulfed in technology in our homes, at our workplaces, in our spare time: every moment of our everyday lives. We rely on technology such much that the question whether we trust it doesn't easily come to our minds. And there was little need to ask that question – until recently. But with information technology pervading literally every aspect of our lives today, we cannot evade that question any longer.