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 … Continue reading What’s cooking?
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.
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.
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
Over the past few weeks, I've discussed how our innovation endeavour has become too focused on known problems. We have submersed ourselves in the bubble of the known problems to an extent that we are largely unprepared to deal with the unexpected. And that self-imposed myopia creates serious challenges. My argument essentially went through three steps: our established structures work very well for … Continue reading Dealing with unknown problems
understanding innovation 