Complexity

Unintended consequences

An article in the news today reported concern among AIDS organisations and Doctors without Borders about a worrying new trend where people are neglecting to take life-saving medication in order to qualify for government subsidies. In South Africa, the government pays a special disability grant to people living with HIV. The problem seems to be that there is no standard set of guidelines as to determining who qualifies for the subsidy and who doesn't. Some doctors are basing their recommendations [...]

By Aiden Choles|May 7th, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, goodhart's law, problem solving|0 Comments

An ecology of present possibilities

This post is largely inspired by a comprehensive blog entry by Dave Snowden on a new approach to Scenario Planning. Much of what he says is key to the thinking behind our new Thrive! product. Seneca said: "The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty" In [...]

By Aiden Choles|April 21st, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, Dave Snowden, emergence scenario, planning strategy, thrive|0 Comments

Thrive! The role of metaphors … Part 2

In the first Part of this series, Sonja spoke of how the current economic malaise is prompting us to engage with a new management paradigm. She also surfaced a metaphor (moving from being a builder to gardener) as an analogy for what we believe the new paradigm should be. It might have struck as a rather simple analogy, but we believe metaphors have a greater influence on our attitudes, values and behaviours than we give them credit for. Metaphors uncover [...]

By Aiden Choles|April 17th, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: base metaphor, Complexity, effective adaptation, metaphors, root metaphor, thrive|0 Comments

Case studies and fables

After two weeks of spending all my time on preparing a BIG tender sumbission, I came across a link to this HBR article on Dave Snowden's blog this morning. We believe that businesses have become addicted to prescription - mindlessly copying the latest best practice or case study. Very seldom do we come across leaders who are trailblazers, preferring to be the firs ones to venture into a new area. Usually we're asked the question: So, where has this been done before? Everyone seems [...]

By Aiden Choles|April 14th, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, strategy|0 Comments

News: Thrive! .. a new offering

Sonja and I are really chuffed to announce a new offering:Thrive! through Effective Adaptation. Since about October last year it has become clear that our old ways of managing people and business have been found wanting amidst the economic meltdown. We have watched eagerly as to how the business world is responding. One of the responses that concerns us is the "lean" approach that believes our businesses will survive if we just manage to cut costs effectively and become leaner [...]

By Aiden Choles|March 31st, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, effective adaptation, new product, offering thrive|0 Comments

Fascinating failure

Why are we so afraid to admit to making a mistake? Failure, it seems, is universally seen as something to be avoided at all costs. In a recent project where we investigated safety practices in mining, one of the key issues we identified was the tendency to try to hide failure by shifting blame, not reporting near misses, and scape-goating. This, in an industry where learning from other's mistakes can save lives. I don't know about you, but I tend [...]

By Aiden Choles|January 12th, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, failure knowledge, lessons, management learning, stories|0 Comments

Being mindful

"The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice that how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds." I came across this great quote recently (although I can't remember where, so apologies for not crediting the author). Mindfulness is a term that keeps popping up in discussions lately. We're busy [...]

By Aiden Choles|December 19th, 2008|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, mindful safety, situational awareness|0 Comments

Framing problems

Leon from Occam's Donkey alerted me to an article that was published in a recentScientific American on the impact that the language leaders use when referring to terrorism has on the perception of the general population. For example, a metaphor of "law enforcement" triggers very different responses than a "war" metaphor. The article starts with the sentence "How we characterise an issue affects how we think about it". This is perfectly illustrated by typical responses to occupational safety incidents. Because people tend to [...]

By Aiden Choles|December 8th, 2008|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, safety, sense making, strategy|0 Comments

9 Principles of Safe-Fail Probes

In a fail-safe environment, the key objective is to prevent things going wrong. It is a system that has been structured such that it cannot fail (or that the probability of such failure is extremely low) to accomplish its assigned mission. High levels of planning and predictability accompany any such initiatives. Indeed, some contexts demand this kind of rigour - take for example the recent serious of "could-have-been-worse" incidents in the South African civil aviation arena. Every eventuality must be covered, and when [...]

By Aiden Choles|November 13th, 2007|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity|0 Comments

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