Clinging to Dull Edges

"While a clear goal might work in an environment where effect follows cause, in a COMPLEX CONTEXT it might be a dangerous thing if conditions around you change rapidly. Your goal could blind you to that change and to new possibilities." + 

Dave Snowden, adaptive systems expert  

Late last year, a wise colleague of mine shared his own related wisdom: "Beware when GOALS cross the line and become GUIDES. Because whatever serves as a guide for you (e.g., your 'North Star') must be outside the system you're navigating through." ^ 

This dovetails with Snowden's advice above, for leading change through complexity. He recommends being aware of your present situation and location, and yoking that awareness to knowing these additional factors: +

• the direction you want to move
• how quickly you can move
• the amount of effort you're willing to expend 
  
  

According to Snowden, such "vector-based" targeting rewards intrinsic motivation, while explicit goal-based approaches have been shown to damage this. + 

Making and motivating smart, sound decisions is at the core of great leadership. Since first encountering Snowden's work five years ago, I've come to appreciate this about effective decision making: 

There are distinct, critical differences between Chaotic, Complex, Complicated and Simple contexts. The same tried and true decision-responses that worked in simple or even complicated scenarios, typically fumble and fail in complex and chaotic ones. 

Today we maneuver through the increasingly volatile, unpredictable, ambiguous conditions that accompany chaos and complexity. Snowden's insights remind — or reveal — that conventional "best practices" might not work as well as they used to. 

More and more, responding effectively means trying something "orthogonally novel" (my phrasing), while resisting the urge to neatly sort and analyze things. If you're doing Complex and Chaotic the same way you did Ordered and Predictable, it might serve to update/upgrade some of your other frames and frameworks, too ...

Here are a few more dearly held "cutting edges" in leadership development, which have dulled a bit by now: 

• EQ

• Work-life balance

• Emphasizing your strengths

• Learning the personality type, or change/conflict style, of you and your team mates

• Employee engagement

What is cutting edge these days? 

For the past few years, my own developmental work with clients has incorporated these additional supports: 

• BQ and RQ (Body and Relational Intelligence)...

• ... and integrating — vs. balancing — these with EQ, IQ and CQ (Conversational Intel)

• Seeing when over-playing any of our strengths is a liability — and how to (re-)balance those

• Responsibly shifting our mindsets, language and behaviors to better suit any situation, as it actually plays out within our greater purpose

• Employee fulfillment *

What other areas do you notice need up-leveling? Where would your  team or enterprise benefit, from expanding your perspectives and approaches to the ever more complex challenges facing all of us? And what's at stake if you don't?

Contact me for direct or referred support.

———

+ Excerpted from www.cognitive-edge.com/events/vector-based-theory-change-webinar-dave-snowden 

(Snowden is Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge, also founder and director of the Centre for Applied Complexity at the University of Wales. He pioneered the application of anthropology, neuroscience and complex adaptive systems theory to organizational functioning.)

^ Ted Case, President of Expanding Dynamics, Inc.

* Thanks to Janet Harvey, CEO & President of inviteCHANGE, for recently providing stats on this (with rich convo), to fellow Tilt practitioners and me.

'Droplets Of Water' cover image by membio at freedigitalphotos.net 

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