Welcome & Keynote: People Driving Knowledge Sharing: Sense- Making Frameworks, Tools, & Strategies

Building on early knowledge mapping work, Snowden discusses how small things create resilience and sustainable change while large initiatives are more all or nothing. Typically based on an ideal future state definition, large initiatives produce a more linguistic conformance approach than real change. It’s more difficult to allocate blame with smaller initiatives, and the right people usually get the credit. If something small fails, we are likely to learn from it. Getting to the right metaphor is important. The estuarine metaphor is a physical image that people understand. It’s not all about linear flows; tides matter. Cynefin ideas resonate between the familiar and the novel and produce a body of material that can be reused or adapted. Working with nautical charts to create a real-time strategic representation for organizations with the ability to initiate surveys in real time, Snowden links to the future of C2 command in military terms. He emphasizes that any approach to strategy needs to be dynamic and non-linear, allowing for fractal or, maybe better, holographic representation (break it and the picture is still there in the shards) for a fluid integration of strategy with operations and tactics. We need new ways to express strategic intent--enough structure for direction while maintaining spontaneity and adjustments. This links in turn to the balance of rules and heuristics and critically ideas of distributed, not delegated, authority. Gain new insights and ideas from Snowden!

Speaker:
Dave Snowden, Chief Scientific Officer, The Cynefin Co