Robert Paterson's Weblog

Going Home? Might Japan give up its experiment with modernity? What about PEI too?

So, I can see the Japanese people - a deeply homogenous society - veering toward an as yet un-articulated consensus: let's just get out of the modern world. Let's go back home. Let's don the kimono and the hakama, get us some horses, sharpen the katana, and kick back in the chaniwa garden with a bowl of green tea - and forget about all that dirty, disgusting, dangerous, heavy manufacturing-for-export (to an insane world) nonsense. History may record their industrial adventure as a weird blip of activity in a much longer timeline. As it will for us and everybody else, I believe. In fact, this fantasy about the Japanese shrugging off the toils of modernity is exactly what all the other so-called advanced nations of the world will find themselves doing sooner rather than later as we all take the road back to a world made by hand. The Japanese may just be the pioneering exemplars of the universal process.

     What we're seeing these days is an epochal unspooling of hypercomplexity. The world just can't take anymore of it. The world is telling us to cut it out or it is going to kick our upright bipedal asses. Of course, America may be absolutely the last society to get this message. We'll receive it in the car-wash, no doubt. On our iPhones.

via kunstler.com

This is the punchline of a very interesting article that is worth reading in full.

I am thinking much the same for myself and PEI right now. A bit like Monty Python's Life of Brian - "What did Rome give to us?"

So what has been the result for PEI to join the global economy?

Most people on PEI are systemically unemployed or under employed - for we make nothing that we need here. 60% of the GDP is government. We don't even eat the food we grow.

We have a Disney tourism industry without Disney's capital.

What was the main source of our real economy is on the ropes.

Our food producers cannot compete. The fishers are hanging on by their finger nails. The pork producers are gone. The beef producers are almost dead. Our vaunted potato producers are seeing the processors withdraw.

With the prospects for the future dim, our smart kids leave and our problem kids - well they create more problems.

No wonder PEI does so badly at school - why bother?

With a population that will be mainly old soon - who will do what work is left and who will pay the taxes for us old folks who will use more and more health care?

PEI has not done well out of this system. Being small and on the edge means that you cannot do well in a system that is all about concentration.

So why pretend that we should? How will still playing this game help us? Tell me how the trends will change if we do stick with it?

Kunstler suggests that there may be a wistful feeling in Japan about a return to the 18th century.

In the 1850's with a population not far from ours today, PEI was entirely self sufficient. Nearly all it consumed it produced. Most people had a place in society based on their contribution.

I am not now saying lets go back to exactly what we had then. But I am saying that a desire to make PEI self sufficient might be a great path to go down. What could we lose? I think that we could gain so much.

Income inequality - At the limit soon? What history tells us.

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

Here is the long view of what is happening as presented by the great historian David Hackett Fischer in the key book "The Great Wave - Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History".

His data only goes to the end of the last century but I am sure you can see the meaning of the data plot. There are periods of history where the elite capture the system. Prices for key goods - food and energy rise. What you don't see on this graph is that wages fall. So do the costs of manufactured goods.

Then there is a bust up followed by a period of equilibrium. And then the whole thing starts over again. 

Here we see the key indocator - the price pf grain. Note what is happening today to food prices and real wages. 

Now look at these dates and think abut what happened at the pinnacle of each phase. Longe term starvation set up the Eurpean peasantry for the Black Death. A collpase in population and a break from the feudal system. Money became the key. Ties to the land were weakened forever.

In the 16th century, a loss in confidence in the ruler's connection to God lead to the Reformation. In Engand to civil war and the death of a king. To the founding of America with the values of the "Elect".

In the 18th century, the French Revolution and the beginning of the end of Monarchy as a system.

So who rules today? We have in effect a new aristocracy - now who pass their power on by birth. Who have a feudal system of serfs and servants. Whose religion is free markets.

It won't end nicely - it never does.

It will end though.

 

The dollar - a sad story

What this says to me as well as the obvious is that the pursuit of a financial focus as a proxy for wealth is a failure.

The Middle East and Israel - The Dogs are off the leash

The Middle East and Israel remind me of dogs.

I walk our dogs off leash. I only put the leash on when I see people and other dogs who are not socialized. Dogs on leashes tend to behave badly with each other because they can get away with it and in many cases are reacting to the fear of their owner that something bad will happen. But if you go to a park that has a leash off policy, you tend to find confident well socialized dogs and owners who share these attributes.

Israel has been on a leash - protected by a nervous owner. This has meant that it can behave badly with no real consequences. It can give power to its own fundamentalists and to the settlers who drive an agenda that makes any peace impossible. For on the leash, Israel does not need to be serious about peace.

Israel lives in a dog park that insists on leashes. America has had a leash on Egypt and Jordan and many other Arab states too. This too has had internal consequences for these leaders. I wonder if their own fundamentalists have been empowered by this?

What seems to be certain now is that the Dog Park Rules have changed for all. It is going to be a No Leash park.

There will be real consequences for bad behaviour. I don't mean that there will be no bad behaviour, I mean that it will come with a big price. 

And the "Owner"? The US is left helpless the other side of the fence looking in.

What to do?

Realize that depending on imported oil is where the power and the pain lies. America's greatest defence is to make itself less vulnerable to oil. Local resiliency is the path to freedom

Revolutions and the Middle Class - Dropping Out or Pitchforks?

Dougald Hine wrote a fascinating post today where he looks that how dispirited the American Middle Class has become. He notes the article in the NYT yesterday that shows that many American College students are depressed and fear that they will not have the same future as their parents. 

Dougald ends with the fascinating point that maybe this is the time for the youth of today to reassess their future. Should they join the system of their parents or try something new?

I see many of my own children's friends on the edge of this decision. They are in their early thirties. There is no place for them in the SYSTEM. Few openings and when they try it, they hate it. It is so inhuman to them. We old farts just sucked it up. We had the 60's but then after our own revolt we joined our own parents and became Don Draper.

My kids now live outside the system as do most of their friends. I don't know of a single one of my graduates from business school on PEI that have jobs that appeal to them. If they have them - they are marking time.

I wonder if Dougald is onto something?

If he is wrong, watch out. Real revolts come not from the oppressed masses but from the Middle Class. What is taking place in the Arab world right now is a Middle Class revolt. The Russian and French Revolutions and even the American Revolt and the English Civil War - all came from a Middle Class that thought that it was being shut out. 

At the heart of America was the "Dream" - that anyone could rise. There is a lot of evidence that this is not longer true. Social mobility is all but over. Inherited wealth has a lock on all the levers and avenues for power. The Middle Class is being squeezed.

So what will it be? A revolution based on a new alternative system or pitchforks and tumbrils?

What I think is really at stake if CPB and Pub Media is Defunded

On the surface the attack on Pub Media is based on the idea that the state should not be in the broadcasting business and that this is especially true if the broadcaster is aligned to one point of view.

There is a point to this. Imagine my fellow Pub Media fans if Fox was to now get government funding - you too might go nuts!

But I think that the reason for this attack now is deeper than that.

And I think that the attack is based on the most human of responses. When something new and true and so dangerous arrives on the scene - we laugh at it. But as the new and the true and so the threat to the status quo gets its feet, the power people in the status quo get an insight. 

They can tell at a cellular level that this new thing could be their doom. And their response?

Please let me explain what I think that THEY see and why THEY have started the Inquisition to root out Pub Media.

In the last 5 years, Public Radio and Public TV have started to find a new role for themselves and it is this new role that scares THEM.

This role of course is a Public Service Media organization that gives people who have no voice a voice in the issues that concern them.

CPB is funding a number of experiments that are having results in this key area of informing more than the news cycle and giving people a say. None of this is done in commercial media.

For instance NPR is running a project called Argo - that has picked a number of issues that mean a lot to us the public and created nodes that roll up into a national network - so for instance WBUR in Boston is hosting a local/national conversation about health and healthcare. Or KPBS in San Diego is convening a discussion about the issues of being a military base Town. Or KPCC in southern CA is doing this on Immigration. 

All of this is largely web based - so the stations are also learning how to expand their horizon beyond the "air" and broadcasting.

There are 12 stations involved and the point is to find out how best to do this - to become a rich centre of information outside the news cycle that can be both local and a national resource. Where the public can find the best information and the best conversation about things that concern them. AND SO be truly informed and SO have a real say.

The new is full of music labels complaining. Not only about piracy but of the tight grip just a few large outlets have on what gets played and the costs of getting air. Well guess which media outlet gives the Indie labels the best opportunity for air at the least cost? NPR Music! Here is how the Hollywood Reporter ran this story.  This idea came directly out of the work done back in 2005/6 by all the stations to find a starting point for offering the music audience a place based on their taste and their time rather than simply playing what the station wanted. The music audience and the musician's interests are well served here. Both sides win. This does not happen on commercial media where the interests of the station those that own it rule.

CPB has also backed TV stations like KETC in St Louis who have been exploring how to put the public onto TV and how to offer the public a safe place to have the conversations that are otherwise impossible in America today.

Now known as the Nine Network for Public Media, KETC has a media school, the Nine Academy,  that is turning out hundreds of citizen videographers,. Giving the people the tools to have a voice of their own. 

In 2009 KETC hosted a national project involving more than 30 markets worst hit by the housing crisis to learn how each local TV and Radio stations could work together to offer people help that they could trust. In each market the stations worked to bring together w ide ranges of resources into local networks of trusted help. This is all but impossible for a commercial station. 

In 2010 KETC has been experimenting in how to host a year long "Conversation" about an explosive topic that normally collapses into rhetoric - Immigration. Most of the content is local and much of it made by grads of KETC's school. KETC is learning how to offer people a civil place to hod string views and how to switch the power from the station to the people. Impossible for a commercial station. 

This year KETC is co managing a project that will also be nation and is highly controversial - On how we might improve our schools. 

What THEY fear the most is that this kind of new role for Public Radio and TV may end up with 

• You being better informed - you will have escaped the sound bite world and in music the play list that THEY want
• You will be better engaged - because you will have the real opportunity to have your voice heard and you will have learned the skills to do this well 
• You and your local community will have more power to change things

THIS is what THEY fear.

We may feel that we could and should have made more progress - but THEY can see it.

They care not about Morning Edition, Car Talk or Masterpiece Theatre.

They do care that you may become more informed and more empowered. Public Media is on track to pull this of and so must be stopped. 

I don't see this as a Left or Right Issue. It is do you want to be part of the solution or be passive?

And who are THEY? Follow the money.

Breaking the Logjam - "Deeper Conversations" with Johnnie Moore part 1 of 4 parts

Source: (Backspace)

Much of America seems locked in a polarized anger. Defense, Immigration, Energy, Unemployment - pick any topic and we are gridlocked. While we fight the other side, the nation is ignored in the noise of the conflict. 

The media are not helping either. The polarized groups have their own tribal media megaphones such as Fox or MSNBC. And those that claim to be reasonable and fact based, such as NPR or PBS, are locked into the Voice from Nowhere that has no chance of showing a way to a solution.

So are we stuck or is there a way forward? Is there a way of asking better questions maybe that may enable progress? 

Can we help media that is not entrenched in the polarization to help the nation? Can we help each other live better by going Deeper?

I called on my old pal Johnnie Moore, who is one of the world's best Open Space facilitators, to talk this problem through.

We began with no idea of the "answer" but as we talked more, we began to see some hopeful ideas.

This then is the first of 4 posts that will describe, as best as I can, some conclusions that we came to.

Part 1 - In this post we will talk mainly about "Breaking the Logjam" - finding a way though the polarization in public life. We will look not at compromise - that suggests each side give up something important but how by going deeper we may find something in common. A very different experience. By the way, the Logjam also exists in many families too. How often do we end up hating our spouse or sister and find in them the focus of our problem? Our hate for another person close to us gets us as stuck as politics has America stuck. Johnnie will explore how we can find the deeper common ground that can exist way down beneath the surface.

Part 2 - In the next post we will explore "The Unspoken" - You boss is driving you crazy with his demands and insensitivity - Your husband is still a boy - Your 30 year old daughter can't get her life together and so on - we all know these set ups. But we don't confront them. We are too polite. We use manipulation. We are too scared to point out the "Elephant" that we can all see but dare not discuss. The great barrier here is fear - If I confront the Unspoken Secret - Will I get punished? So most of the time we don't confront the Unspoken Secret. Instead we ignore it, manipulate around it or complain with others in a futile conspiracy that usually leads to further frustration and angst. Johnnie will explore how we can use Confrontation in a healthy way to open up the infectious boil that is the Unspoken Secret and let the poison out.

Part 3 - In the third post we will look at the "Energetic Field" or maybe the "Pond" For no answer is available on the surface. No answer is to be found in the words. No answer is to be found in the literal. For we don't listen in a full enough way to what people really mean. We forget that we live in a social field and are connected in many ways that we normally don't "see". Body language, smell, the pupils of our eyes and energy itself - we feel emotions like a cell phone picks up signals. Going deeper demands that we tune into this other array of connections. Not just listen to others but more importantly to listen to ourselves! Here Johnnie will offer some help on practical does and don'ts. Not the Top 5 Best Ways etc but some practices that he has found that have helped him be more "Tuned In" to himself and then to others.

Part 4 - In this last post we will look at "Lessons" - What can those of us in media, business, government and well just "us" take from this? How can we listen better? Notice more? Ask the kind of questions that open people's hearts?

So let's begin. I offer up not the transcript of our conversation but a synthesis of what we discovered together and what has come to me later after a few sleeps. 

Breaking the Logjam - Two angry camps throw insult and blame at each other in America. By now the two sides have become entrenched in their anger. Their anger has become morally based as well. "Gott Mitt Uns" I am right - you are wrong. I am good - you are bad. God is on my side - You are Godforsaken.

If we stay here nothing can be resolved. 

Lincoln in the middle of a civil war could see that there must be a something deeper - that God could not be on both sides or maybe even on either side:

"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

You cannot seek a compromise in such a conflict. The choice is either Armageddon, 600,000 dead and the South destroyed or to seek to find out what is so important below the surface and expose that in the hope that some compassion may arise, as it did in the heart of Lincoln.

Johnnie key insight is that "Anger means that something important is at stake." But it's source is not to be found on the surface. 

Let's explore Johnnie's thinking by looking at our own personal lives as a test. 

The angry couple enter therapy spitting and hissing at each other. Both blame the other. The kids are used as weapons and as pawns in the fight. Blame is central. It's all about the current and so surface hurt. But the good therapist knows a few things that the couple have forgotten. That the roots of this conflict often lie deeper than the surface of "He betrayed me with my best friend" or  "She never appreciates what I do for her". As serious as these surface issues are, they tend to be symptoms of deeper hurts. This is why it is so hard to help couples if the therapist stays on the surface and tries a surface compromise or peace treaty.

In this context, a promise to never be unfaithful again is a band aid. So is a promise to be nice to my husband. For the wound that causes this behaviour is still infected with an older deeper fear. A deeper fear that is usually part of a pattern of hurt that began many years before the couple ever met. Unless this fear is surfaced by persistent questioning aimed at exposing this deeper infection, then the promises or the peace treaty will fail. Each time, the promise is broken or the treaty fails, the trust is eroded further and the chance of a reconciliation dissipates. 

"Anger means that something important is at stake." The good therapist works to expose what this is. If the therapist pushes hard enough below the surface, a context for the surface behaviour can emerge.

Now the husband's infidelity can be understood not solely as an act of betrayal but as the action of a man who never felt loved as a child. His work now becomes to understand this and see his actions in this deeper context. His deep need is for love. A love that he did not have when he should have had it. Not being clear on this, he may have confused this hunger for sex. His wife's deep need is for an intimacy that cannot be shared. Her need is also for love. In this deeper context, she might be able to see that his betrayal of her was driven by a powerful need that had little to do with her. So the hurt remains but her ability to understand makes the wound more bearable.

Both of them need love. The deep need is that. A good therapist can help them find this. 

Such a course is not a guarantee of a return to happiness. But it has a chance. And it has a chance of reducing the anger and the walls. It gives each party a chance to work on their part. Can he resolve his barren childhood is a less destructive way. Can she judge him less. Can both make the marriage and their kids the goal? 

Johnnie's point is that there is a vulnerability that is waiting to be recognized. Once each of us in a partnership can see the wound in ourselves, then we can have compassion for the wound in the other.

So what is the "Something that is at Stake" in America today that motivates this great anger that divides and paralyses the nation? What is the underlying vulnerability?

Quite frankly I don't know the specifics of the question. Nor does Johnnie. But know this, that there is a deeper cause that can be found and there is is a style for asking the question that we know.

The style must seek to break through the surface.

I chose the picture of Johnnie with great care. He is hosting a meeting of 300 pub radio folks in DC back in 2006. A very senior person has made an angry claim and Johnnie is grappling directly with him and is asking him what he really means. Johnnie is is not accepting the statement at face value and is asking the person to explain what he really means.

He is confronting the other person. "For the only way past the block is through it."

Lincoln confronted America in the second inaugural address. He is clear - that a terrible sin has been committed by all Americans

He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came... From now on the civil war would have to end in some redemptive way. For if it did not it would never end.

Anger is the sign and the doorway to what is below. 

So who is angry now? What is the anger that is energizing American Politics? Is it not embodied in the Tea Party? Who does this group represent? What has happened to them as a group?

What is on the surface of their anger? Ask yourself what may be beneath this surface? What is the deep hurt that motivates them? Motivates you?

Ask yourself also how this energy affects the mainstream parties?

Deep down is their part in all of this too. Their anger also has deep roots. What might they be? Might they be related to what ails the people who make up the Tea Party?

So the big question might be "What ails America?" Not who hurt us? Not what happened? This question is at the heart of the Grail Legend helps us get away from fault or blame.

Time for us to go deeper. Next Post here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Listening vs Talking well

This Fast Company article from 1995 describes how a native American wisdom council gets taken into the corporate world. Interesting stuff. I read it with some anxiety as I fear the real wisdom behind the practice could easily be lost by corporations co-opting the ritual.

So the best bit for me were the principles underlying the process, described at the end. I'll highlight a couple of them. The first is:

Good decisions begin with listening. The Western give-and-take meeting emphasizes talking rather than listening. Businesspeople come into a meeting prepared to give their presentations -- not to listen to the contributions of others. And the debate format encourages people to begin formulating their responses while the other side is speaking, rather than listening and reserving judgment. The first element of a council ceremony, on the other hand, is careful listening.

When I've worked with "no interruption" rules, I'm often amazed at the difference this simple intervention makes. Something special can happen about the way people give attention - a quality that I think is evoked, not taught by "active listening" courses. By stopping interruption, I think we help participants to develop the capacity to suspend judgement and enquire more deeply.

The second principle I wanted to pick up is this:

A slower process yields better decisions. Rather than looking for the fastest answer to a pressing problem, the council process accepts the need for careful, in-depth reflection. With the understanding that implementation is faster, easier, and more successful if it comes after all implications of an issue have been thrashed out, the process doesn't address the question of action until the latter stages of the discussion. "By the time you get around to talking about action," notes Eric Vogt, "the whole council has had a chance to speak and feels engaged in the results."

I've written a lot in the past about the danger of "action theatre" and about the power games that get played out about demanding action. If we force action on a group we risk shallow commitment, passive aggression and end up with little real engagement. Taking time to reflect offers the chance of something more substantial. Chris Corrigan calls it "wise action" which is a succinct way of putting it.

via johnniemoore.com

Many of the comments on KETC"s site on Immigration have made the point that we should, have less conversation and have more action items. "Tell us what to do" seems to be the main thrust.

But isn't the "Do" the problem? If I come from one POV and you another then if I tell you what to do - you will tell be to take a hike. No one is listening. We all seem so captured by what we want to say that we cannot hear what some one else is talking.

How can we make progress if we cannot listen?

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

Is Evil real ?- Is Mainstream Media - its Agent?

Does "Evil" exist? Debatable. But for sure, "Evil Behaviour" exists. And what could be more Evil than manipulating people's fears? 

There is a lot of that going around now - and regretfully the mainstream media helps these people have power to build a platform based on these fears.

They do this in the name of a good idea 'Balance". But how do you balance truth and lies? "Truth or Lies? That is a bit strong Rob?" Well.... The proof is in the pudding. What do many people believe to be true today and how did this happen? Do they believe the truth or lies?

Here is Robert Reich's perspective:

Many Americans (and politicians who the polls) don’t want a mosque at Manhattan’s Ground Zero.

An increasing percent believe the President is a Muslim.

Most Americans approve of Arizona’s new law allowing police to stop anyone who looks Hispanic and demand proof of citizenship.

Most would deny citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are here illegally.

Where is all this coming from?  

It’s called fear. When people are deeply anxious about holding on to their homes, their jobs, and their savings, they look for someone to blame. And all too often they find it in “the other” – in people who look or act differently, who come from foreign lands, who have what seem to be strange religions, who cross our borders illegally.

Americans who feel economically insecure may even become paranoid, believing, say, that the President of the United States is secretly one of “them.”

Economic fear is the handmaiden of intolerance. It’s used by demagogues who redirect the fear and anger toward people and groups who aren’t really to blame but are easy scapegoats.

The mainstream media is being manipulated by these people in the name of "Balance". The outcome is that Ignorance is winning over Truth. I am seeing that the best of intentions are creating the worst of outcomes. 

The lies and the fallacies are winning. The "Simple" is crushing the "complex". There is no room for the Complex in Mainstream Media - so the "Simple" and Wrong gets the play.

Why is this happening? Is it just the poor economy? I think it is because the world has become more complex as it has become more connected. Most people can only cope with the simple or the complicated. They have to know the answers. But with Complex situations the answers cannot be known in advance.

Are we then stuck? Stuck in a social world that is complex but in a society that cannot cope with complexity? Is our media simply a product of a simple world that has simple issues?

Richard Gayle.

Many things in the world are changing very rapidly. Heuristics and rules of thumb that used to work – simplifications once true because they were in alignment with the real world – no longer provide a useful function. So people use confirmation bias and other rational fallacies to prop up something – anything – that can explain things in a way that gives them comfort.

A changing world is extremely uncomfortable. Toffler wrote about this in Future Shock, one of the great books of the 70s. This shock, like culture shock, leaves many people disconnected and stressed. So, it is natural for people to seek the comfort of just-so stories that can support their replica of the real world

What seems to be happening, though, is that the media, instead of promoting understanding and stifling ignorance, is actually facilitating it. The MSM just does not want to puncture any bubbles supporting Cargo Cult Worlds.

The MSM is actively working then to prevent us from finding solutions. It does not want to inform people of the underlying principles needed to solve many of our problems.

Thus, a lot of the people know that TARP happened after Obama took office. That Social Security cards tell you which bank owns you.That humans were created in their present form 10,000 years ago. That germs do not cause disease. That Cordoba is a purely a symbol of Islamic conquest. That Einstein’s theories of relativity are disproved by Jesus’ action-at-a-distance. That a bike share program is going to lead to increased abortions. That vaccines do more harm than good. That humans are apparently alive and at work on Mars. That climate scientists are wrong about the warming of the world. That Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the world. These are just from the last 2 weeks.

There actually are people of all political persuasions that want to promote understanding, that value ideas over ideology, that are willing to admit that the world is often more complex than we would like.

But these people seem to have smaller and smaller soapboxes in the public arena. And the MSM does everything it can to make them disappear.

If we hope to overcome our problems we have to work for greater understanding and work to overturn Cargo Cult Worlds. Otherwise, we will see a continuing disconnect from reality with an increasing inability to understand the principles underlying our real world problems

Is the media Evil? No I think they are prisoners of a dangerous idea - that all ideas are worthy and that all points of view demand support.

So what about those that exploit our fears? Are they evil? What motivates them? What is the outcome of their work?

I leave you with the story of their ancestor, Father Coughlin. It was he who worked so hard to incite anti semitism in America in the 1930's that meant that America closed its doors before the holocaust. It was he that used the then new media power of radio to capture a large audience of "believers".

How would we apply the ideals of "Balance" to him? What was the price of him not being called out? Was this America's finest hour? I think most can agree that what he did was evil. So how will history judge us?

So what to do? Our media is not designed to cope with complexity. Nothing makes a complex situation worse than by trying to cope with it using the rules for simple.

So the real future, as I see it, for media is not the use of Facebook etc Is not going online etc But is finding out how best to offer up a platform for engaging in complexity. In creating a space where the process that can offer solutions to complex issues, discovery, can take place.

The Cynefin framework is a great place to start

 

The Cynefin framework has five domains. The first four domains are:

• Simple, in which the relationship between cause and effect is obvious to all, the approach is to Sense - Categorise - Respond and we can apply best practice.
• Complicated, in which the relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or some other form of investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge, the approach is to Sense - Analyze - Respond and we can apply goodpractice.
• Complex, in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance, the approach is to Probe - Sense - Respond and we can sense emergent practice.
• Chaotic, in which there is no relationship between cause and effect at systems level, the approach is to Act - Sense - Respond and we can discover novel practice.

The fifth domain is Disorder, which is the state of not knowing what type of causality exists, in which state people will revert to their own comfort zone in making a decision.

More later.