The Other Side of Complexity

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.   Oliver Wendell Holmes, Former US Supreme Court Justice

It used to be that most people hated the SCAN process. They just felt we should get down to business and get results.  Today, far more participants enjoy this process of reaching out; reaching beyond the known for new possibilities. They see the value in looking at a problem from many different vantage points.  Many realize the art of Play as well.  Still for some people SCAN is difficult and probably will always be, even though they come to recognize its usefulness and integrity to good results.  Each of us have different thinking patterns and a truly great group process accounts for all kinds of thinkers, knowing that aspects of going from SCAN to FOCUS to ACT will be frustrating at some time or another to a majority of participants. 

But I truly love it when someone who really did not like the process comes up after we are done and says, "We got really good results. But surely we could have cut out the first day and a half and done the work in half a day."  Well, you see, they don't understand what Oliver Wendal Holmes was trying to convey.  True simplicity comes after you have climbed that hill of complexity.  We are not after simple answers that have been gotten by cutting out most of the things that cannot be seen up front.  Simple answers and answers with simplicity are two very different things. 

David Bohm's ideas about play are so important. When will schools, conferences, and all too many workshops stop pounding play out of process? It is vital to our ability to survive and thrive. 

If science always insists that a new order must be immediately fruitful, or that it has some new predictive power, then creativity will be blocked. New thoughts generally arise with a play of the mind, and the failure to appreciate this is actually one of the major blocks to creativity. Thought is generally considered to be a sober and weighty business. But here it is being suggested that creative play is an essential element in forming new hypotheses and ideas. Indeed, thought which tries to avoid play is in fact playing false with itself. Play, it appears, is the very essence of thought.

Long-Term Visions Once Again!

Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not as in fiction, to imagine things that are not really there, but just to comprehend those things that are there.
Richard Feynman  The Character of Physical Law

The last five projects I have been asked to participate in are all long-term visions! A breath of fresh air.  It seems to me that people are reconnecting with their natural hunger for projects that matter, not only to them, but to the larger world.  I can feel the excitement in the voices of project leaders. Most are willing to reach out 25 to 50 years in the future and imagine the difference their projects are making.  A new form of strategic plan is taking place.  No one is trying to do linear goal-setting plans; rather they are leaping out into the future, envisioning the networks to help in their undertaking, and asking themselves "What is it we need to do today to make our journey into an unknown future succeed?" The MG Taylor axiom: "You can't get There from Here" is being used and lived.  During the years where only the next quarter earnings mattered, no one paid the slightest attention to the future.  It was so disheartening, boring, and of course, detrimental to life itself. 

I do feel that a new paradigm is unfolding. Perhaps the fast and slow are getting back in sync.

THE GREAT LEAP

We are at a moment of commencement. A powerful ending and dramatic beginning. Standing in the old, hierarchical paradigm is scary. It is looking straight into the abyss.None of the alternatives look good. Leaping this abyss to a paradigm of panarchy requires an optimism grounded in a trust that with these new tools and realities we can give new meaning to our place in the world.

“Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums… Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement.”
-Paul Hawken, 2009 Commencement to University of Oregon

To give this view of reality more than a short bleep in history, it needs care, nourishment, and stewardship of trust building. It demands ongoing design, engaging people of all walks of life in making this great leap and cohering into a powerful resilience on the other side.

So concludes a paper we recently wrote for a client to present to their client, and that is now available on our website. We were asked to address specific questions around paradigm shifts and how one might help to shape them. While this does put a specific context around the paper that the reader should keep in mind, there are a number of ideas embedded in it which we believe can help any individual or community think their way into a new paradigm. We have named this paradigm Panarchy.

These are:

• Our thoughts about the emergence of a new paradigm
• The Wayfinding process and why we think it an essential part of any team actively exploring future options (see additional thoughts on this re: our Journal and our services)
• The Trim Tab process and how to bring a number of projects together
• The infrastructure that supports long-term ongoing change.
• The positioning and power for standing within a new paradigm.

This is a work in progress. We have begun developing it more broadly than the initial set of questions we were asked to consider. There are countless lenses and perspectives to the notion of how paradigm shifts can, have, will, might, or will not happen. The more we learn, the more there is to learn. We hope you will provide us feedback and guidance as we continue to iterate and design our way forward.

Gail and Todd

Download a pdf of From Hierarchy to Panarchy: the unfolding of a global paradigm shift

Wayfinding our way into the future

"Adaptation is the act of bending a structure to fit a new hole. Evolution, on the other hand, is a deeper change that reshapes the architecture of the structure itself – often producing more holes for others.

Every worker dabbling in artificial evolution has been struck by the ease with which evolution produces the improbable. Evolution doesn’t care about what makes sense; it cares about what works!" Tom Ray, Out of Control by Kevin Kelly, page 340

Historically, wayfinding refers to the techniques used by travelers over land and sea to find relatively unmarked and often mislabeled routes.

Since we are traveling into an unknown future, a good wayfinding process can help us decide when, how, and where to go. It can help us find unmarked and often mislabeled routes deep into future opportunities, perhaps helping us avoid treacherous paths and dangerous assumptions. Wayfinders help mark the way for others to follow.

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Creating a Clue-Based Curriculum

CLUE: ORIGIN late Middle English : variant of clew . The original sense was [a ball of thread] ; hence one used to guide a person out of a labyrinth (literally or figuratively).

I watch my two-year old grandson, Owen, pick up clues. That is how he learns, everyday, every moment. His life is discovery and feedback. He explores, by trial and error, tries again and succeeds or fails. He watches for clues from others ... facial expressions, body language ... and then he repeats until he grasps and understands and incorporates it into his behavior or rejects it as something not useful at the moment. He also sends me clues. He engages me in make-believe stories. Since his language is still Oweneese, which I sometimes cannot understand, he gives clues by taking my hand and showing me. Owen is quite bright and capable but I don't think he understands the word "answer" yet. Hopefully as he grows and creates his own life, he will come to know that there are answers for a few things like 2+2 is 4, but for most of his life he will continue looking and connecting clues as he journeys forth into the vast unknown.

Learning is both fast and slow. Facts are fast and can be tested in the present moment; slow is a long journey, absorbing and digesting facts within a much longer time span. Slow is carried forward by context and the ability to connect clues along the way.  Slow delights in discovering more, in reshaping one's facts throughout the course of life.  Facts remembered can save lives in the moment.(redcross learning, calling 911, seeking safety in a tornado). Fast and slow learning is essential to the well-prepared mind.  Unfortunately, too much of today's education for all ages seems to be on fast fact learning. Given this focus, how many facts are immediately forgotten after only a short period? Fast to learn; fast to forget.  Since the slow is not immediately measureable, it does not seem to have as much credibility. Taken together, however, the fast and slow weave together bonding facts with context and learning by doing... learning through life.

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