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RESOURCESResources to Support Insight into WindTunneling and Systemic Methods There are eight resource articles with enrichment for readers. Scroll down to find topics of interest and pdf's that can be sent or printed for sharing. Index of the eight articles:
An Overview of Systemic Methods with a Visual Overview of the WindTunneling Process The WindTunneling software is part of a comprehensive suite of systemic methods and tools that meet a wide variety of organizational needs: strategic planning, risk assessment, risk management, innovation, change management, cultural transformation, attraction and retention of key personnel, board/management/staff communication challenges, among others. In a simple metaphor, the systemic methods
that we have developed and proven are like giving someone a screwdriver: its utility
will depend on what the person is trying to improve or build. FIM offers comprehensive processes for organizations to systemically develop strategic plans and strategies for risk management, as well as innovation, operations, growth, etc. We develop plans based on diverse engagement and integrated planning, yet we are still working in the present. WindTunneling takes these strategies and operations and tests them against a wide array of plausible future events and conditions. From the insights that emerge from the processes, maps develop to provide reference points for everyone involved to see and imagine more fluently into futures. Rather than thinking about “the future” as a single thing, people begin to learn to think fluidly, to live more comfortably and confidently in a fluid medium that more accurately reflects the uncertainties of the future. From the outputs of the WindTunneling process, further systemic methods can be used to refine and elaborate on, to explore further into areas that the insight maps reveal are likely to be fruitful. _______________________
--Randy S. Howard, Director of Resource Planning, Procurement,
and Development
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Counter-Intuitive, Systemic Approaches Jane Lorand, Bruce McKenzie
As managers and leaders, if we are candid, we have to acknowledge that the complexity surrounding our work is broader and deeper and more fast-moving than we can reliably manage. The best and brightest of us, the most hard-working amongst us are caught in a reality that outpaces our human capacities to optimally perceive, to understand, to imagine, and to innovate. When we find ourselves with pressing responsibilities to act, we also find ourselves artificially and arbitrarily narrowing our field of perception and identifying a “problem” and then a “solution” out of the true field of related problems and related solutions. We act because we must act. We’re uncomfortable and often hide the complete picture from ourselves and our colleagues. (Is there another way?) And then, the pressure steps up to a new level. We begin to defend the choice we made in recognizing and/or defining “the” problem and “the” solution that we acted on. We may keep the edges blurry to deflect future accountability. We know intuitively that we are not as certain as we would like to be. We are professionals, and we hold ourselves to very high standards of professionalism. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, and recognize the complex field within which we have to act, we know in our hearts that we are putting our organization at a level of risk higher that we find acceptable. We know we’re missing crucial information, but what are we missing? (Is there another way?) Our defenses may take many forms: limiting conflicting information that comes toward us; avoiding challenges to our authority; declining to revisit “the” solution; and failing to engage in close observation if mid-stream corrections would make us lose face. We move on to the next situation where we are again called upon to act. And so it goes, day after day, week after week. The strength and enthusiasm of fine people are progressively sapped. If truth be told, we aren’t fooling anyone because our colleagues are engaged in similar charades. This is not personal: it is systemic and a function of the complexity of our world. Each of us is free to change in the face of this reality, but how? Systemic and critical thinking strategies offer today’s managers, leaders, and decision-makers a set of counter-intuitive methods that promote and assess productivity in the face of complexity. High levels of uncertainty is the norm: we need methods and tools that acknowledge this reality. (Is there another way?) Ideally, we want each manager and staff member to work as if the success of each project were up to them. Yet, our visual field at any moment of our waking time is about 120 degrees, pushing to 180 degrees at the peripheral extreme. We can’t see behind us. We can hear at 360 degrees, but only in real time and within our auditory range. We mis-perceive even what we directly perceive because of our biases. Our memory limits us in profound ways. As humans, we are limited, yet as managers and leaders, we are expected to know everything relevant and let it inform our rigorous judgment about the optimal way to proceed. What support and guidance do we need? In companies worldwide, when managers are trying to manage amidst increasing complexity across a wide variety of issues, our intuitive response is to work harder, longer, and to hold more tightly to the reins of the organization for which we are directly responsible. Yet, Complexity Science and Systemic Thinking reveal that a counter-intuitive set of responses is far more likely to optimize our position and situation. For example, it is counter-intuitive to release our grip and open our hands, and further the opening of the hands of all those in our organization. Yet, the unfurling our fingers to catch multiple perspectives yields an abundance of timely, relevant information sweeping in, wave after wave, hour after hour. We can capture that abundance, and put it into service of our organization. What, exactly, would it be like to relax our grip and let our fingers uncurl, and stay uncurled and sensing? How, exactly, would we capture the details and impressions and interpretations of all of our people, from their unique perspectives? If we could do that, working with colleagues to identify the emergent patterns and even the weak signals, would we be better positioned? Would our responsibility to make that decision to act be shared in a distributed leadership model that allows diversity to serve us and our organization? As any financial advisor will tell us, diversity is a pillar of sound financial management, yet we support organization patterns that cut off the benefits of diversity. We can change that. We need to have all of our people recognize how important their role is in sensing the environment in which we are trying to provide our goods and services. If they don’t know that we need and value their unique impressions, they won’t be awake in service of the company. If we don’t have systemic methods of capturing their impressions and interpretations, we managers who are stuck making decisions will be acting on a fraction of the possible relevant information. If the methods we develop are burdensome, we will abandon them. Yet, there are methods and tools that work, and are not burdensome. In actual fact, these methods enliven organizations, extend the experience of belonging, and make teamwork and collaboration more than shopworn phrases. A second example of counter-intuitive responses to complexity relates to time, and how we use and mis-use time as individuals, and as groups. Rarely is time optimized, yet how do our managers engage in artfully-designed learning experiences that enable deep, counter-intuitive lessons to emerge? Future Insight Maps, Inc. (FIM) is a team of business
people who honor
today’s managers’ systemic dilemmas. This is
not personal, nor is it about “good managers” and “bad
managers.” The best of us are laboring under limitations
of our human nature in the face of complexity. Our teams and tools invite managers, leaders, and decision-makers to experience alternative methods of perceiving, thinking, and working that must be experienced and not just read about. Why can’t one just read about these methods and put them to work? Again, human nature appears. Our intuition is very powerful, and we won’t override it without hard proof that what we thought was imperative, is, in fact, sub-optimal. It is our experience, as organizational advisors, that this learning can only come about through directly experiencing alternative ways of perceiving, of thinking, of working. New, direct experience will quickly over-ride a lifetime of prejudice. We work with individuals, in groups. But our work speaks to each individual manager, as a person who is striving mightily in situations that can only be improved systemically. From a causation perspective, these situations are not personal. Yet, we are human beings, guided by intellectual humility, working with fellow human beings. And this, as Future Insight Maps professionals, is very personal.
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Characteristics of Complex Issues
Examples of Complex Issues
Our work is specifically working with organizations to build capacity to anticipate and work to support their decision-makers with complex issues. The strategies we bring are counter-intuitive and powerful. Systemic methods add critical capacity across your organization. The insights generated create reference points that illuminate the future, and enable people to experience justified confidence in their judgments, move beyond the masquerade where people feel like they are supposed to know something that can’t be known in the present. Yet the fact that we can’t know everything does not mean that we don’t know anything. Systemic methods enable us to release and put into accessible and disciplined forms what is known, but is trapped by our structures and hierarchical forms of organization. How is this compatible with current operations? 1)
For routine and complicated issues, where cause/effect is known
or knowable, conventional approaches continue to meet the organization’s
needs. 2) However, for Complex Issues, taking up systemic
methods can be done by trial: one project can be taken up
by a division or several business units, and the process can be
explored and developed, reporting out to all involved.
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In our global work, we observe the SAME PATTERNS: We see leaders and decision-makers in all fields under pressure. Expectations of “success” from an earlier time, a simpler time, continue to be held up as today’s standard. We are now in a time of radically different circumstances. The complexity of our global economy, the regulatory interface, the resource depletion issues, Climate Change pressures, and the uncertainties of financial and other markets at a rapidly escalating pace of commerce present decision-makers with a diary full of complex issues.....and few leaders or managers have had the benefit of a toolset of appropriate methods to effectively manage them. The hierarchical structures that emerged from the command-and-control world of post WWII continue to breed silos of isolation and layers that cut off much-needed experience, wisdom, and information. The release of this embedded knowledge from diverse perspectives is a core principle of systemic methods for managing complex issues. Collaboration has long been seen as desirable, however, it is typically so slow and bogs down the process when decisions need to be made sooner rather than later. Competition I rank, power, and compensation often brings out the worst in people, rather than the best. We see capable people populating high-level
and mid-level positions in these hierarchies and they rarely are working with robust teams
fluent in the organization’s issues and appreciating the
complexities involved. Personal relationships and trust erode
as information is withheld or resisted. Often the organization
is asking the wrong questions, following what “best practices” seem
to indicate would be relevant, when in complex issues, each situation
is unique and the questions that need to be addressed must be crafted
by the people involved for that specific
California Leaders Under Pressure
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Tangible, meaningful support, in terms of “maps” of
the organization’s future and possibilities support decision-makers
under pressure. Engaged and distributed leadership emerges
from participants as their unique knowledge and experience is valued
and protected in the processes. Better ideas develop and
are refined, and that becomes self-evident early on. People
contribute their ideas into the commons, for the benefit of all,
without holding an attachment to “my idea.”
_______________________
Is your organization ready to explore a set of complex issues using systemic methods? Our experience is that the following are indicators of readiness:
Systemic methods challenge the status quo. In our experience, they offer high return on investment for those organizations willing to make the initial investment: yet they do not offer a “quick fix.” The philosophy of Future Insight Maps is to support organizations to develop the capacities in-house, to invest in their people. In this way, the next complex issue can be more effectively managed without calling in outside, expensive consultants (who may or may not be experts on this unique complex issue). We encourage independence that inspires the in-house “experts” to use their experience, newly developed systemic and critical thinking skills, and interdependence and collaboration to take on the organization’s complex issue. Like any broad-scale cultural change, organizations need to be prepared to create opportunities for enthusiastic staff at all levels to engage in these new methods and work with the WindTunneling software or other systemic methods to break the roadblocks that impede their progress with complex issues. Mixed messages as management and leadership changes can erode the effectiveness of any broad, systemic change initiative. Commitment by the board of directors and top leaders is the greatest assurance of success: those who see immediate progress in the projects that they are involved with will find the evidence of success self-evident.
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Intensives at our Systemic Methods Centers Intensives at our sites: We offer week-long intensives at each
site several times each year. Systemic Methods Courses on site at your organization Systemic Methods Courses that your organization sponsors in your region for companies who also have a readiness, perhaps from your supply chain or client organizations, reducing your costs and building your identity as a thought-leader. Contact Tod@FutureInsightMaps.com WindTunneling Project Leadership Courses:
An Overview of the Workshops and Leadership Development Programs Our philosophy is that experiential learning is effective learning, and our professional development aligns with that principle. The work is rigorous, requires reading and writing, small group work and presentations. Participants explore the basic paradigm shift that systemic methods offer, and learn how to lead a group of their peers through a minimum of eight exploratory approaches, from Rich Picturing (using various techniques) to Emergence and Patterning, through crafting Transformation Idea Statements, to refining them and moving into Three Horizons and on into Coherence Mapping. WindTunneling takes strategies that the group has developed and moves them into a future context where they are tested against a wide array of plausible future conditions and events. Refining the mapping results from the WindTunnel is also part of the courses, and enables participants to work with a variety of techniques to display and engage both leadership teams and colleagues in the outcome of the work processes. Critical thinking techniques, from Knowledge Mapping to synthesis and clarifying opportunity and problem statements to align with “higher purpose statements,” are all part of the rigorous Systemic Methods Courses for Leaders under Pressure. The friendships and networks that are actively supported in these workshops continue as participants build personal and professional connections in the Community of Practice supported by Future Insight Maps. Regional get-togethers and on-line opportunities will evolve in 2010-11. _______________________
WindTunneling Software WindTunneling is a jumpstart for organizations
wanting to test their strategies against a wide array of plausible
future events and conditions, and to introduce some basic systemic principles
through action. The visual below captures the basic values
of an organization using WindTunneling to test a set of strategies
to build resilience and insurance as well as innovation.
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