Operating in a Complex World From Retrospective to

Operating in a Complex World
From Retrospective to Prospective Coherency
Reframing the role of government – What changed?
“Commanding Heights”
Cogs and Silos
Managing national growth
Reframing the role of government – What changed?
Social Ecology
Economic
???
Organizational
Promoting the wellbeing of the
social ecosphere
The role of government – What hasn’t changed?
Path
dependency
The government
as Fixer
Rethinking notions of power
Who is an agent and what is the system?
Between Analytic and Strategic
Option I – Analytic: Outside looking in
Analytic: Outside Looking In
Example: a global middle classes’ crisis
deepening
meta tensions
Between developed and emerging markets
Global Economic Inconsistencies
Conceptual Weaknesses
The
shortcomings
of forecasting
The structural
impact of exportled development
The mismatch
of skills at the
national level
Tipping points
The
saving/spending
disparity
Loss of
sovereign
leverage
Fuel
Cuts
Debt
The potential
Middle Crisis
Food
The
consumption
cover up
Finance
The
ideological
void
The preemptive
discourse
Inequality and the
return of “fairness”
From levelling to
disillusionment
From upward
mobility to
stagnation
Social fault lines
Between personal expectations and experience
Between interdependence and sovereignty
The changing
nature of
boom&busts
cycles
The breakdown
of economic
paradigms
A polinomic emergent view
Political Constraints
Between the social contract and frameworks for delivery
Key emerging trends
THE MIDDLE CRISIS
Who is an agent and what is the system?
Between Analytic and Strategic
Option II – Strategic: inside looking out
Strategic: Inside Looking Out
Example: the declining British High Street
Multi-perspectives, none of which is objective
A complexity approach to strategic design*
EXPLORATION
STRATEGY
* This process draws on SOD developed by Shimon Naveh and Ofra Graicer
IMPLEMENTATION
1: Analysing the problem space as a holistic dynamic system
Economic
But from the unique
perspective of the
decision-maker!
?
Organizational
Between Retrospective and Prospective Coherency
Future as Incoherent by
definition
Reality as
multidimensional Coherency
Coherency
Certainty
Lack of
knowledge
chaos
Emerging
Tensions
2: Identifying Strategic Potential
Strategic Potential
emerges from the
interactions and tensions
between trends across all
dimensions
Unsustainable tensions
Convergence of trends
3: Designing rationales for action
What strategy – a viable
framework for action –
could take advantage of
the leverages identified?
The objective is
creating systemic
effects,
not end-states!
4: Critical Calibration - analysing the opposition system
Exploring potential
feedbacks and
weaknesses
Emergent Opposition as
Inertia
Emergent Opposition as
opportunism
Emergent Opposition
as Spoilers
5: Prototyping, planning, and action
Learning through Praxis:
Information flows Big data
Outcome Harvesting
Action research
Recalibrating systemic
model
Decision making
authorities
New actions to enhance
impact
Potential Advantages
Higher Creativity
Higher fit =
Greater impact
Organizational change and
training, attention span
Potential Concerns
Applied Complexity – what it means for decision-makers
New ways to make sense of the world
(cognitive)
New means to impact the world
(manipulative)
The role of government – What changed?
“Commanding Heights”
Cogs and Silos
???
Social Ecology
Economic
Organizational
Managing national growth
Promoting the wellbeing of
the social ecosphere
The Complexity Turn
Explaining rules of interaction at lowerorder elements to explain the emergence
of higher-level structures
Complex Challenges in Complex Environments
the big Qs – how do you
operate in a complex
environment and how do
you tackle complex
problems?