The place where we feel we belong

The so-called "Age of Enlightenment" was an intellectual and cultural movement in the 18th century that emphasized reason over superstition and science over blind faith.  One of the leading intellectuals during this period was the English scientist Isaac Newton, who introduced his three laws of motion which explained how the whole universe operated.  Scientists coming after Newton believed that his laws applied everywhere in the universe and provided a framework by which the natural world could be easily understood and future events predicted.  The universe was simple, machine-like, predictable, and controllable, and events occurred like clockwork.  All of the events that occurred throughout time and throughout the universe could be reduced to a set of mathematical equations.

Newton's metaphor of a clockwork universe became the template for all the other thinkers in the Age of Enlightenment and through the Industrial Age, including Sigmund Freud in psychology, August Compte in sociology, John Locke and John Stuart Mill in political philosophy, and Frederick Winslow Taylor in management.  Taylor published his book, The Principles of Scientific Management in which he proposed an approach to management based upon scientific and mathematical principles that were designed to increase worker productivity.  However, the 20th century ushered in a new era, with Einstein's theory of relativity, Schrödinger's cat, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and the science of quantum physics.  These discoveries were followed soon after by chaos theory and complexity theory.  While Taylor's book remains a classic text in management, his scientific management principles, largely based upon Newton's conception of the clockwork universe, may no longer be appropriate in our world of complexity science and quantum physics.  As our notion of the clockwork universe changed, so too did the ways we approached leadership and management.

I still believe there is a role for the Frederick Winslow Taylor and the scientific principles of management in organizations today.  However, as I've posted recently (see in particular, "Connecting the dots" and "Tame the chaos" which discuss the Stacey Matrix and Grint's Wicked Problem framework, respectively), our leadership approach should be dictated by the complexity of the task or problem at hand.  Today I want to focus on one last framework called the Cynefin Framework, which was developed in 1999 by David Snowden when he was working for IBM.

The word cynefin is a Welsh word (pronounced "ku-nev-in") that literally translates to habitat or place.  More specifically, it can be defined as the place where we feel we belong, where the people and landscape around us are familiar, and the sights and sounds are reassuringly recognizable.  The idea of the Cynefin Framework is that it offers leaders a "sense of place" from which to view their perceptions of the world around them.  Snowden described the five domains of the framework in an article published in the journal IBM Systems Journal in 2003 ("The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world") and in an article in Harvard Business Review in 2007 ("A leader's framework for decisionmaking").  The framework is shown below:

The framework proceeds in a counter-clockwise manner in which problems are categorized as clear (also known as simple in earlier versions), complicated, complex, chaotic, or confusion.  If you've been reading my last few posts, you will undoubtedly note that there is significant overlap between the Stacey Matrix, Grint's Wicked Problem framework, and the Cynefin Framework.  The first four domains in the Cynefin Framework require leaders to appropriately recognize and diagnose the problem and respond as contextually appropriate.  The fifth domain (confusion) applies when leaders are unable to categorize the problem into one of the first four domains.

Clear Problem - Best Practice

Clear problems are analogous to Stacey's simple problems and Grint's tame problems.  Using the infamous Rumsfeld Matrix, clear problems are "known knowns."  In other words, these problems are clear, linear, cause-and-effect relationships, and the right solutions are generally well-known and undisputed.  Here, the leader's role is to sense, categorize, and respond, often using a standardized approach that is commonly accepted and considered "best practice."

Complicated Problem - Good Practice

Complicated problems are analogous to Stacey's complicated problems (of course) and are still within the domain of Grint's tame problems.  They are complicated because there may be several correct solutions to the problem.  Moreover, while these problems are usually linear and cause-and-effect in nature, not everyone can clearly see that is the case.  There are the "known unknowns" of the Rumsfeld Matrix, and the leader's role here is to sense, analyze, and respond and apply good practice, not best practice.  In other words, there is usually not a widely accepted, standardized best practice here, because multiple approaches have been used to successfully solve the problem in the past.

Complex Problem - Emergent Practice

Complex problems are analogous to Stacey's complex problems and Grint's wicked problems.  We've crossed over into the domain of complexity science and complex adaptive systems and the world of "unknown unknowns" of the Rumsfeld Matrix.  Here the leader's role is to probe, sense, and respond.  Instead of attempting to impose a "tried and true" course of action, leaders should be patient and allow the path forward to reveal itself, i.e. emergent practice.  

Chaotic Problem - Novel Practice

Chaotic problems are analogous to Stacey's chaos, and they probably fall into Grint's crisis domain.  These problems are "unknowable" (a term not used in the Rumsfeld Matrix).  Here the leader's role is to act to establish some semblance of order, then sense where stability is present, and respond by working to transform the situation from chaos back to complexity (act, sense, and respond).  These kinds of problems are generally those that the leader (or anyone else for that matter) have not encountered in the past, and so they require solutions that have never been tried before (i.e. novel practice).

Snowden provided a great "leader's guide" in the Harvard Business Review article "A leader's framework for decisionmaking".  The American author F. Scott Fitzgerald reportedly once said, "The test of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."  In regards to my last three posts, perhaps it is fair to say that, "The test of leadership is the ability to apply the right style of leadership to the problem at hand."