This morning reading my emails from overnight I found a link to a post by Harold Jarche. He uses David Snowden’s Cynefin Framework as an illustration. I thought I would share it with some of my colleagues and wrote an email about it to them. After I was done, the email look like a blog post as well. So here it is:

What is training in complex systems where the future can’t be perceived until you get there? And cause-and-effect, “best practices” do not hold up?

Just came across this post by Harold Jarche on this. And he uses Snowden’s Cynefin framework to illustrate. Thought you might find it informative. On the other hand you may find it useless or frustrating if you are in an organization– or have to cope with- who believes all is in the “Simple” quadrant: and

you [can] prepare people for the future by training them in what had worked in the past. Yesterday’s best practices [are] the appropriate prescription for curing tomorrow’s ills. {This] works when the world is stable, and things remain the same over time.

The post, “the future of the training department is here

You may want to click over to the home page of the blog and see other recent posts. I thought the Toffler’s illustration of the train clever:

Speeding along at 100 mph is the enlightened business train; adapting and using new technologies (exploiting change).

Still fast at 90 mph is the civil society train; NGO’s, professional groups, activists, religious groups (demanding change).

Keeping up at 60 mph is the family train; working, shopping, trading & selling from home (adapting to change).

A distance back, at 30 mph is the union train, still focused on a mass-production mindset (denying change).

A bit further back at 25 mph is the large government bureaucracy train; slowing everybody else down (fighting change).

Limping along at 10 mph is the education train; protected by monopoly, bureaucracy & unions (blind to change).

Way back is at 5 mph is the international agency train: comprising organizations like WIPO, WTO, IMF (immune to change).

Even slower, at 3 mph is the political system train; discussing, debating but not accomplishing much (too busy to change).

Pulling up the rear at 1 mph is the legal train; so far behind that it hasn’t noticed the beginning of the financial bubble, let alone its collapse (rigor mortis).