Aporia and innovative thinking

The last version of the Cynefin framework (by Dave Snowden at al) introduced a new naming for its domains and in particular the central area, used to be called "Disorder", now has been renamed as "Aporetic and Confused".

This article is focused on this "new" ( ;-) ) word, collecting different sources and examples, trying to give a complete view on this underestimated domain and suggesting a new perspective on how Aporia is relevant for innovative thinking.

Spoiler alert: During this article we will move across different perspectives so be prepared to another (very much loved) cross-over on History, Biology, Physics, Religion, Arts and obviously Agile Mindset.

Origin: where this word come from?

Aporia comes from biblical Greek, and has been translated normally as "difficulty" or "stress", but also "doubt", "confusion" and eventually "poverty".

I have uploaded the exact spelling in Greek to show that the accent is on the "i". On the contrary Oxford Dictionary proposes the pronunciation with the accent on the "o".

NOTE. Cynefin is not new to some trouble in the pronunciation. Think about the word "Cynefin" itself ;-)

Clearly this word is not really new, but the new definition introduces in Cynefin, actually changes the meaning of the central domain that moved from something like "disorder" to something else like "confusion" and this is a relevant change in how to read the dynamics of a system into the framework: "confusion" is more related to the not-understanding of the situation that could be disordered or maybe ordered (even if we don't know how).

Understanding: why is Aporia in Cynefin?

Dean Latchana has a clear idea of "Aporethic and Confused" domain in Cynefin framework (he is premium member of Cognitive Edge) and he has prepared and shared a talk on this specific subject: Exploring Aporia.

Dean is a frequent speaker in Lean Agile Delivery and Coaching network (LADCnet), the London Agile community I am honoured to manage, and few months ago (April 2021) he held a talk. Here you can watch Dean presenting Aporia.

NOTE: Dean is also the editor of "The Agilist", you cannot miss this paper monthly booklet!

Dean, in his talk, refers to Aporia definition from Chris Corrigan

Aporetic means “at a loss” and indicates an unresolved confusion, or a paradox, which is just fine. Sometimes things need to remain a little murky for a while.

So Aporia is not a great situation, but it could be temporary and not too bad to live.

Examples: How does Aporia happen?

Now that we know what we are talking about, let's see if there are some examples/references of Aporia we can analyse to have a more clear understanding.

Our initial reference for this investigation is Lucio Russo a polyhedral Italian scientist author of "The forgotten revolution": a great reading if you are fascinated by History of science.

In his book Lucio (also) describes one of the most famous aporia in the history, happened and documented in Magna Greece (Italy) around 2500 years ago.

I need to simplify the story (that is perfectly described in the above book, but also a mathematician can be more precise): the school of Pythagoras discovered that the diagonal of a square cannot be measured as a rational number of the side of the same square. This is an Aporia because it was clear that the diagonal exists, but they cannot understand how to measure it with the current theory that consider only rational numbers. This was a massive crisis for those mathematicians, famous also for their attempt to hide this secret.

Another well known example (again here in super simplified version) is the Wave–particle duality of the light: in the XIX century there were experiments where the wave theory was the only explanation and vice-versa other cases where corpuscular nature was the explanation. Again we can find a stall situation: we couldn't understand the true nature of the light if in different cases we have so different behaviours.

Finally the funniest example: at the beginning of the previous century (~1930) entomologists thought that the bumblebee was violating the physic laws while moving his small wings to fly: the bumblebee doesn't know he can't fly, so he actually can.

New learning may come from these examples: we can understand why Aporia is something we cannot control or avoid, and it is something related to a critical condition but not a catastrophe we need to manage immediately. We will see that this situation could be also temporary if faced with the right mindset.

Learning: What Aporia is not

Now that we know what Aporia is, and we have identified some real cases from the past, we can also understand what Aporia is not, maybe always moving across Cynefin domains.

Aporia is not Chaos, because we are in the situation to do something, but there is no urgency to act to change the status:

• we know there are some numbers we cannot understand (not-rational), but our theory is still working with "normal" numbers and we are able to use them for most of our problems (the Pythagoras theorem was widely used even if it was clear that was related to these not-rational numbers);
• even if we don't know why, we can continue study the physics of light using two different models, and predict its behaviour;
• finally, the bumblebee can still fly and we can still successfully apply our theories to bees and other animals.

Aporia is neither Complication or Complexity, because, if it is true we have a working theory, we know this theory has some "bugs" we don't know how to manage (or maybe we need to manage differently).

Finally Aporia is not Clarity, because this situation is not clear by definition.

Consequences: How should Aporia be managed?

What do the above 3 examples of Aporia in Mathematics, Physics and Biology, have in common?

NOW we know all 3 cases exposed a knowledge gap and when people realized it, actually they discovered more and more examples confirming these Aporia (just remaining in ancient Greece we cannot forget other famous not-rational numbers such as "pi" and "phi", the golden ratio).

This exploration brings people to understand where "devils placed the details", to find also common patterns and, at the end of all of these stories, innovative thinkers understood the reality much better and they were able to re-write the rules of the games:

• Starting from irrational numbers, Weierstrass, Euler, and other mathematicians (almost 2000 years after Pythagoras) were able to create a complete new theory and also identify transcendent and imaginary numbers. This theory explained and overcome the previous theory
• De Broglie, in his 1924 PhD thesis (IMHO the best thesis degree ever), proposed that just as light electrons?also have both wave-like and particle-like properties,? so it was in the intrinsic nature of the matter to have this double nature. Other scientists (Einstein and Schrodinger among others) moved from there to create the Quantum Theory explaining and extending the previous theories.
• We had to wait till 2005 and the ultra-fast photo cameras, to understand that the bumblebee is not moving his wings up and down (as most of the animals), but mainly back and forth, following similar principle of the helicopter (hummingbird also does).

So Aporia is a different domain, but History confirms this could be temporary and the starting point to move to other domains: Aporia is a great occasion of improvement and innovation and not a "status of desperation" where we have just to sit and waiting to get out.

Actually, as written by Dave Snowden in his blog, "Aporetic is where you should start" because at the beginning of a every learning exploration, you have a lot of gaps to close. When knowledge grows, you can move across different domains as showed in the picture above.

That's why Aporia describes perfect situations when an agile mindset can make the difference and help organisations and people to find different and better behaviours and increase the knowledge of the system where they are living in. So be Agile when you are facing Aporia.

Quick takeaway

If you arrived here at least you will have an immediate takeaway: after the exploration of the differences between Complicated and Complex, now you can understand the differences between Chaotic and Confused. Maybe in future, this better understanding will help you to deal with VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world.

Finally, now you can understand the cover image: a bumblebee over a sunflower, where seeds are placed following irrational spirals.

Homework

While everything above makes sense, you can ask yourself:

• When did Aporia appear in my business?
• What was my (or my company's) actual behaviour?
• After understanding Aporia, will I/we behave in the same way?

For your curiosity

"Aporia" is well know word in arts: we can find books, an horror movie, and also an opponent in the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. Finally you cannot imagine that Aporia is also the name of a butterfly genus.

References for further readings

In the article you can already find plenty of links. Here I have added some further sources.

"To help people, teams and organisation in their journey with agility"

Corrado De Sanctis?is Senior Agile Coach in Lloyds Bank and has been involved in some of the largest enterprise transformations at international level and in different industries during the recent years. Corrado is a known member of the Agile community in London;?he is speaker on Agile topics and?he is the convener for "Lean, Agile Delivery and Coaching Network" and "Digital Transformation in London" meetup groups (~4000 members) . He is also founder of SAM,?Scrum Agile Milano, meetup group directly supported by Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. Corrado strongly believes in experienced learning and he is creator, facilitator and player of agile serious games. His games and experiences are available at the?AgileGameFactory website.

DISCLAIMER. Notes presented here are personal and cannot be related in any way to any of my employers.