KLINGEReyes lessons learned so far

Allow a longer reflection wrapping up year five as a self-employed complexity startup.

So what is a "dot-connecting sense-maker"?

I will answer that. Let me frame my context first! Let's start with something funny!

For me, what is funny comes down to lack of logic. Humour is my sharpest weapon. Or as that mathematician said when seeking the formula for laughing at jokes:

"I think, therefore I laugh"

Any organization, transformative leadership, complex sales, strategist, coach or change agent seeking clarity in dynamic environments and organisations need someone like me.

My sweet spot is organisational complexity, how best collaborate and make better decisons. I am on mission with a vision to "re-empower human beings being (a bit more) human along smarter technology (vision) by exploring adapted organisational capability for better impact".

My usual metaphore is off-shore sail racing with all components in the future of work.

I will likely do this rest of my life. I love it. Why should I not? I have full autonomy. I use my strengths. I have an extremely human and meaningful purpose. I can choose to be happy.

My sixth sense? I see dead organizations, all over!

After fourteen years dwelling on the topic “future of work”, inspired by Jeremy Scrivens (RIP), his ecosystem of system thinkers, John Hagel, Dave Snowden and Josh Bersin and the likes, I made the decision to go all in complexity, whatever that would entail in practice.

I've talked with some amazing people across the globe! Being an engineering physicist has helped, with insight to chaos theory, advanced math, n-dimensions, complex algebra, quantuum mechanics.... Spoiler alert, sense-making complexity comes down to a mathematical mindset respecting data and the data behind data. Mathematical models are some of the few thing we really can trust.

Knowing you can do SOMETHING with all the faithful data you collect builds confidence. Let someone else calculate! You must be able to put your numbers and synthesises in a bigger context! That's where "HR" still fails. I say "HR" since they "own" all the data related to the organisation. I have worked with advanced workforce analytics. People data in a busines context is extremely valueable if you try to reempower any organisation. Try it!

"We have no baseline", yeah, right. Every employee is a walking dash board of insight.

Sometimes "we have no baseline" is the baseline. We have no clue! There is no budget structure reflecting broken processes, like sick leave. So where does all the money go?

I read a lot and speak a lot with people, globally, trying to understand their stories and context. During the pandemic it was all I did. Over time I have built a repository of perspectives, insight and emerging patterns. I collect and highlight reports with relevant evidence material, as a habit. Is this what you do to? Do you recognize yourself? Let¨s talk!

Anyway, why did I focus 100% on this 2020?

I had this revelation some months prior the pandemic. I accepted my confirmed skill (to speak, teach and improve unprepared, anywhere) on most of the transformativ capabilities above whilst also being a human and compassionate. I know I make people feel good and all that. I grew up in complex environments along the socio-economic staircase, working in international context in different complex roles:

-????????? complex sales of complex services that had not yet really been sold so far

-????????? strategy & change consulting focusing on business re-modelling and value creation

-????????? strategic HR with pioneering work on adaptive workforce with delegated mandate

-????????? various startup projects in sustainability areas impacting the entire society

I truly believed all thought like me. In reality 1-2 % of the adult population share my interest in complexity. 10-15 % of the adult population are compelled to drive changes within it. It is not enough. For me, it's never been ablessing. It's what it is. It's tiring being questioned for "crying wolf" five years to early. Never the benefit of saying "I told you". Sometimes I say:

"Just because you don't like what I say, doesn't mean I am wrong"

I only need to convince 20 % in any given context to succeed. Numbers

A service portfolio embracing uncertainty, hope & potential

Outlining my service portfolio, businesss model and value proposition for my restarted company early 2020 as 100 % self-employed, I wanted to leverage all my strengths for a better impact, as per self-determination theory, with zero tolorance for toxic leadership. It works.

Professional coaching, advisory and consulting felt like natural roles. I have tested my value proposition during four years of unmatched uncertainty due to the pandemic, wars, manipulated inflation and financial stress. TodayI dropped the emphasis on advisory, unless prompted. People know. They only need to be re-empowered and to understand their why.

We only need to be curious in a framed context.

My priorities as a “complex system explorer”

• Identify patterns & gaps to recognize emerging trends, inconsistencies, and opportunities across teams, industries, or markets
• Describe complexity and turn scattered insights into a coherent narrative that others can understand and act om, typical in a role a good speaker and communicator with humor
• Illustrate alignment, vuknerability and interdependence by bridging perspectives to mend broken processes between roles, systems and data
• Enable better decision-making by providing clarity and direction in ambiguous situations by making sense of available data, emotions using friction to "make bad harder" and "better easier".
• Drive adaptation & innovation by coaching teams and organizations to reframe challenges and explore new ways of thinking with compassion and humour

Our biggest challenges fuels our biggest opportunities

• Combat loneliness and resistance to understand what people don’t understand, consulting similar minded globally via curiosity and courage.
• Accept that most hate to challenge their own assumptions & status quo using compassion.
• Prioritize insights based on impact, using proven frameworks, evidence data and real-life storytelling, Cynefin framework, Strategyzer explore-to-exploit, issue base consulting, math.
• Balance relational & emotional thinking and decisions since organizations rely on data but mostly make emotional decisions. As a sense-makers we struggle to get buy-in if leaning on logic or intuition alone. Inseat use a safe-to-fail-approach with low risk and courage even though it is super evident for you.
• Far too many hates math and are unable to explain their own figures in a larger context
• The approach is the way. Engaging people itself is engaging and oxytocin addictive!

To monitor progress with a better impact in space where everything is relative we must agree on an agreed baseline, a point of departure, in a space that is multi-dimensional. I recommend three different variables/things associated to a value. People can relate to 3D. "Progress" means nothing in 3D though. It's only more of, less of, of what can be measured or perceived.

Draft a dynamic dot-connecting sense-maker play book

Frame insights in a way that resonates emotionally while being backed by rational proof.

Why are we here and where are we going and from where?

A play book for these relevant and collaborative conversations are most productive with strong sponsorship, shared values and a sufficiently clear purpose. Start somewhere!

Probe. Sense. Discuss. Patterns will evolve.

Participants may not immediately see or accept the connections being made, especially if they do not like to challenge status quo. Start where people are, with reference to the three references mentioned above! Use client unique language, pain points and existing goals to coach toward relevant insights and better habits supporting existing values!

The sense-making path forward is rarely clear. Decision-makers often seek definitive answers that don’t exist. Get comfortable with ambiguity. Use scenario planning, iterative decision-making, and safe-to-fail experiments, conversations to navigate complexity step by step.

Don’t become the go-to person solving all problems! We are there to re-empower the organization. They are not stupid. Focus on high-leverage areas where sense-making impact most. Empower others to develop their own sense-making abilities within the framed reality.

Uncertain times overwhelm clients who need clarity.

• Position yourself as a trusted organizational coach or tactician with an overview “map”
• Facilitate insight-driven conversations for relevant topics, share relevant frameworks, trends, tools and scenarios that help them navigate uncertainty, foggy or stormy situations
• Use consolidated storytelling supported by data to visualize what good looks like
• Leverage your existing relationships networks. Trust is currency. People buy from people they already trust or who are trusted by people they know

• Clients need quick wins and limited safe-to-fail project in uncertain times, early guaranteed impact / value. Remember! You need that agreed measurable / comparable baseline!

So how is it going? After all , who minds the gap?

There is a lot of institutional resistance to change and nobody really "minds the gap" since nobody owns it. All suffer from it but most gaps has no owner.

My view, based on experience and the thousands of reports I've read the last 5-10 years plus the hundreds of similar minded people I interacted with over the last 10-14 years is clear:

The demand for professionals like us, who connect dots and make sense of complex information, is notably high across Europe, especially in the current climate of economic uncertainty and regulatory changes.

This claim is supported by recent reports by Gallup report 2024 on AI roadmaps in Europe. They shared a disturbing fact that nine of ten companies lack this transformative capability to create relevant AI roadmap, and hence any other systematic organizational disruption.

Like the NHS in the UK who waited too long to adapt, I believe many other previously stable institutions will collapse due to the denial, shame of leadership admitting to not having a clue on what is going on. It took many years to build. It will cost fortunes to re-create and run some of those institutions we still take for granted when we need them and question rest of the time

So the market is screaming for help? That is good, no?

I choose to tell myself that the lack of open discussions about wicked challenges across organizations is an indication that they have everything “under control”. So they do not need dot-connecting sense-makers comfortable to work in complex environments to help them.

People in charge hate challenging their own assumptions or to admit they do not fully understand.?I believe there is a lot shame in the board rooms. There is a lack of courage to consult your own organization on classical top down leadership topics. It would be an indication of transformative leadership but it would also expose your vulnerability, no?.

Wrap up: Fix it or laugh at it?

I remember an interview where John Cleese was asked what made him laugh during. He thought. He smiled. He had tears of laughter coming down his cheek: He said something like:

“I remember once, during the Thatcher regime, one of the PMs looked into the camera and said with fixed eyes ‘We have everything under control’. I found that statement to be extremely funny!”

So, said that, should we laugh at the misery or do something about it? I am in. Are you? I have faith in the future. I laugh a lot. Let's have it! What can possibly go wrong?

My simplified answer to what a dot-connecting sense-maker do/sell/dleiver:

"Sufficient Clarity+ Fit Capability.-Toxic Leadership=Better Impact"

Let's tale it from there.

?// Sven Hultin