Stuck in Chaos - Do or Die!

Like many of you, I have a long list of things I’ve meant to do for some time; more exercise, learning to the play the saxophone that has been under my desk for four years, learning to smith and make knives, learn Italian and write a series of blogs starting with sharing all my favourite models and frameworks. The first part of the series is about helping to understand our current context and a focus on adapting to the changes being imposed on our

As has been said many times and in many different ways already, we are living in an unusual time. It has been strange, uncomfortable and challenging for most of us with so much uncertainty and stress. Having friends, family, and possibly even yourself being stood down from work, having hours reduced or losing your job altogether. For our generation, the term “VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world” has never been more relevant as well as one of my favourite frameworks, Cynefin (Welsh for Habitat), which is used to give us a sense of place when making decisions.

I wasn’t planning on starting with Cynefin, but now that I am here, it seems like an excellent place to start. I see the Cynefin model as a good way of understanding our next best action or approach when dealing with uncertainty and determine the urgency and tools we need to leverage to move from Disorder to order. To quote the diagram below “if you don’t know where you are (or what you are doing) and if you feel lost in the woods. Welcome to the home of Disorder. Gather information, identify the domain and move on.”

I love the illustration below because I feel it demonstrates the noise and feeling of anxiety that often comes from dealing with chaos and uncertainty.

Cynefin framework by Edwin Stoop of Sketching Maniacs

The idea is that when dealing with chaos, almost any action is appropriate, i.e. if you are in a burning building; running, jumping out the window, trying to put the fire out and getting to a safe(ish) place are all valid reactions with a chance of success (you not dying). In this state we can still follow a “path” of simple steps Act, Sense and Respond; Act first (trust your instincts), i.e. get out of immediate danger, Sense and assess the situation, in doing so try to understand what the problem is, have you or someone else dealt with this before? Is there one right answer, or are there layers of complexities and several unknowns? From there, you can Respond by moving to one of the other quadrants. Moving to the Complex quadrant, where we need to test experiment and learn, for many of us we are currently in this state, we know we need to adapt, and for some people that are straight forward (working from home is a great example) for others, it’s not quite that simple. You might want to ask yourself questions like:

• What can I do to make my product or service more valuable?
• Is there a way I can consistently deliver the same value my customers or employer got before, i.e. from being face-to-face?
• Do I need to reinvent my business?
• Do I have the tools, experience or access to deliver a service that will provide value?
• What do my customers actually want – this is when we start leveraging Human Centred Design or the Double Diamond framework (which I would highly recommend becomes part of how you deliver your product, service or personal brand). Continually checking in with your target audience to understand what they need will help you adapt to the everchanging environment.

The aim of the game is to move your situation into the Complicated or even better the Simple buckets. Complicated problems can be dealt with by analysing and understanding your problem and possible roadmaps and then developing and following a plan. I see this forming a complex project or program with multiple steps or facets. If I were applying a lean start-up or double diamond approach to this, I would start to identify prototypes and minimum viable products (MVPs) to test with my stakeholder group (very quickly validating whether the path is the right one), Note that I will go through these models in a separate post. Finally moving into the Simple bucket, this is where we are dealing with a problem that we’ve dealt with before or has a clear set of steps and a well-known solution. Elements of your complicated program may fall into the Simple Quadrant. I’d advise breaking your more significant problems down into smaller more straightforward issues where possible, getting some wins on the board and proving that you are moving forward is extremely important as a business where resources may be squeezed, and waste is unacceptable or from a personal point of view where you may be feeling deflated, lost or worthless, a quick win and taking the time to celebrate will be essential for your mental wellbeing.

 I hope this first post helps some of you get some context of the problems you face, whether you are firefighting or moving systematically from step to step. If you are feeling overwhelmed I’ve found leveraging frameworks like Cynefin and the others I will share over the next few weeks can help us deal with complexity and uncertainty by allowing us to take a breath and move through a process, systematically breaking down our problems, helping us identify our strengths and innovating to deliver better versions of ourselves, our businesses and the products and services we offer to our customers. The first part of my series will focus on personal branding leveraging tools that will help you identify your values and set goals, understand what makes you tick and how to better engage teams (or groups of people, there is a difference) and leverage marketing, product development and coaching models to build your personal brand. I will try to make the topics flow but will mix in tools, topics and examples that can be applied to both personal development and building a business or product. 

For a simple guide and introduction to Cynefin https://amzn.to/3anloYn

If you have any questions, would like to see something different or need help working through a model, feel free to comment or message me.