Resources

This year’s Live Virtual Workshops are designed to challenge traditional assumptions about how we live, work, and play. In this post and throughout the year, consider how the old assumptions just don’t work in today’s uncertain and turbulent world.

First, consultants were supposed to give answers. Then, they were supposed to give frameworks and methodologies to deliver answers. Now, neither seems to work so well. Either the truth is more complex, or we can no longer afford to deny the truth. Clients, in every sector and around the world, need more than cookie cutters to thrive in the uncertain future.

I’ve been listening to Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer https://bit.ly/2XpVbaA and thinking about ceremony. The book is about change, or maybe loss. It is about plants, or maybe children. It is about an overgrown pond with a future, an abandoned house with a heart, and water lilies that depend on community to survive in the dark. This already, and I’m not even half-way through the book. I can hardly wait to finish it, but I’ll contain my urgency and savor each minute. Why? Because all these themes seem extremely poignant today.

In human systems dynamics (HSD), we define narrative as the essential message that sets forth patterns of discourse, decision making, and action for individuals, families, communities, organizations, and institutions. A clear narrative informs action to help create a path through uncertain and turbulent times. Read how the HSD narrative helped us navigate the challenges of lockdown and re-emergence in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Your story—your narrative—is your bridge between experience and action. It works like this:

To thrive in complexity you have to adapt—quickly and often! You can’t afford to wait for deep analysis or complete data. You don’t have time to take things apart, fix each piece, and put them back together. Even if you could, complex systems are massively entangled and emergent, so fixing parts may not fix the whole.

Facilitation has outgrown its traditional image. It’s no longer about an individual at the front of the room guiding a group of people through processes. It’s no longer just about decision making, conflict resolution, or team building. Many factors in today’s world have brought a new look to the role of facilitation.