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Plan in Uncertainty
These last 10 days, I have been struggling with a decision: Should I accept a job offer in Vietnam to teach at a university in Saigon, with good benefits, decent pay, and some relocation support? Or should I remain on the entrepreneurial path and trust to create the work that is emerging for me (partially based on my PhD research-in-progress) on embodiment and change processes, even though the pathway from "here" to revenue appears tentative at this moment?
Wendy Gudalewicz is Superintendent of the Cupertino Union School District in Cupertino, CA, and uses Adaptive Action in her day-to-day work, as well as in her strategic action to shape patterns across her system. She was a contributing storyteller for Adaptive Action: Leveraging Uncertainty in Your Organization, and shares another story here about how she looks for and shapes patterns as a school district leader. For more about her district, check out the Cupertino Union School District website.
October 1, 2020
Complex change cannot be predicted or controlled. It comes in bursts amid long periods of stillness and silence. It happens for individuals, groups, or whole communities in different ways and at different times. It brings unintended consequences and wonderful surprises.
In this session, we will explore the hows and whys of complex change and share some fundamental tools to see, understand, and influence it.
Build Adaptive Capacity
Usually I groan when yet another sports analogy is used to explain an insight about complex human systems. Don’t get me wrong. I love sports and spent the better part of my teenage years in a gym playing basketball. My dad was a football coach, and I love the game.
Lead in Complexity
Linear cause and effect are great when they work. Root causes and logical sequences explain change in mechanical systems. They can even work in some simple, highly constrained human systems. The problem is that they do not help you understand
change in highly complex human systems dynamics.
September 7, 2023
Your options for action depend on what you see. What you see depends on what you look for. If you are looking for problems and barriers, you will surely find them. Then your only choice will be to solve the problems and break down the barriers. This is great as long as it works, but you will be totally stuck when you run into problems without solutions or impermeable barriers. In those moments, you need better ways to see and more options for action.
Pattern Logic multiplies your options for action because it helps you see hidden potential instead of problems and barriers. This LVW introduces and deepens the concepts and tools of Pattern Logic to help people everywhere see their way to better outcomes.
March 2, 2023
The world isn’t black or white. It isn’t even shades of gray. The world of complexity invites you beyond expectations for simple either/or answers. It stretches you beyond naïve both/and solutions. Emergent uncertainty of complex adaptive environments demands more. You will thrive in the turbulence and instability when you see, understand, and navigate the tensions of irreconcilable paradox.
Join this dialogue to master Interdependent Pairs and find the power in “Which? To what degree? When?”