Okay, no more thing, guys, we'll leave it for three or four minutes for people to come in. Morning, everyone.
Hi, Dave.
Hi, Sonia.
Haven't got access to the list of who's booked on any of these. And never quite sure how many we're expecting somebody else coming in.
Okay, let's get started here. So this is we're looking at constraint mapping. Remember that, unlike all the other methods where we just had one session or other two parallel sessions, yeah. The idea of this one is we'd introduce the ideas and then do a follow up to discuss the ideas before we start to move into certification. And that was because the constraint stuff is still in the process of formation. What's the right language? How should we actually do it? Yeah. So thank God, I don't have to present for an hour again, which is I've been doing like six times a day for the last week here. So this is kind of like you're all on session one. This is now a chance to reflect on it. Yeah. And then we'll start to organise the cat. Well, we got one more second session on this to go and then we'll start to get the cat herders into organising subgroups and codification and that sort of stuff. Yeah. So just as a reminder, we went through topologies, we went through the three groups of three, we went through the whole concept of constraints are the only things you can really manage. In a complex adaptive system. We talked about the shift from modulators to constraints that may or may not be the right thing to do. And we talked about the need for topographies for mapping for creating a symbols so that we can actually map constraints and that links in with the whole concept of energy gradients. And what's got the lowest energy gradient is likely to happen. So that's where you start to get into playing with maps. And same with a map look like this, these things would be easier. Can I get there and so on? Yeah. So I can't remember where that was this group or the other group, or that's me combining both groups, which it probably is, but that was roughly where we got to. So it's now open forum guys.
One thing that
kind of struggling the last one, sorry, it's early morning, and it's still dark. So I'm looking at it creepy. But the, as you were talking to the mopping piece, that we kind of began to dip into things that kind of felt more like geology, right? I'm stretching metaphors here. But like we were going down, and it was kind of seismology in seismic events. And then there was kind of pressure systems and weather were other things as well, which were kind of transy and things which happened to the environment. So there was kind of a permanence to it. And then there was some structure to it underneath it. So work. And is that something you're, that's, that's come up? Is that something you're thinking about?
Yeah, it is. And actually, I'm writing a blog series at the moment on geomorphology. So I did I did the first one on alluvial systems and about the second one on postclassical landslips. Because that's actually quite interesting for organisational change. So if you look at the U shaped valleys, the glasses hold the valleys. When the glassier melts, you end up with these huge slides and you get these sort of islands of rock. Sure, really useful for mediaeval castle builders. Yeah. We sort of stand isolated. Yeah. And you can see a metaphor across from that. And I think at least in one of the groups I talked about geological mapping is one of the main metaphors. Because when you do geological mapping, which I did a lot of back in the 70s. Yeah. You walk in straight lines, and you have to infer what's underneath you from what you see on the surface. Yeah. So I think there's a there's a really strong geomorphology element here, I think it's more geomorphology than palaeontology or something like that. But that is actually a really good math metaphor. And geological maps are actually a brilliant bit of semiotics, when you look at them. If you look at the British Geological Survey, the semiotics aspects of it are brilliant, and the way they do it. And then you've got the By the way, I mean, the other advantages about geological mapping is you've got the concept of faults. Yeah, and you've got trapdoor faults, and you've got slide faults and things like that. And you've also got, if you take classical morphology, you've got the concept of, you know, terminal moraines, lateral lateral raise medium moorings. Yeah. So there's actually quite a rich and fertile body of meaning there, which we can bring across.
Western from my sight day was, I wonder, because I really liked that metaphor. But then at the same time, I also wonder, you know, in the context of anthro complexity if if it's almost a bit too static, you know, so looking at marine maps, or weather maps, where things are constantly changing, if that's not always that,
I think is probably a mixture. I think I'm one of the groups I said there's a huge difference between a river map formed by glandt granite cliffs and one formed by sandbanks. Yeah. And it's kind of like, I think that's why I like the geomorphology thing, because not everything is changing. Some things are constant, but some things are changing. So for example, if you look at landslips, all right, if you come from South Wales, you know about landslips, we all knew where we were growing up, and I can still see exactly where I was sitting. Yeah, when the news came through, is the underlying structure can create a massive catastrophic shift in unexpected ways. Yeah. And, and so that, that then becomes interesting, that what we've been doing is just throwing out mapping, one of the key things is to start to create symbology of constraints. So looking at other bodies of knowledge makes sense. I mean, a weather front may be it right? For example. Yeah, that might be another way of looking at it.
I've got something written down from last time, which was make map. Step one, make the map step two, walk the land. Yeah. Is that what we're doing? Like we make it then we like are we actually developing a you know, is this is this like a, you know, is this the sort of thing we would do with a group? We would like, be trying stuff out, be updating the wiki. We're doing all of these things at once.
Just to make sure what we're doing But also understand other people to do. So what you're saying, if you move into a complex patient, or any type of complex change, you need to create a map now, and that that was when I use the Harvey's map, because I have these maps do is they take an aerial photograph. Yeah. And then they use photogrammetry machines get the rough contours of the London, but then they walk the land, validate the material, and then you have a map, right. And the survey process is different from the navigation process. So I think one things we and this is about constraint mapping is we need to create a process of mapping. And that can include other things. So for example, sense maker produces cultural maps or attitudinal maps. Yeah. Which are also part of the ecosystem. Yeah. And if you've got a map with symbols, then the concept of re survey, or of changing the map, so it's like, you know, Google these days, you know, you can change the Google Map if you find something wrong when you're navigating it. So that there's there's some quite sophisticated stuff we can start to think of. But the principle is map the territory, identify the energy gradients make decisions about what to do.
I might be ignorant, I might be the most ignorant person here because haven't done constraint mapping with an organisation. Has everybody else done that?
Now, I think I'm one of the few people who's actually done it.
Yeah. Okay. You're not alone? I haven't read every blog post you've written, Dave, I'd like you haven't read it yet. But if you've written one about how to do constraint mapping, we should say
there's two or three. All right, but I wouldn't take that as definitive. The reason for having these sessions is to have the conversation and not be patenting trained by that. So I mean, the reason I write so many blogs, to be honest, is unexplored in ideas, if you look at the development of liminal and chronically embarrassed by the early blogs, but I wouldn't go back and not do that again. Because, I mean, we just had a really good session on trial to come. Yeah. And there were two or three things I'd forgotten. I thought about that they came out, including the PreGel process. Yeah. So you need that level of interaction, and you need to be prepared to change what you're doing. Yeah. So that was the reason that was the reason constraint mapping to me is probably one of the single most important things, which is why I set up a double coat group, because I don't think it's exactly settled, what the constraints are how you map. And it's not going to be settled by this group. But at least we'll get something written down which people can start to experiment with and change. I also think what are variations again, go back to traffic and discussion. You know, we were talking about four or five different potential applications with different timescales and different numbers, and different options that you combine in different ways. And I think constraint mapping may be the same thing. Yeah, it's it's unlikely to be a single linear process is likely to be a series of modules, which you can do one or more and assemble them in different sequences. Yeah. And by the way, that
would not contribute to the same map.
Yeah, I think so. Oh, it could be overlay maps. So for example, when I was doing the mapping in Dubai, sorry, you should be walking, and I worked for cartographic firm for years, right. And developed a unique way of counting oranges in Portugal for the European Union. So I'm still quite proud of that. Right, which was using Landsat imagery. Right? So if you actually look when, when we did the stuff for Dubai, we effectively and this was in the old days of acetates, we had 50, acetate overlays representing different aspects of the map. Right, and you can separate them, you can split them, you can put them back together. And modern mapping is like that. So you know, this is kind of like the plumbing system. Yeah, this is a surface representation. And that's why I think the geological map is quite an interesting one. Yeah. Particularly the concept of surface stability, but potential instability underneath the surface. Yeah, so there are lots of links here. If you use entangled trios to create a dense informal network, then actually the entangled trio map is part of the map. Right, so the there there are more maps on this. So though, we're focused on constraint mapping, don't assume that's the only map. Yeah, there may be an attitudinal map. There may be an informal network map, there may be different maps, which combine and what I'm looking at is almost like if we got this right, you could literally put as you know, big transparent acetates with different maps and put them up and overlay them and have conversations. Yeah, because that would that would prevent Patent and Trademark in terms of the way people work.
Has anyone done constellation?
Sure. The difference here is
that talking with the larger group of people on the subject of constraints is not a natural topic of conversation. They don't understand them. They don't realise that exist. So for me, the biggest difficulty here is, how do I uncover what they are?
Okay, now, I've had a slightly different experience, I found it's very difficult with middle managers, but with C level executives, they get it more or less instantly. Right? So and I haven't had a problem during the constraint conversation at higher levels of management, because they know that they can't manage the future. And if you say, there's this thing you could actually manage, let's talk about it and you give them a structure, then they can populate it quite quickly. So there may be different experiences on this. Yeah. I think the other thing I think we're trying to get to, and I think this directly addresses what you're saying there is, is some of these things you may need to create the map before you have the discussion. So here's the map. Yeah, we'll explain how we did it. Now. What do you think it means? Rather than have everybody engaged in the process of mapping? I mean, if I go walking in the hills, I don't need to produce the maps, I just need to know how to use them.
Daily Dave? Would it be a good example to explain the constraint maybe because I'm on the same page as Kenan with this, to take them situation that we'll live through in 2020 with COVID and quarantines and think about constraints that each country or one country was put into. Could we go through this process to see how the constraints can be mapped?
Yeah, sure. Talk about it, you've got the topology to talk about it.
So
the only way I've done it so far, right, and I don't think this is the way to do it permanently, is to say, here's a simple topology, go away in small groups and find examples and then come back together. And we'll talk about it and that actually works quite well. Particularly with senior executives, the idea of dark constraints. Yeah, they really like dark constraints as a concept. Yeah. Because that's reality and looking at the percentage. So that's all we've done so far. So you can do that you can say, internal external, resilient, robust tethers. You give people a tie pot, and you might you really emphasise up front is a type ology. Right, which means if you find something, you don't have to worry about which type it is. You know, the purpose of a type ology is not to find things, which are examples of the time, but to use the topology to force divergent thinking. Yeah. And then there are aspects of that you'll talk about later. So if it's a rigid constraint, can you make it permeable, and so on? So the constraint conversation does, here's a topology, brainstorm what's in place, identify what's important. See what you can change, think about what would happen if you did change and think about where you could change and recover quickly. Right, go do it. So that that's kind of like the the sequence that we're at at the moment, what I'm trying to do is in radically increase the sophistication by doing more work to create real maps, which are dynamic, yeah, creators, semiotics around that, and so on. So that's partly what this group is about. The other type of map we do have is the sense making maps. That sense making can produce two types of map one is an attitudinal map, which is represented as coloured contours. And that thing goes with the more like this fewer like Matt approach to change. And the other type of map is mass sense, which is to actually map dominant minority and outlaw views. So you can find people who are thinking differently. Yeah, so those are two types of maps we've already got, right. And each of them de facto has a type of constraints. So for example, if you've got a dominant trope in the narrative of culture, so if I if my culture map is kind of like one massive, great, deep, bloody pit, and a couple of outliers, is going to be difficult to change, but it's going to be really difficult to change that. And that might mean I've actually got disrupted or completely reorganised. On the other hand, if I've got four or five areas with some overlaps, then I can see ways in which I can shift and develop it. So the the map identifies what's possible. Yeah. And also tells me if it's impossible. I mean, yeah, I'll use the geographical metaphor. If you've got a map of the Western United States you discover there's this thing called the Grand Canyon, then it's no point in saying we'll be courageous and rather than jump, right, because you won't live through the process. So maps tell you where there's no point in going as well as where they're where there are possibilities.
Just follow on from the last point, and it's more in terms of a concrete example. So if you take
COVID relativity COVID. So Europeans that have disease control, and publishes a case definition, case, definition finds close contact us, within two metres face to face greater than 15 minutes. That's a. So I've been trying to figure out where this fits in. So that to me is a constraint. And it's a tethered constraint, because at a certain point, it breaks. So varied certain concepts or new variants dimensional subject goes. Okay, so that that makes sense in terms of the type that I take. And I was trying to think in terms of dark constraints, because I've been working in the health service. And like one of the challenges we see is different ministers different perceptions of how to deal with the media. So at one quite fluid, another very brittle current one very brittle, just can't handle it. So it's
the other day, so I know what you're talking about.
Yeah, I despair. But anyway, that's beside the point. But that's media's impact on the behaviour of a minister in terms of the decision, or his kind of decision is a demonstration in that model, because it's not visible to anybody, but you can see the effect of it. So you can see what he does. That's actually
quite a good example. So if you've got, you know, let's take that example. So you identify that as a dark constraint, say, okay, so I need to map this. And we actually get this one. So we go to three schools of journalism. And we use sense maker to map trainee journalists attitudes to current news. And that gives us a proxy map of what's likely to happen. Yeah, or you set up a series of ritual dissents in which ministers present to people and they get torn apart by them so they can see what happens. So you come, it's important that what by by finding some of the constraints here I need to go a Mac. Yes, he could. It's a mediaeval equivalent of here be dragons, right? If you got here be dragons, then actually, there may be some quite valuable stuff that you don't know that you've got to approach it with caution. Yeah.
Okay. And then, I mean, the other big thing on this, which relates to constraints, and this is a short term long term. So if you take you know, Boris, the buffoon sorry about this, if anybody's Conservative Party supporter, then, you know, I feel sorry for you with your current leader, right? He, oh, he's only ever looking short term. So it's quite fascinating for a period of time we look short term, and then he realised that was bad for his ego. So now he's looking very long term. So it's like an oscillation. Yeah. But it's whereas the New Zealand Prime Minister took a short term hit, knowing that long term that would work out, or it was, you know, that that's my, you know, frozen to thing, do the right thing, do the next right thing. Sorry, I'm heavily into frozen to since I would got into it the other day, right. And remember, one of the big things in the field guide is the first thing you do is you impose draconian constraints to have more options open. So that that's the first thing you do in a crisis, is you do some fairly drastic things very quickly designed to increase the number of options you've got. And then you actually focus on coordination. And I think the other thing ministers need to be taught is communication by engagement. So if, for example, you've got a citizen sensor network, which is one of the things in the field guide, you start to communicate back to people by what the people themselves have said, rather than I'm going to tell you, so you say, you know, we just polled the people, we got this sort of result, people said these sort of things. What do you think, is actually a much better form of communication is communication by engagement? Yeah, rather than sort of one way communication ministers are currently doing. And again, that's how you start to develop the concept. And the whole point about a map is, how certain can we about this? We're not certain Can we do something here? Do we need to build a bridge? Yeah. Or do we need to break down this barrier? Yeah, there's all sorts of things you it's a means of asking questions. Remember, I said in the first session, constraint mapping means of avoiding situation assessment. Because if you sit people down and say, where are we what are what what's available to us, they will automatically argue for the things they want to do. They won't be objective about the process, no matter how good the facilitator So the whole point constraints is to do that indirectly not directly. Never start with situational assessment, always start with a constraint discussion is kind of like a principle. If
you have this three by three, you have those three by three matrix, you have those three by threes. We go with Kevin. And I got the sense that when you started that process, you didn't know kind of, you had some blank spaces in there. And yeah, you know, that's essentially you made it more complex you made you made your framework more complex, and it sort of created more like an extended topology that was kind of harder. Is it? Is there a way to bounce back
and come back to Carnaby is kind of had his hand up patiently. I've just noticed that, right. But there's times that I do a lot of that. So I'll I'll I'll, a lot of the blocks that come from me actually producing two dimensions and thinking, What the hell do I fit in the boxes? Yeah, or starting off with? There are three aspects of this situation, I do that speaking, three, three key things you should think about? I haven't even thought what the second one is yet. But it sort of comes to you on your feet in front of the audience, right. I mean, and it's a powerful form of discovery. So creating blank spaces and thinking what you put in place. Yeah, is a way of forcing divergent thinking into people. Yeah. And so that's kind of like deliberately creating here be dragons spaces, so that people realise they can't apply convention. So sorry, Connor. You're muted Connor
on the maps, and the geology underneath the polygon, two mountains for massive outbreak of rhododendrons. And then within 24 hours, it starts Is there a park yours hasn't spread. But at that point, you're getting into a conglomerate underneath. From a sandstone in rivers, wrote down rules work on sandstone, they don't work on the Congress. You can see programmers doesn't know Trump others. So it's as simple as that. So it's the same thing out there. You're looking at a map, like you see in the surface, the after effects you see in a surface.
Yeah, and I think I mean, that's important. And yeah, the worst example of I ever had walking was trying to get through the Rhododendron forest above kylemore Abbey, in Ireland, all right, because it was a bloody nightmare. I thought it was gonna take me five minutes, it took me four hours, and I came out scarred, right? So I think surface lawnmower always used to indicate underlying soil and cannon types. And usually you learn to watch that when you walk in. Yeah, so coming down mangas, and mountain with somebody was fitter than me, I let him run into the green areas, because I know their bog and it will slow him down a bit. Yeah, even though they look attractive from on high, they're actually quite dangerous. So this region of surface features to see what's underneath is, I think, a key aspect of mapping. And building that experience. I mean, this is one of the ways for example, you can use sense micron cultural mapping, because actually the changes in that indicate potentially things which are more fundamental underneath. So one of the things project I did with Tony in Egypt, where we got the Arab Spring early, is we were looking at mutually cancelling fluctuations in the surface representation, which indicated that system itself was unstable. So a single catalytic event would cause disruption. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's a really important point. And there's lots of things you can do with that, and we need to start to build that in. So part of it is people need to keep notes on maps. You know, like, you know, if I come to my kylemore Abbey, that the next time I'm walking over here, and I think I can take a shortcut through Rhododendron forest, I probably won't do that, again, I'll walk all the way around the booty site visit will be a lot easier, right? And that means I write on it Rhododendron bushes avoid, right. So you build that sort of experience into maps, and then you start to share that in terms of the way things work. So that's mapping as a sort of narrative experience as well as a sort of semiotic experience, I think. Yeah, you're muted again, corner.
On the mapping, there we went 10 maps are sacred, don't touch them, don't damage them. Your idea there of the layers. And that was just a key. That's my layer, I can change that. Without challenging demand map is just a way of seeing people. You're not that challenging to me. And map, you're just looking at your air. Your one is on the kicking the geomap. mythology. Example, again, are the tectonic plates underneath, obviously, a stone, but added time, or added feedback. speed. Is that a tectonic period we're looking at in people?
Look, I think maps change over time. Right? And I think, yeah, if you've got time, and you've got you've got perspective, right? So if, if I look at it, I mean, it's fascinating if you if you're walking down the valley, I'll take take another Irish example. So when I was doing the 12 pins, right? The territory once you get to the first scope fell is radically different from the way it looks from the road is rather the way it looks on Google Earth, right? So at different scales, the things presents radically different problems. But the more experience you get, the more you learn to recognise sort of indications of where it may not be as easy as it looks right. Now, I think that's where I mean, I mostly as I walk I've got I've actually got two maps, I've got one, which I carry with me, which I write on. And one which stays at home, there's a sort of, yeah, you wouldn't, for example, scroll notes on the map or Monday, if you happen to have it a because it wouldn't be any use would be it would be an historical artefact, right. But I think there is a huge value to maps. So for example, when I go walking with my doctor, friends, they've got 18th century Ordnance Survey maps. And it's actually quite fascinating to walk with them, because you actually got the maps of different periods. And you can see the residue of those earlier periods. Yeah. In the map itself, which actually causes curiosity, and also provides opportunity. So I think this this concept of change over time, and perspective is an important one as well.
Right? In talking about maps, and how you do maps, to me, you describe the colour, the consistency, the size of the rocks to partners, you get I presume, for geologists, just a series of things to get through. So in that case, isn't that where your action thing comes in? This is the these are the things you look for when you're doing a map. I mean,
that's the palaeontology aspects, if you're, if you're doing the straight line walk on a geological map, you're looking for fossils in the rock. Because the fossil will tell you what period the rocket is. So you don't find tribal like, post. So leaving, for example. So tribal, like you know where it is. So there are that I think that's an interesting metaphor, there is sort of residual traces of the past, which indicate what is deeper? Yeah, and I think if we're looking at the political maps, well, I mean, let's take an example. I mean, you know, I've got loads of friend you know, relatives in Monaghan or I grew up to call it dairy in the six counties not to call it Northern Ireland and Londonderry, and there are linguistic clues as to your religion all over Ireland, right, which you have to be sensitive to, and you have to pick up quickly. So I think, yeah, different things give different clues to underlying attitudes and beliefs. And they're difficult to map. But if you can map them, it makes a difference. Right. One things you learned in IBM very quickly is a conversation will tell you very quickly who was connected with who. It was a survival characteristic, because IBM was all about political informal networks. And if you said the wrong thing to the wrong network, you were probably dead. Yeah, so you learn to very quickly pick up those sort of clues about oh, this person knows Philip. And the way they know Phil, it means that they hate the bastard. So I better be very careful what I say. And you learn to sort of probe the space to see what clues you got back. Yeah, I mean, it's a bit sad, but that actually is how you survive in large corporates. Yeah. So You know, that sort of surface clue of underlying attitudes. And I think that's one of the things we can capture with sensemaking. Because we can capture key phrases and key terms. And we can show them on the maps.
It is not just a religious difference in the IDP into rural community. So you have to be able to pick up those nuances even after several pints. Because Yeah, you you can't do your job, your your gun.
I still convinced the Irish Tourist Board have a Depo of old men on donkeys? Are they shipping by helicopters ahead of the tourists as they come through the lane? But that's? Yeah.
I mean, we're all talking through the metaphors. I mean, this is the last time unless you guys organise it with the other group that will be together. So this is the sort of conversation. And just to be clear on this, I think this is going to be a two or three year long process before it's stable. I mean, can having took about 15 years to get stable. And one of the things within sensemaking is you don't do one time models, I think that's one things I really object to in current management theory is like, I'll do the study. Here's the model. Here's the process. Yeah, we're definitely trying to create things which evolve and change as we get more experience and more theory behind it. So what we try and do unconstraint mapping is kind of like, what's the language? What's the topology? What's the representation, what's the process or the process is, and then start that in on an evolutionary pathway. So that's kind of like where we are. But it's the only thing on navigation, it's, yeah, it's more important to have some type of map even if you know, it's not perfect, and to know the degree to which you've got confidence on it. So the first accurate map in the first ever accurate mapping, the whole history of humanity is the nautical map of New Zealand. Because it's the first time they could triangulate because they had clocks, and they can measure longitude and latitude. Yes, so they could they knew exactly where they were, so they could triangulate. And that map produced by cook is the first accurate map ever produced in the history of humanity. Everything else is an approximation. Yeah. And that's kind of like transition, when you get a different type of way of location, you can produce a more accurate map. And triangulation is a metaphor, I think we should be looking at as well. Because most of mapping is, you know, before we had aerial photography, and computers, was entirely based on triangulation, once you've got one point fixed, that's all you need. Because everything else is a series of triangles. There's
one question I have I understand, or, as far as I understand it, constraints could be either connectors or containers. So but what actually, are they connecting? Or containing? Do we have a kind of topology of that? Because processes could be a thing to be connected or contained? But it also could be a constraint? For example?
Yeah, I put a third one in more recently, so that you've got containers, connectors or forces are exerting force, because that's slightly different. And I'm, I'm getting more comfortable with that. I think there's, there's two arguments on this one is yes, I think I think we should create a topology of things which can be connected, because that would stop people thinking too much about individuals. So you might connect with a process, you might connect with an identity. Very rarely would you connect with an individual. Yeah, or a role. So they could be an argument to that sort of topology and because that would force divergent thinking. So I think that's a really good idea. The primary topology is connect, connect CNAME exertive force. Yeah, I'm still not 100% sure about that. But the point is, things which exert a force are much more difficult to manage than connectors or containers. And as I think God said earlier, the problem with tethers is if they snap it's bloody dangerous. Yeah. Whereas if you've got say, five or six magnets, which are exerting a force, though you got unpredictability, at least you've got something you can actually manage. Yeah. So some of the topologies about vulnerability. Yeah, and the conditions of track anything with a single point of failure. So if as I look at the constraint map, I have single points of failure and most of the constraints which are actually sustainable I mean, I need to do something pretty fast. Yeah. And so those are sort of heuristics we can develop. But I'd say I think that's it, that's a good idea is to create classes of things which are connected or contained or on which forces are exerted. And of course, they might also be connected in containers in their own right. So we could have that aspect. Yeah, a process can be something which is connected, but it can also connect. I mean, that's the sort of fractal nature of what we're dealing with. And that's fine. Yeah. The purpose? I mean, I'll come back to the definition of sense making, how do I make sense of the world so I can act in it? It's not about I mean, we have this key phrase is what I'm talking about when I invented it called messy coherence. Yeah. Which is, what matters is that things are coherent, even if they're messy. Right. It doesn't mean that they all have to be neat and orderly and tidy. If you've got time for that, that's fine. I mean, when these COVID did is all my books are now in proper sections and properly organised, and I am running out of shelves again. So I've now got books in a trolley which sooner or later, I'm going to have to create some more shelves. But I could always find the book when they were scattered all over the floor, and I'm very close. So it's not that I couldn't use them before. It's just I can use them in a different way now and I think that it says the things that is an over obsession in consultancy process with things being neat and tidy and universal. So if you look at virtually any output of a traditional consultancy process, it ends up with a wonderful diagram. Yeah, and you know, if a few of those diagrams were more like, you know, the Rhododendron bushes we were talking about earlier, I'd respect them a bit more. Yeah.
Can I go back on just one thing there to the
sorry, to the just one thing then come back to you. The other thing I think we have a map on is artefacts. So now whenever I go walking with Paul Davis, I have a three foot machete on the back of my rucksack because he has a tendency to dive into Bramble bushes and thickets and ferns, right. And I've discovered the machete is quite good at clear the space and be to make sure he doesn't do it again by threatening him with it. Right. And in fact, his wife and son cannot agree with me is trying to give him a lesson I'd said that there is this thing about Okay, I can do that if I've got a tool. So I'm not fussed about going through Bramble bushes if I've got a machete, but if I haven't got a machete, I've got a real problem. So this concept of having the right tools and the artefacts you need, I think a pocket mapping sorry.
Yeah, I'm just um, you may have written this, and I just haven't read a book the add like a darkened sort of dark constraint always be in the exertive force area. So it's that kind of thing in that? I think
so. But I wouldn't want to nail nail colours to the mast on it.
Yeah. But it was just something I was thinking about. As you were saying, I've heard that it just, I think it's Yeah, it's more like a magnet.
I think I think you start saying it's in exerting force, you may then discover that actually, it's got different aspects. But you start in that assumption, because things which exert a force are far more intractable than things which contain or connect. Yeah, and that was one of the other reasons why I introduced the third element. So I can more directly manage containers and connections and I can with things which are exerting forces. And particularly if there are more than three in operation, if we go into the three body problem. Yeah. Yeah, the minute I've got three things exist in a force, I've got a real problem. Yeah, four or five things I've automatically introduced into germinates into it. By the way, if you haven't read the body problem, it's a read. It's terribly written, but the ideas are brilliant. It's the first big Chinese science fiction. So it's back late on a planet where there are three sons in the galaxy. And because there are three suns, everything is unpredictable. So the planet can be the right distance from the Sun or it can suddenly be wiped out by the sun or it can be so far away from it. It's a really interesting, and it's completely unpredictable. You can't build a model to predict what will happen.
Can you just go back to that?
You mentioned something about constraint aspect.
Yes, I said that. The last time I wrote on this, and I'm still not sure it's right, I got into three groups of three. So the primary three were contain Connect exerted force, and then I got three within each of those right now. I'm quite comfortable with that. I've been told off about it by Alicia and I still try and find out why. Let's see. I think It was wrong. And I've got JB involved to sort of help me understand and help her understand. Because from my point of view, it works in practice. Yeah. So maybe the language should change. But executives get it, right. And a lot of what we're about is creating language and structures that allow people to think in different ways. So it's about breaking them away from situational assessment, action to constraints, change constraints. And if you can achieve that change, that's really significant.
Because the minute you get people into saying, oh, I'll change that constraint and see, I'll see what happens. they've understood complexity. That was it in the moment, it's okay, what's happening, this is what we should do. That means they haven't understood complexity. And that, to me, is the real power of constraint mapping into the way it works.
Yeah, and to be on I agree, I mean, that's why we say it's a topology, not a taxonomy. And I keep emphasising that distinction whenever I talk with people. So topology is a means of discovering things that you can manage. And of identifying some aspects of those things. But it's not a taxonomy. And taxonomies are very weak in boundary conditions. The problem with taxonomies is they're very weakened. The boundary is it one thing or the other, you try and force it into it. And it's actually quite interesting. If you look at modern biology, modern biology is being held back by the taxonomic work of the 19th and 18th centuries. If you now look at microbiology, we were starting to realise these things don't fall into rigid categories and trees. They're actually far more complex than that, in terms of the way they interact. But because we started with taxonomies, we found it difficult to break away from it. And that's why I think it's quite fascinating. So let me get on to pet hobbyhorse. What happened when engineering became the dominant metaphor in the 70s and 80s. With the introduction of systems dynamics and cybernetics. That's where things like Myers Briggs come out. Because people have to be categorised, like spare parts in a warehouse. And nobody would even thought of having Myers Briggs before you got into that sort of engineering type discipline. So the desire to know to put a boundary around something and say it's one of those is actually really scary, because that presents Eve that prevents evolution. And that's why we say a lot on complexity. And by the way, this comes into maps, right? You scale a complex adaptive system by decomposition and recombination, or more accurately, by decomposition to the lowest level of coherence, and then recombination. Now, that's actually if you think about it, the whole of organic life form comes from different combinations of four chemicals. Yeah, and that's why what we're doing on the method cards is we're creating hexagram based method cards for the lowest level of coherence every method. So then you can assemble those cards to create a project in different sequences, rather than always saying we do it in this process. So it's a chef. Yeah, this is a chef fee, recipe book user, which is a key word. Yeah, the recipe book user always follows a linear process and has to have the right ingredients and has to have the right equipment. The chef can reassemble things because they know what the function of different things in so they can substitute. I mean, everybody sooner or later learns that honey is a substitute for sugar. But you got lots of those sort of equivalent. So what we're trying to do with the method cards is more formalise that and say, Okay, you've got a project to run, well, here's the cards, what are you going to do and what sequence these times, so you still end up with a very structured process. But the process is assembled from different elements. So it's that decomposition recombination approach, rather than this is the way we do it. And I think, you know, one things we're trying to do, I think, right is reflect a lot of that in the sort of training. So by shifting to training in methods, not training and approaches, yeah, and credentialing people in methods that encourages that. Okay, I've got these three methods. I don't know that one. I'll learn about that one. How can I change things? And I mean, that's what you know. I mean, I do a lot of cooking. I love cooking, right? Finding a new ingredient in Waitrose is a joy because you start to think about what I can do with it. I bought half a coat half a goat last week. Because I know that we'll get Sorry, I'm going back to my childhood here Connor I know after bloody well soak it in milk for three days before it's edible, but yeah, it's
it's an awful
loss.
Oh actually, but you're not just up the road from a free, there is a massive goat farm which is selling good products so you can buy off the
mountain.
Now inside the mountain, it's actually on the flat, but they actually have grass fed goats and grass fed goat threadable. And the milk from grass fed goats is better than cow's milk. You don't want this milk from goats, which have been on scrub around the back of the yard or on peat bogs because I had that when I was a kid. And that's not much fun.
The whole complexity thing, I'm involved with regenerative farming, which is a new way of if you're farming, but it's was superseded by the conventional farming. And your point there about engineering. The conventional trials and experimentation is rejecting this idea we work on Save Micronesia bacteria, how do you work the soil? And it's like your stuff or complexity when I first got diagnosed during the masters, and that's what the customer saw, but what you were doing, I said yeah, that's the way the world works. And that was not the way that we had been taught farming. A how to do just follow the follow up action.
And I think I'm coming back to that. So I mean, sorry. I mean, my my grandfather was a gamekeeper. My grandfather was great. grandfather's gamekeeper, my grandfather was a farmer. My father was a vet. You know, I grew up in this environment. And there were several things which are worth looking at Dad always objected strongly to homogenization and pasteurisation of milk. Bz said it actually destroys the things which are valuable for you in health terms in milk. And it means you don't know the thing is off. Because if you have unpasteurized milk, provided you've got tuberculosis and brucellosis free herds, which we have these days. Yet, you're actually the health benefits of raw milk are huge. Yeah, and you actually find people who are lactose intolerant aren't lactose intolerant, if they have raw milk they are if they have pasteurised milk. So there's some interesting features on that. The whole thing we've been building on microphones here at the moment is the informal network in an organisation is the equivalent to the fungus roots. And if you have that the nutrients soil is rich. So you have to have less formal systems. And also you can consider constraints as a form of rewilding, you're putting back in hedgerows. So there's a big movement in the UK at the moment to restore hedgerows. They've been replanted. Right. Because to be honest, with modern agricultural equipment, you don't need the big fields anymore. Yeah, a modern combine harvester is really scary. I mean, it's all run on precise GPS. Yeah. And we're talking about drones. So you can actually afford to increase the stability of the land, so you get less solar ocean. So that balance between efficiency, and I think that's some of the things we're starting to look back and organisations you did this sort of Greenfield stuff, because it was the only way you could cope. But now we have better technology. So we can actually go back and go forwards at the same time, if you see what I mean. So we can get some of that, you know, that good old stuff back. But we got modern technology, so we can cope with it without it becoming inefficient.
Yeah, do I brothers farming as well. So our conversations, I come back to part we work and we might be 20 to 23 learn learning farming. And it's fantastic. It's the same thing. What you're doing with complexity is it couldn't have been we didn't have knowledge to understand it 30 years ago, but now does it it's coming to to understand organisations through complexity. And it's just completely different. It's it's a, it's a pleasure to look at organisations with that now. Thanks.
Yeah.
Interesting as a side question coming in on board the maps, right. And I think this illustrates some of the difference. I mean, I spend a lot of time with Simon anyway. And wardley maps are classic analytical approaches. They require deep analysis to draw the maps and then they form executives. Were trying to get to a language of mapping which doesn't require that level of analysis. Alright, so this this fits in with the sense making framework has To be drawn on the back of a table napkin from memory. Yeah, because then I can use it to make sense of the world. Yeah. So when we're talking about mapping, we're talking about that level. Yeah. And we're also talking about something which can actually have multiple inputs and be continuously dynamic. Now there is a conversation, I'm having an assignment about using a set you as using sense maker to actually dynamically reconfigure a wardley. map? Yeah. So I think there are related fields here. And that discussion I'll be having on Friday again. So we can look around on that. All right. I think the danger is, I'll make this a general point. There's nothing wrong with analysis. The danger is, having worked with a couple of national security advisors, is dangerous analysts start to create a behaviour in which they tell people in power what they want to hear.
Yeah.
Because the whole mechanism is, is the, the analysts who tell people in power, what they want to hear are the people who actually get invited to the table for consultation. And that is a universal phenomenon. It just inevitably happens. Right? So we're trying to create process, which is which avoid that. Yeah. So there's still a role for the analyst on it. But if the analyst is giving you a constraint map, yeah, then you decide what to do if the analyst is saying you can only do this, that that can be more of a problem. Yeah.
Since the one equation, the thing about maps is, is that you shouldn't do that with an analyst, it should be done with the people that make the decisions. So it's their map, not your map.
Yeah, by that, but I've yet to see a wardley map, which didn't have deep analysis in it. And I've seen Simon produce them, Simon really gets it. And the reason I really like Simon's maps, is the work he puts into create them. So they're accurate. I think they have a problem if they're produced through social construction, because of the things which will be missed. So my view is a strength of wardley mapping is actually that it is an analytical tool, and it produces something of huge value. But it requires deep analysis to do it. Yeah. I don't think it can be used in social construction. That's where we, for example, develop factious curves. Because I can draw fractures curves, literally on a board without any training, I can get it really fast. And executives don't have the time to do that sort of detail. They don't need, you know, once you get to sea level, you're not you get to three minutes to make a decision. Now, you got five experts in the room, they all know this stuff backwards. They've been working on it all their lives. You literally if you're lucky, you get three to four minutes to make a call. Yeah. And yeah, sensemaking needs to reflect that.
The interesting element of maps as well, which is not analytical, I think, is movement. Because movement is very subjective. As well, I
think out of all the maps is it tells you what movements, what options you've got for movements. I think that's what I like about it. So it says, You know, I can move it down here, you know, I get to the commoditization stage, I can do these sort of things. Yeah. But you're right. I mean, all maps are about movement, all maps, and no, maps are static. Yeah.
I think the point is, is creating the context where the overlay the constraints become an overlay to understand how do we maintain this the status quo, the context like a flow? Okay.
You can help me persuade Simon to start with a constraint map before he jumps in toward the map, because I'm trying to persuade him to do that. Right. Rob, when you've had your hand up for a long time, I've just noticed this.
Yeah, I was wondering if we can, or we should add the information that in the map, that some part or some some constraints are highly unpredictable, could we add, if we identify that something is highly chaotic? Should we add it on the map? It's part of the technology or I think it's part of the topology. So for example, if you have a rigid constraint,
it's not volatile, but if it breaks, it will be catastrophic. So you know, non volatility doesn't mean that you don't have a problem. Yeah. Volatility may actually give you higher resilience, so that that sort of needs to be built into the topology. So this is a salt marsh example a salt marsh is constantly switching and changing it's not stable. Yet as as as a salt marsh but it stabilises the ecosystem around it. Yeah, because it is high resilience where if you had a dike, yet you'd have a very fertile field until the day the dike broke. And then it would be inundated with salt. And you'd have a flood. Right? So I think, yeah, that that sort of thing needs to be in the topology. And I think then you're also effectively giving danger flags. So, you know, for example, I'm walking the Southwest coastal path at the moment. And I'm now on the south coast, which is all British naval history. So there are loads of military areas. And there are lots of areas with big red flags fly. Yeah, and if the red flag is flying, you don't go in because there's a good chance somebody will shoot you. Yeah. And yeah, even if the red flags aren't flying, you keep on the bloody path, because you don't know what's lying around on either side of you to explode. Right. So I think there's sort of here the danger thing is, is the other aspect, right. And I think the commentary is one of the things on complacency. Yeah. Is the danger with creating rigid structures is it induces complacency too quickly. So if you actually manage through fluid constraints, yet the constraints themselves are constant, constantly mutating and changing. Whereas if you have rigid boundaries, you haven't got much change. So the danger of become complacency goes up. Yeah. Okay, it's on the hour, guys. All right. This will be recorded and put in it. There'll be a similar discussion, either later on today or tomorrow, I can't remember now, which you were then into sort of trying to assign roles and responsibilities and starting to get some stuff documented. But as I say, I think this out of all the projects we're doing is the is the most ephemeral. So I think it's going to be getting different things in place, and then then they'll start to evolve. Okay, any last points or questions anybody wants to raise? Yeah.