The discussion distinguishes between complicated and complex systems, emphasizing that true change in complex systems arises not from direct intervention or fixing parts, but from altering the interactions and environment to foster emergent, adaptive behaviors.
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So, thank you so much Dave and Nora for
coming to Helsinki and for being here
with us today. Very briefly, we have um
a a group here of people interested in
change and uh we all know uh slightly on
a generic level that we face complex
challenges and we live in complex you
know context but could you open up to us
a bit what is
complexity? How does complexity relate
to complicated?
And how do we how should we think of
this? Dave, go ahead.
Okay, I've been delegated.
Okay, there's a very simple way. First
of all, it's important to realize that
complexity is a science. It's not a way
of thinking. And it's also important to
realize that complexity is not a subset
of systems thinking. It has different
origins, different backgrounds, and
limited intersections. Yeah. Um, the
best way I've learned to understand it
two ways. One is to look at the origin
of the word complicated and complex. So
complicated comes from a Latin root word
which means to be folded. And something
which can be folded can be unfolded. It
doesn't change.
Whereas complex comes from a Greek word
root word which means to be entangled
and something which is entangled cannot
be unentangled and tangled the same way.
Which means any system which is complex
has a high degree of path dependency.
what has come before influence what is
and what is next. That's one factor. The
other factor I think is in a complex
systems approach to change, you don't
focus on individual change.
That's really bad science.
You can't change a system by changing
the individuals in the system. There are
simply too many of them and it's too big
a task. But you can change the way in
which they interact.
And some of the work we're doing on
peace and reconciliation at the moment,
which I'm moving on to in Berlin next
week and Washington the week after, by
way of Oxford, is to bring young people
together from opposite sides of the
political spectrum to work in very small
groups on problems which they agree they
have in common and not talk about their differences
differences
because there are some fundamental
principles to managing complex systems.
One is the principle of oblquity. In
fact, there's a really good book written
with that title. And anybody with
teenage children knows this already. You
don't tackle complex problems directly.
You tackle them indirectly.
And that also links in with another key
concept is people have to have the right
to interpret their own experience and
find their own solutions. It is not the
role of middle class comfortable change
agents to tell them how they should be.
And there's far too much of that. Yeah.
So it's called epistemic justice in the
literature. It's giving people the right
to work out solutions for themselves in
their own time. And we first did this in
Northern Ireland in the 70s instead of
bringing people into a big hall and
getting everybody to talk about how they
should really like each other.
Facilitators love that sort of thing
because they feel good about themselves
afterwards. But it makes bug roll difference.
difference.
uh we took small groups of Catholics and
Protestants and dumped them it in the
slums of Rio de Janeiro for 6 months and
we didn't talk about their differences
and they found out pretty fast that they
had more in common than they realized
and they had a conversation about their
differences when they were ready to have
it in their own language at their own
time without facilitation.
And probably the most important thing
about a complex system change is you
have to change the dispositions of the
system. so that good things are more
likely to happen rather than trying to
decide how the system should be. Yeah,
you change the ecosystem in which you're
working rather than deciding what the
output is. And that by the way was the
major error of systems thinking. It
thought you could define everything as
an engineering model. And you remember
it all came from engineering with the
honorable exception of your father.
Yeah. And it was kind of like we set the
objectives, we close the gap. Yeah.
Complexity takes another approach and
the easiest way to remember this and
I'll finish with this point. We called
it the Frozen 2 strategy. So, has
everybody seen Frozen 2 yet?
Right. It is a great complexity movie.
You don't need children or grandchildren
to watch it? Professor Snowden said you
should watch it. All right, that's your
excuse. In the middle of that movie, um
the real heroine of the Frozen series,
who's the younger sister without the
magic, Yeah. sings a beautiful song
subsequently made famous by a Ukrainian
refugee. All I can do is do the next
right thing.
Right? And that in complexity is called
the adjacent possible. Going back to
Stuart Calfman. So all I can do in the
face of uncertainty is understand where
the hell I am. Stop talking about the
future. Talk about where you are and
identify where people can go next.
Encourage them to go there and then look again.
again.
Yep. I agree.
Oh, come on.
That was easy. I think um you know for
me I I grew up in a household where my
father um
Gregory Bateson was one of the people
who actually
helped to bring cybernetics um and then
that that became systems theory u
related to complexity theory into the world.
world.
And uh there was a major difference
though. Imagine my surprise
when after growing up in a household in
which this idea of a system was not
something that was organized and
engineered and diagrammable.
A system was something juicy. It was
something messy. It was something alive.
and and that juiciness, that messiness,
I think, is what's really important. Um,
so, you know, when you think about do
the next right thing, do the next thing
that's the best thing to do. Um,
allowing people to be in communication
and not making direct correctives. In in
these cases, what we're looking at
is something that's a little bit untamed.
untamed.
that there is a way in which people can
be in communication that is not directed
that allows for the next best thing to
happen. There's a way in which when
we're working with actually with complex systems
systems
they will actually
with a shift in disposition the shift
will come. But this is a very different
way of coming at a very different
approach than to think about here's what
we want the change we want to see and
now let's make it happen. Um that
approach gets you in trouble. So I guess
I mean I'm just coming from a a session
in Singapore where we had um a group of
people who were from you know all the
big wars right now from from Russia and
Ukraine from um Islamic communities and
Jewish communities and
we did not talk about that thing.
We talked about a whole lot of other
aspects of life and let them find each
other and when they start to find each
other they make relationship and when
they make relationship then they can
make all sorts of things happen.
Um the mistake is to start right in the
middle of the conflict and try to fix it
from there.
Complicated. So sometimes you know
people talk about complicated is like a
rocket ship and complex is raising children
something like that.
Yeah. Paul Killas said it's an airplane
in a mayonnaise. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
There you go.
You both talk about perceiving complexity.
complexity.
What do you mean?
Okay. So I'm a materialist, right? I
mean there's there's a whole
philosophical movement called new
materialism which is worth people
looking into right because it also
recognizes that narrative structures in
human systems actually have material reality
reality
and if you don't know it we now know
from epigenetics that culture inherits.
We know the biological mechanisms by
which culture inherits and narrative
plays an important key point in that. So
we're very much entrained by the
patterns of the narrative in the society
and the groups we grow up in and those
narratives have material reality. So I
think it's really important to realize
that reality exists and you've got to
live with it. Yeah. And we always talk
about there's ontology how things are,
there's epistemology, how we know
things, and there's phenomenology how we
perceive things. And you need to keep
them rubbing against each other
constantly because they can never be
perfectly aligned. But you've got to
recognize that reality is part of the
equation. That's why we take a a natural
science approach. So to take an
illustration, let's come back to the
individual. Human beings are defined by
their interactions.
About five or 10% of your decisions are
made by your brain. Most are made by
your body or by your social environment.
It's why most of us dislike phrases like
mental models or mindsets because
they're really bad concepts.
Yeah. They're framing human beings in
the context of computers. And that's
where that language comes from. Right.
So if you want to change human beings,
you've got to change that social context
in which they operate. Yeah. In order
for things to change. And that's also
ethical. It's not ethical to try and
change somebody's mindset. It's
perfectly ethical to change their interactions.
interactions.
And I think the ethics of this is
important. We move on to that. And
picking up a point from Nora, we talk
about messy coherence.
And coherence is a really important word
in philosophy of science at the moment
because it basically says that we know
that evolutionary theory, for example,
is probably wrong.
But what we now have in the theory is
coherent to the facts as we know them.
So you know, if you go back 20 years,
epigenetics wasn't known. Now we now
know it, everything changes. On contrast
with that, young earth creationism is incoherent.
incoherent.
There's no point in pursuing that
pathway. It's just ridiculous. Although
it's quite scary. Um, if you don't know
it, twothirds of the chief knowledge
officers of American government
departments are young earth
creationists. I find that really, really
depressing. Yeah. If you look at their
title, right? So one of the key things
and I think this is a key thing for
change agents. There's a tendency in
change people to say everybody's views
are equally valid. Well, sorry they're not.
not.
Yeah. Some views are reprehensible.
Yeah. And some views are actually based
on really bad science. So eliminating
incoherent pathways is actually quite
important because it allows us to focus.
And you know the fancy academic word for
messy coherence is coherent heterogeneity.
heterogeneity.
And I'll make this point because it's a
really important point. Um, I'm Welsh.
All right. Um,
I'll just do a sidebar. You can come
back to this later. I first got into
complexity when I was doing an
ontological synthesis of Catholicism,
Hinduism, and Marxism. Uh, which got me
summarized for heresy. So, there are
some interesting pasts in this
background. All right. Um, but
retrospective coherence. The other thing
about being Welsh is rugby is a is a is
a religious matter. It's not a support.
It's a religious matter. And I'm in a
depressed state at the moment. All
right. Eight losing bonus points is not
where I expected to be at this stage of
the season. And I support Cardiff rugby.
We play at the Arms Park. We play in
Bloom Black. We're very civilized rugby
players. Yeah. If we get a yellow card,
it's because the other side bribe the
referee. We never cheat.
Yeah. We're very civilized spectators.
We cheer the other side if they do well.
Yeah. It's a civilized place to go
Cardiff if it's a capital city. Then
there are those bastards down the road
in Clinley.
We call them Turks because in the 19th
century they hijacked the Turkish ship
and we never ever will let them forget
it. Yeah, they definitely bribe
referees. It's the only reason why we
got that red card last time we played
them. They're filthy and the spectators
are partisan.
But when the English arrive, we're Welsh.
Welsh.
Now that's called coherent
heterogeneity. It's something change
agents need to understand because they
tend to homogenize.
Let's get everybody together with people
who think like us and reinforce our
belief systems. Homogeneous systems do
not evolve.
Heterogeneous systems do. So it's the
ability to be different in some contexts
and the same in other contexts which is
I think with my work where I'm working
with perception of complexity is um
first of all recognizing that there are
deep and old habits
um that are informed by mechanistic success
success
and industrialized
familiar language usage,
uh, ways of thinking about how you get a
thing done, ways of thinking about how a
family is structured, and and looking at
how these models of of industrialism
have actually, and I'm going to use this
word, infected
um our health system, our education
system, system, our understanding of
things like statistics,
uh the way that we think about
psychology. I mean, all these things
have roots that go way back
into a notion um that ties into what we
were talking about just a moment ago of
fixing the parts
and looking at if you could just fix the
parts, you would get a better hole.
And so I guess the perception of
complexity is that way in which I might
look at you or I might look at a a
forest and instead of saying oh look at
that tree or oh look at that person I'm
actually able to begin to perceive that
that tree is not just a tree.
That tree is the culmination and the
ongoing entangling of the living
processes of hundreds of thousands of organisms
organisms
as are you.
And so if I can perceive
in any small way the people, the
families, the communities, the societies
around me, not as entities in and of
themselves that are closed,
but recognizing all the relationships
that it's taken for this system to
become the way it is becoming. that then
when I am in relationship to it when I'm
in communication with
you or a tree or a family that that
communication will come from a different
place it will be guided from a different
approach. Um so for me that's really
important. I I developed this concept of
samaththesy which is a word that no one
can say but um the the sim means
together and the matsy means learning
and this idea that we're in this
learning together.
So that when you come to a crooked tree
in the woods,
instead of saying that tree is crooked,
let's fix it. What do we need to do to
fix that tree? That instead you might
ask, how is that tree learning to be in
its world?
And if you ask that question, you start
to look in a different way. Right? Then
that crooked tree, you can see that
crooked tree is reaching into the light
over here because there's shadows over
here or that the tree is leaning this
way because there's a wind or that there
are insects over here or that there are,
you know, more nutrients in the soil on
this side.
And when you look at at a living system
in the way that is forming and informing
into its world, it with that sort of a
question, the way that you can respond
to it is totally different. If I come in
saying, "What's wrong with this kid? We
need to fix this kid. What's wrong with
this family?" me
that approach is going to lead me to a
whole list of direct correctives
that do not shift the interactions.
Okay, so that's the thing. If you can
perceive the complexity, then the way
you come in will be in that question
more of how do we how do we allow these
interactions to shift?
It's interesting. is one of the dirty
old habits which if I want to get
technical are called assembages all
right but dirty old habits
is a much better name um is actually
what's called fundamental attribution
error is we assume there is a reason for everything
everything
and there isn't
in a complex system there is no material
linear causality
so you have to recognize that the
dispositional state influences the way
things develop and there are three
really interesting models we're
currently looking at from nature one is
looking at the way that fungal roots
connect tree roots
and it's a symbiotic relationship. The
fungal roots are isomic. They're
entangled. The tree roots go in in
straight lines in effect. Now what's
interesting is the fungal roots will
redistribute resources to younger trees
in a drought condition in a forest.
Now if you look in organizations
informal networks do the same sort of
thing. Having recognized this, a large
part of our work is to create dense
informal networks
in order to connect people across silos.
You don't force people to connect. You
create informal networks. The other
one's there's a lovely exercise you can
do which is tell everybody in a room you
need a bigger room than this with a flat
four. Get everybody to identify their
worst enemy and their best friend.
Uh before you do this, say don't look at
anybody or say anything and tell them
they can choose people at random, but
they never do. So video it and study it
afterwards. It can teach you a lot. All
right? And then tell everybody to
protect to actually make sure their best
friend is between them and their enemy.
And the group dissipates over the room
within seconds. Change the rule so that
they have to protect their best friend
from their enemy. and the group clumps
into the rule clumps in the second
that comes from antelopee behavior. So
what happens with antelopee if they see
a predator each antelope identifies
another antelope and places themselves
between that antelopee and the predator
and that's what keeps the herd together.
A really simple heruristic but that
actually means the system can align and
go into new territory without having to
have a purpose northstar or a direction.
And one of the big switches we're
working on at the moment is switching
from purpose to alignment. Yeah.
Yeah.
Because alignment gives you
adaptability. And the other really
interesting one is the waggle dance of
bees. Now this is famous example. So if
bees are seeking a new you know that the
drones get fed up with the old queen,
they hatch out a new queen. They end up
with a swarm hanging from a branch.
Individual bees go out and try and find
a good place to stay and then they come
back and they dance on the swarm. They
literally do a figure of eight dance
which indicates where the new hive
should be. And there are bees which
actually deliberately disrupt some of
the dances. The negative disruption is
key to the system. And after a short
period of time, the entire hive, you
know, the entire swarm goes to a
location. If anybody wants the research
on this, it's fascinating. They always
go to the best location they could have found.
found.
Yeah. Because you got multiple micro
interactions. Now we're now looking at
that in decision making because if you
can move into largebased network solutions,
solutions,
you can create novelty in a way that you
can't go create with individual
direction. So again, it comes back to
something both Norah and I have said
both on this occasion and before. It's
all aboutworked intelligence.
It's all about diversity
and I mean there's some other things we
could go into but it's fundamentally
it's about interactions at scale
right and if we're going to solve the
problems we face in the world at the
moment we got to do things at scale not
in small groups of people and that's
something which change makers if I'm
honest are not really focused on we got
to find ways to get that focus rearranged
I'm thinking also about where that
perception sits. So,
um, one of the stories that I use in my
warm data courses is the story of the
the moose and the rattlesnake.
And um, I'm I'm a California kid. I grew
up running up and down the mountains of
Northern California. And if you live
like that, you have to learn to see a
rattlesnake because there's rattlesnakes
on the path. And so when I was very
young, I learned to spot rattlesnakes.
And if you and I went for a walk in the
woods and we came to a rattlesnake, I
would probably see it.
And and
I wouldn't. I can tell you that from
personal experience.
So, so they camouflage, you know,
they're the diamonds on their back may
look very symmetrical when you see the
rattlesnake in the zoo, but when it's
actually on the path, the it it it
mimics the way the light comes in and
the the formation of the uh particular
rocks that are in California and so on.
So, you probably wouldn't see it. Now,
not seeing a rattlesnake can be a
problem because they sunbathe right
across a path. Okay,
if you step on it, you could get bitten.
Now, that's nice. But when I moved to Sweden,
Sweden,
that piece of wisdom and knowledge
didn't do me much good because in Sweden
there's no rattlesnakes, but there are moose.
moose.
And you would think that I would be able
to see a moose.
It's a big thing.
But I can't see the moose. And my
husband's like, "Nora, there's a moose.
Watch out. Don't hit the moose." And I'm
like, "What moose? What moose? What
moose? That moose?" He says, which
fortunately I didn't hit. So what's
happening there?
Well, one of the things that's happening
there is that it's not actually the
rattlesnake that I'm seeing.
What I'm actually perceiving is the
differences and the nuances in the
California forest. I know those differences,
differences,
but because I haven't been in Sweden so
very long, when the when the moose
stands at the edge of the forest, I
can't actually figure out the difference
between its horns and the forest because
I'm not I don't know the forest. The key
thing here, the word that I want you to
So I'm not perceiving those relational
properties characteristics that would
highlight that difference that is the moose.
moose.
You see it's the conditions
because I think this is probably one of
the most important points. So human
beings evolve to only engage active
cognitive thought if there's an anomaly.
Right? This is Clark's work and Seth's
work and other people. So fundamentally
the way we make decisions is we're
constantly creating micro hallucinations
and they are hallucinations
right from our own experience the
experience of others that we hear
through stories and from pure
imagination. Yeah, I'm actually really
good at this. This is the abductive
stuff that you and I both work on. Um
and those are constantly interacting
with signals. Now this is not a linear
process. We're not an intelligent
camera. This is nonlinear. And as those
signals interact with the
hallucinations, stable patterns form and
we go with the stable pattern. That's
how we make decisions. We're not
rational beings. You can't just if this
nonsense idea that if you just educated
people properly and gave them the right
information, they would might make the
right decisions is one of the most
dangerous illusions that change makers
have. Right? It's not the way we make
decisions. If you want people to change,
you've got to create anomalies.
You know, if you're walking down the
street, and I came out of the hotel this
morning, I started to walk down the
street. I wasn't paying attention. I
fell over. I had to go back into the
hotel and change. I then paid a lot of
attention to walking. So when you get an
anomaly, you think differently.
And the key thing if you want, you've
got to create these contrast. So for
example, one of the things we do is
we'll gather stories from a very large
population. Remember I talked about scale
scale
and then we'll show people how different
groups of people interpreted the same
story. At no stage are we saying you
should think like this. We're saying
well you saw it like this and you saw it
like that. What do you think it means?
What you're doing is you're creating
anomalies across boundaries which people
have to take account of. Yeah. They
can't just dismiss it. Yeah. So I think
that the concept of anomaly or
differences that's really important to
the way human beings make decisions
particularly if you want them to change.
Most of the time we're really
conservative. You know whatever is
working we just go with we we don't
bother checking it.
It's really important to the way we
think about information.
Um, and I think when we look at these
kind of slight differences or even
larger comparisons or contrasts, um, say
between the moose's horns and the the
tree line, um,
th those differences are relational.
That is relational information.
Um just as the rattlesnakes, the
difference between the way the
rattlesnakes camouflage, it's ever so slight.
slight.
Um but in that difference is a
relationship between the snake and the
the stones, between the moose and the
forest. Um so what we're talking about
when we're talking about perception of
complexity I think is actually um we're
looking at relational information
and this is not the kind of information
we've been trained to seek out. Um,
we've been trained to seek out
information in bits and blobs and and
bits and blobs are nice,
but they're better when they're next to
each other and you can start when you're
talking about the stories that are not
the same. It's one thing to say this
group of people had this story and this
group of people had that story. And if
you happen to be a participant looking
at both of those, what are you thinking?
Well, you're thinking, "Huh, there's
possibility for a lot of stories here,
which is actually the message, isn't
it?" Right? It's not that this person's
these guys are right and these guys are
wrong. It's the possibility of
recognizing, oh, there's a multiplicity
of of
Again, I think stories.
Yeah, it's really important. This is a
sort of messiness that we're talking
about. One of the really strong
tendencies in western thinking and this
goes back to before Augustine is
manachanian thinking. Yeah. It's the
creation of dichotoies. There is this
thing which is good. There is this thing
which is bad. Yeah. And it's actually
it's a very dominant thinking. And the
famous thing we say in theology is that
Paul took the worst of Christ, Augustine
took the worst of Paul and Calvin took
the worst of Augustine. Right? Sorry if
you're into theology you'll understand
that. Right? Um but fundamentally the
danger is we like to say there are good
things and there are bad things. Yeah.
Yeah. That's mastery which we've
disagreed on before. Right. I I don't
buy that concept because the world is
far more fragmented and far more interconnected
interconnected
than talking about two things in
contrast with each other will ever
explain. But it's a really strong
tendency in western thinking that we
need to avoid. And you can see this in
change agents. You know we're together.
We know that we need to change the
planet. We know ecology is a disaster.
Why won't those idiots listen to us?
Let's just tell them it's harder. Well,
sorry. That isn't going to work. You're
not going to get people to actually make
the dispositional change which will
allow politicians to make the long-term
decisions they've got to make for the
planet until they see local threat and
local issues. That's one of the areas
we're working on at the moment. How can
we create stories about small local
things that make people aware of climate
change? Because if we get that to a
critical mass, that will change the
state and politicians can then make the
bigger decision. Yeah. And that's a
different approach to change. Change the
environment so that good things are more
likely happen. Stop trying to decide
what the good things are in advance.
Wonderful. Thank you.
Hold on. Yes.
Yes.
I just want to go back to this for a
second because I think it's really
important. It came up this morning in
our warm data lab. Um, but
but
one of the reasons that I think we're
all in this room here today is that
there is a
really high degree of polar polarization
and divisiveness that has infiltrated
into our communities. It's infiltrated
into our families.
even at this point. Um, and
one of the ways that you generate
polarization and divisiveness is by
removing context, by removing the complexity.
complexity.
So, this this when we're talking about
getting people together to tell stories
that aren't the stories of the thing
they're in conflict on, what we're
actually doing is generating complexity.
And and this is it may not seem like it,
but when when you tell a story from your
life, when you look at any moment in
your life, what you're going to be doing
is bringing a lot of things in. Any
story is going to be your economics,
your culture, your family, your history,
your technology, your politics. I mean,
any story. How you got here today
includes all of that stuff.
So when people are in storytelling modalities,
modalities,
they are in complexity. They are
speaking into the ecology, the livingness,
livingness,
which is something completely different
than when you take that away and they
begin to fight about abstractions.
Homarans, Homol Ludens, and Homman um
hang on, narans, Ludens, and Faber.
not homo sapiens, right?
right?
Yeah. We're toolmakers. We're jokers.
We're storytellers.
And if you start to think about those
three, we need to create tools which
allow people to bring themselves
together in ways that they find
coherent. We need more humor in society
than we've got at the moment. Life has
become deadly serious and that goes with
manarchy and thinking. Yeah. And above
all, we need to understand these micro
stories because they're the fundamental
patterning of human sensem.
And they are the complexity. Yeah.
Yeah.
That that's the thing that I think we
can lose because you could you could
think, oh wow, you know, we're going to
in order to get this complexity, what we
need is a super big spreadsheet.
Oh Jesus.
Right. And if you have a super big
spreadsheet, if I could just get all the
data in there, then I could make the
proper computations. Wrong.
Because that, see, that's just it.
That's not where it lives.
Okay? This idea that if you get lots and
lots of information that you're going to
get the complexity does not take into
account that it's not in the data, it's
in the relationship between them. Your
story is going to hold only relational information.
information.
Thank you so much. Uh do we have time
for questions?
Yes. Uh then we can uh open up for a few
questions. There is one straight away.
Please when is the the microphone is is
coming. Thank you so much. Uh David,
Nora. And
are we done already? No, we have we have
a few minutes.
We're in the normal microphone handing out.
out.
Sorry to
Hi, thanks for really fascinating talk.
Um, I was just wondering actually so
many questions so I'm going to try and
combine two into a single question. Um
so uh the idea of adjacent possible and
sort of doing the next right thing and I
was just wondering that in a context
where and and maybe possible solution to
this apparent conflict in a context where
where
we take it as a given that one cares
about the holistic wellness of a given
system. How do we avoid uh certain kind
of dysfunctions like um overoptimizing
locally uh and multipolar traps? Does it
require that those who are taking these
next actions are somehow aware of the
holistic picture or how how do we bridge
that gap so that local interactions
You could go first.
Okay. Um, first of all, I would ban the
word holistic.
It is a really dangerous word.
If you look at the preconditions for
emergence, you require lots of what are
called actants which are things which
agents in the system. You need rich
interactions and none of the agents must
have knowledge of the whole.
Right? The minute you start to say I
understand the whole or we need to think
holistically, you actually are making a
major mistake because you can't. And
then you start to assert power about
that world view you have and you don't
tolerate views which actually contradict
it. So I'm I'm dubious about the
holistic word. Yeah. If you want to look
at some of the work we're doing there,
we're currently working with distributed
resource allocation.
So if you look in the theoretical
biology, it's also dumbar but
theoretical biology is a better base.
There's a natural group of five people
which is a number of active decision
makers as an extended family.
So in groups of five or less we'll compromise.
compromise.
Once you go above five we fall into our
tribes. So we're now working in the
development sector on how do you allocate
allocate
$500 $100 amounts
because you know that will make a big
difference and you can afford more
failure whereas actually the big banks
can only allocate 50 million. Now I've
spent a lot of time with Muhammad Yianis
on this in the development. This is
Gramming Bank stage three. Right. What
we're now saying is if you can assemble
four roles.
Yeah. Which for example, one of the ones
we're working on is village priest, head
person, youngest girl in the school,
oldest teacher in the school together
with a fifth agent who's completely
anonymous who works for the bank. So you
don't know who they are. You can spend $100.
$100.
Provide you record why and what. And
then we can see what's working.
Yeah. And the rest of the money can
follow what actually works rather than
people who are good at applying for
grants. Now, we're really excited by
this. That's what I'm going on to work
on in Germany next week because it
allows you to allocate small amounts of
money to highly projects which bring
together people who would normally
disagree with each other so that you
create empathy between them. And that's
an example of working at scale.
Yeah. You don't talk about the problem,
you change the interactions at scale and
the anonymity means you've got auditability.
auditability.
If you haven't got auditability, grant
givers won't give everything. So, it's a
more effective technique as well. Now,
that's the adjacent possible. You're
saying where people are at the moment is
they know there's this problem. You
can't take them to anybody can spend
whatever money. So, you move them to the
adjacent possible. Well, if people can
assemble these groups and one of them is
one of your agents who can decide
whether it's okay or not. That's a safe
adjacent possible, you can shift them
there, then you can shift them. Again,
we have time for one short maybe we take one
one
one more okay
more question. If there is um
if not then uh you want to comment very
briefly and then if you would.
Yeah, I was just going to say that I
think the way that that I would respond
to that is very similar but totally
different. um that there's
a a question of where that possible is sitting
sitting
and the the danger I think is what
you're pointing to which is that the
habituated way of thinking you're
sitting on a board of directors and
something comes up and everybody's used
to aligning toward a particular notion
of practicality a particular notion of logical
logical
um and and actually authorizable
behavior. Now the problem is that the
logical practical authorizable behavior
is the behavior and the the the the form
of actions that has kept us in the
systems that are perpetuating the the
systemic problems. So this is this is an
issue right of how do you get a like a
board of directors out of the box? Um
and so what I have found in that space
is that it's necessary to um begin to
look at lots of other contexts. So this
is what the warm data lab is all about
is actually looking at a question that
is not the question you think you're
asking and to look at it from lots of
contextual places and start to generate
stories. Now what I see happening is
that there is a this this is sort of
something like a compost pile and it
makes it fertilizes possibilities
that are completely out of the
perception of the the group to begin
with. They are not even remotely
perceived on topic. So that's the sort
of place where we are generating that.
Yeah. And I think I mean Norah and I
have crosschanged our staff between the
two methods. There's there's a lot of
interesting synthesis there. I think one
point if you really want to be a change
agent, go and study retroviruses.
Retroviruses are really interesting.
They corrupt the DNA of the host.
And that's what you've got to do. So if
you're working in a large organization
with corporate politics, you're not
going to get overcome that by telling
them they're wrong. So they're all
focused on outcomebased targets. I'm
telling them that they're right.
Yeah. Well, that's even worse. I'm just
I'm taking it granted.
You can't tell them that either.
I I don't think I've ever told anybody
they were right. It's against my principles.
principles.
But not surprising.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um some of them are
kept closer to the truth than others.
All right. And and when we first met, we
agreed we disliked all the same people. Yes.
Yes.
And that was the bonding moment. All
right. So
then we knew we were friends.
Yeah. When we got to Meg Weekly, we knew
we were there. All right. So that was
the way it worked. But um one thing she
to say for executive for example is
outcomebased targets produce perverse incentives.
incentives.
Everybody executive knows that at the
moment they just don't know alternatives.
alternatives.
So you say why don't we introduce
vector-based targets when it's complex
because vectors measure speed and
direction of travel for energy use. So
you don't say abandon targets. You say
well maybe we should use this type of
target here and that type of target
there. So that's the adjacent possible
concept. You you've got to start with
where people are if you want to change
them. You've got to stop telling people
where you think they should be. Right?
And that's where the adjacent possible
comes in. And that's one of the things
we do. Nor does it in warm data labs. We
do it with Sensemaker software. We map
where the adjacent possibles are at a
fractal level in organizations. And then
you ask this really simple change
question. How do you create more stories
like these and fewer stories like that?
That is a whole new theory of change
because that can engage anybody
regardless of the level of education.
How do we create more stories like this
and fewer stories like that?
Thank you. Um Nora, would you like to we
we are coming to an end to this
discussion. Thank you. Uh would you like
to to share one of your poems uh as a final
final
uh um
final word and then uh otherwise I thank
you already now for the discussion and
do we have 50 seconds left? Is that is
that our 48 47? It's going down. All
right. I can see the
Well, I'll tell you what.
1.3 speed or
I want to do I want to actually read two
because I know it's we're out of time,
but it doesn't matter. 185. And one of
them is called kinky.
And I I think this one ties nicely into
what we've been saying.
And then I want to read you another one
that kind of comes back to like why why
When you see the clarity of a future horizon,
horizon,
turn quietly into the thick bush.
The more elegant response is the one
that wiggles,
slipping from grasping anxiety, avoiding
clean edges.
Time brings away through the impossible.
But it oozes slimy, entranced by the
twisty, sticky, unwieldy bits, the
tangents, the detours,
the curly pockets of crud and life. The
clear path is in itself a warning
trimmed and tucked by procrustian
impulses of industrial habit.
Instead, find the vital tangle of broken
lines and crags, a fest of possibility
in the festering societies of ideas decomposing.
decomposing.
Stinky belly buttons have more to offer
the scouts now than a thousand articles
of strategic analysis.
Weird dreams untidied sing the airy maps
so they will not be found by the ones
looking for management.
And numbers will mock their lovers.
Memories are rioting against reason. The
future won't fit in to the fear of
rotting. It is the green stuff itself.
The future is kinkier than we thought. [Applause]
[Applause]
So, I hope you can take that with you
because it is important to keep a sense
of humor and to keep an eye out for
those beautiful weird moments that open
the adjacent possible. And the reason is
that the stakes are high. It matters a lot.
lot.
Um, this is a piece that I uh I wrote
for my kids.
And if any of you have kids or you have
nieces or nephews or you have
godchildren or grandchildren or maybe
you once were children, you might relate
to this.
It's called mama now, but it could be
papa now or godmother now or auntie now
I wrote this for my kids
about what it's like to be a parent in
Your eyes will see the derailing of assumptions.
Your hands will hold the crumble of the
old matrix.
I do not have any authority to lean
into. I have empty pockets where parents
used to advise their children. I do not
have any maps, myths, or mother wisdom
for you.
I can fix your breakfast, but not the
culture. And when you ask how to be a
good person, I cannot lie to you.
Everything you touch in a day is in some
way bloodied.
You have been born into an edgeless violence.
violence.
But I will not judge or measure you
against a bygone metric.
I'm here too, ready to learn with you.
Unsure how to be or who to be.
I can only read fragments of your worry
as the future is a horizon of confusion.
I cannot protect you and yet it is my
only job.
Aching as I witnessed from this side of
the hourglass, other generations of
parents knew the outlines. school,
career, family and retirement.
But your life will be another shape entirely
entirely
forming in the fractures.
When you say you need a goal, I offer
you an expired ticket.
Superficial memes roll off the tongue
right into your detector.
Success in the existing system is not
going to do you much good.
Your integrity is your rage
and I will nourish it.
Your dignity is your curiosity
and I am tiny beside it.
Your courage is your pain
and I will sing to it with you.
We will riot together.
We will notice the nuance of small grace
in the day.
We will wash the grit of loss for each other.
other.
I am your mama
and your future is the story of a storm.
I am your cabin, your boots, your rrook sack.
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