“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.” – Blaise Pascal

Cynefin tries to establish what they are and understand what it takes to move between domains - something which has historically been called Cynefin dynamics.

There is a historical Chinese legend dating back to 2000 BC, depicting two lords who spent their lives attempting to tame the waters of the Yellow River. Archaeological evidence indicates that during this time, floods plagued the Chinese heartland through which the Yellow River runs. Floods prevented economic and social development. (2) At the

You can better see now that the typical (and usually linear) problem-solving orientation that dominates many workshops and projects is not helpful in complex socio-technical systems. In ordered contexts, we are dealing with solvable problems; in complex ones, we are dealing with emergent and entangled patterns. Cynefin methods propel us to see and

Constraint In plain English, a constraint is often thought of as a limitation or restriction. However, in the Cynefin use of the term, a constraint refers to how we contain, couple, and link things. A constraint can therefore also be enabling, as much as limiting.

Military contexts, perhaps because they have long struggled with the need for distributed authority and responsiveness, abound with examples of heuristics. Napoleon, for example, told his armies to ‘march to the sound of the guns’ instead of waiting for orders. Another example: when the battle plan falls apart – capture the high ground, stay in

At its most basic, Cynefin allows us to distinguish between three different kinds of systems: ordered systems that are governed and constrained in such a way that cause and effect relationships are either clear or discoverable through analysis; complex systems where causal relationships are entangled and dynamic and the only way to understand the

When we find ourselves in the in-between spaces, the liminal space, our task is to be mindful of suspending judgment, keeping our options open and enabling action that allows novelty to emerge and patterns to stabilize.

Klein et al., 2006 (1) define it as “Sensemaking is a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively.” Whereas, Maitlis and Christianson, 2014 (2) define it as a process through which individuals or groups work to gain insight into