Distributing the decision-making, but not the authority, and doing something, that is taking action, increases the agency of those who are involved. Traditional approaches privilege the elite few and disenfranchise the rest. It helps if you can focus on how to create more stories like this and fewer like that.

Action-based over Language-based change

This supports a needed shift to action-based change from one that is language-based change.

Agents are able to go in their own direction, but the system as a whole converges at a high-level. What happens is the fractal patterns converge in a common direction.

The narratives element of the naturalising sense-making approach asks the question ‘How do we create more stories like this, less like that.’ In saying ‘more like this’ or ‘less like that’ this refers to a grouping or cluster of stories not individual stories.

Consider the clusters of a landscape and ask questions:

• Coherent homogeneity - Are we different but in a coherent way?


• Incoherent homogeneity - Are we all the same, dangerously so?


• Coherent heterogeneity - How much heterogeneity is needed to be resilient in the current context? To be coherent, are the different clusters overlapping? Understand at a

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If we want to manage complex environments, we need to stop talking about how things should be in the distant future, and start changing things in the here and now. Move from lofty long term goals to mapping where you’re at and making small changes and monitoring what’s happening. Here is a brief explainer on vector theory of change.