Dave Snowden & Mary Boone - Bramble Bushes in a Thicket

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"In the complex environment of the current business world, leaders often will be called upon to act against their instincts. They will need to know when to share power and when to wield it alone, when to look to the wisdom of the group and when to take their own counsel. A deep understanding of context, the ability to embrace complexity and paradox, and a willingness to flexibly change leadership style will be required for leaders who want to make things happen in a time of increasing uncertainty." - Snowden and Boone

About Dave and Mary

• Dave Snowden on LinkedIn
• Mary Boone on Linkedin

Harvard Business Review Article

• A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making 

Cognitive Edge

• Cognitive Edge Website
  • Sensemaker
  • Blog

Publications by Dave Snowden

• Managing Complexity (and Chaos) in Times of Crisis. A Field Guide for Decision Makers Inspired by the Cynefin Framework 
• Cynefin - Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of Our World 
• Bramble Bushes in a Thicket

Publications by Mary Boone

• Leadership and the Computer
• Managing Interactively: Executing Business Strategy, Improving Communication, and Creating a Knowledge-Sharing Culture

Quotes From This Episode

• "Complex adaptive systems are deeply entangled. And I think that's the key metaphor for complexity. Everything is entangled with everything else...Juarrero famously said, 'it's like bramble bushes in a thicket.'"
• "It’s so clear to me now, why people struggle so much with approaches to leadership, because most of them were developed for an ordered environment...they weren’t really developed for handling the complexity and the chaos."
• "If you know anything about the natural science, you know that connections matter more than things. So the work we’re doing on leadership development is all about changing connectivity. For leaders, and we don’t talk about qualities or competencies, we put them in situations where their connections constantly change and shift."
• "Please don’t confuse complexity with systems thinking. It’s completely different."
• "The biggest mistake of the last three decades has been to define where we want to be and try and close the gap."
• "The reality is, the most an individual is, is a catalyst or a nexus point in a complex series of interactions. Good leaders learn to manage that."

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

• Derry Girls

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