Shaping the Relational Dynamics in Organisations
● Our Approach to Organisational ChallengesEvery action shifts the pattern and invites us into the next cycle of pattern-based inquiry and action. We don’t just believe this is the best way to solve complex problems in unpredictable environments, we believe it is the only way.
Building Adaptive Capacity
● An iterative adaptive process leads you to your next wise action, even in the most chaotic situations
HSD as a problem-solving approach. It uses three key questions that have the power to keep you moving forward:
What: What do you observe? Know for sure? Wonder?
So what: so what is working, and what is not?
Now what: now what will you do to make a difference for the future?
Pattern Logic:
Seeing Patterns, not Problems
● By seeing patterns instead of problems, you create new options for action for yourself and otherS
The Pattern Logic helps you make decisions that lead to your most adaptive action. In today’s complex systems it is impossible to solve big problems by breaking them up into parts, solving each part, and putting the whole thing back together. HSD offers an alternative view. When faced with a sticky issue we seek to see the underlying pattern by asking:
See the patterns that emerge as we explore the dynamics of what is happening
Understand the conditions that influence those patterns and hold the problem in place as we ask “so what does it mean?”
Now what? Take action to influence the conditions and shift the pattern toward more productivity and coherence as we ask “now what are we going to do next?”
Standing in Inquiry
● Standing in inquiry enables you to see clearly and remain open to the reality around you
HSD problem-solving approach is based on inquiry. Inquiry is about questions. It is approaching every interaction, every situation, every opportunity with questions about what can be learned in this moment, in this situation, with this person.
In the emergent, unpredictable world of complex systems, inquiry is the only way you can move forward.
In HSD, stand in inquiry when we:
Turn judgment into curiosity
Turn disagreement into shared exploration
Turn defensiveness into self-reflection
Turn assumptions into questions