Other Resources

I have always been interested in story telling as a management tool and I use the technique in many ways to help people get to grips with complexity theory. Stories operate at many levels and I am finding them more and more fascinating, so much so that I have decided to create this new section dedicated to stories.

A story about Out of the Box Thinking sent in to the Complexity Club by Dennis Martin

A Native American story

Who moved my cheese

The Prince and the Magician

The Eagle

Two Caterpillars

This story is courtesy of Margaret Parkin who has written three books on storytelling. Further details can be obtained at: http://www.trainingoptionsuk.com/page1.htm

The Wise Teacher

A Cautionary Tale

More stories can be viewed on the story page of Dave Gurteen's website

Web Sites

“The Man Who Planted Trees” by Jean Giono http://www.eco-action.org/dt/planted.html is a lovely story.

Stephen Denning is a former program director, Knowledge Management at the World Bank in Washington D.C, where he spearheaded the introduction of knowledge management. In his book, "The Springboard" he helped spark the growing international interest in storytelling for knowledge management and organizational change. His book describes how storytelling was used to introduce knowledge management into the World Bank and explains how storytelling can serve as a powerful and formal tool for organizational change and knowledge management.

The Plexus Institute http://www.plexusinstitute.org/
The section on stories towards the bottom of the main page is well worth a read for those who are interested in complexity in action.

If you have any stories that you wish to share please send them to me.

This section lists some of the newsletters that are relevant to the subject of complexity.

Plexus Complexity Post

This is a weekly post from the Plexus Institute, which explores the phenomena of complexity in our everyday world. Contact them at
PlexusNews@plexusinstitute.org

Change Management Newsletter

This is the newsletter of Holger Nauheimer in Germany . Each edition describes a different change management tool as well as other items about change. To subscribe http://www.change-management-toolbook.com/

Complexity Digest

Complexity Digest is an independent publication that gives extracts and links to new items relating to complexity. For individual free e-mail subscriptions send requests to: subscriptions@comdig.org

Gurteen Newsletter

This is Dave Gurteen’s newsletter which majors on Knowledge management . but which also has many other interesting items. Dave’s site is a great source of quotes as well as much more. http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/56E3E40CFE3B2174802568D3004F3199/

Oryon news

A monthly newsletter with a series of articles about new ways of looking at the world. Subscribe via http://www.oryon.nl/frameset/index.htm

The MHA Institute

have stared a new series of newsletters entitled Corporate Culture and Complexity http://www.mhainstitute.ca/Htm/Newsletters/Htm/Default.htm
Also there previous series on The New Sciences and the Learning Organisation is well worth a read if you have not already done so.

Kurzweil Newsletter

A weekly look at the latest scientific findings, many to do with complexity
http://www.kurzweilai.net

Vanguard News

An interesting newsletter is produced by John Seddon; he can be a bit belligerent but has some interesting points to make. http://www.lean-service.com/home.asp

Back copies can be obtained at: http://www.lean-service.com/6-news-0.asp

Worldwide Democracy Network

The Worldwide Democracy Network offers many different views on the global issues facing us, and their newsletter can be obtained at

http://www.wwdemocracy.nildram.co.uk/all_change.htm

I have mentioned in my newsletters about “trojan thinking” which is an informal networking event held on the first Thursday of every month at Planet Coffee here in Hull . If you would like to come along give me a call on 01482 443676.

Recently I have been reading about Conversation Cafés that seem very similar to “trojan thinking” To quote from a Plexus Newsletter:

“Conversation cafés are an intentional way to create a living network of conversation around questions that matter. A Conversation café is a creative process for leading collaborative dialogue, sharing knowledge and creating possibilities for action in groups of all sizes. When we consciously focus attention on "questions that matter"--for our families, organizations, and communities--we are contributing to the evolution of the knowledge and wisdom that we need co-create the future. We "grow what we know" individually and collectively. We notice the possibilities for mutual insight, innovation, and action that are already present, if only we know where to look.

People who have conducted conversation cafés have described these sorts of powerful conversations as having passion, energy, insightfulness, authenticity, and the presence of new perspectives”.

If you want to know more try these links

“The Birth of the World Caf é”

http://www.communityintelligence.co.uk/how/kcafe.php

“Connecting Diverse People and Ideas”

“Conversation Caf és: A Guide to Better Understanding”

“Conversation as a Core Business Process”

“Conversation Caf és: A Guide to Better Understanding”

Also Dave Guteen organizes a Knowledge Café – more details at http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/B9A99B9749DF96D080256C2F0073D342/

Here are some examples of complexity in practice:

The Humberside TEC Experience

This the text of a presentation I gave to a conference in Bibao on the topic “The practical applications of networking in a complexity context”

CD: Organisations as Complex Adaptive Systems

I have produced an interactive CD on this topic which is available for £11.75 (£10 + VAT) to cover costs.

Slugging

I came across a fascinating example of self organizing in the Plexus Newsletter – it’s called “slugging”.

“It is a form of commuting — solo drivers picking up strangers so they can all cruise to work legally in high-occupancy-vehicle lanes — is called "slugging." Passengers are "slugs," a label alluding not to their energy or wit but to counterfeit tokens and coins. A ride, too, is a slug. Drivers are drivers, or less commonly, "body snatchers," "scrapers" and "land sharks." With little notice outside Washington, these Northern Virginia commuters to the nation's capital and big office sites of nearby Arlington, Rosslyn and Crystal City have blended hitchhiking and carpooling into a quick, efficient way to outmanoeuvre a traffic-choked freeway.

Slugging started by spontaneous eruption and runs by perpetual motion. When the area's three-person, high-occupancy vehicle lanes opened 30 years ago, some guy and then another and another picked up commuters at bus stops to get the passengers needed to use the lanes. No government agency sanctions slugging, runs it, regulates it, promotes it or thought it up. The Census Bureau, which tracks most forms of commuting, knows nothing about slugging.

In slugging, there is no supervisor, dispatcher or schedule, no ticket or fare.”

Cemex

Challenged with how to get cement to where it was needed when it was needed, given the ever changing schedules of building sites, the difficulty of keeping cement useable and the preparation time of fresh cement, Cemex adopted a radical solution. Instead of a complicated production planning schedule, Cemex loads its fleets of cement trucks every morning and dispatches them with no predetermined destination.

They follow algorithmic rules: deliver as much cement to as many customers as rapidly as possible, stay as far away from other cement trucks as possible, customers are guaranteed cement within two hours of notice.

How does this work? Cemex has taken a brave decision to work with a self organising distributed intelligence model rather than the classic centralised organisation, which stipulates specific delivery schedules.

From Pascale et al (2000) Surfing the edge of chaos 2. Three Rivers Press.

Saint Luke’s Hospital, Kansas City

Creating a world class stroke program by facilitating self-organization and emergence. Click here for a copy of the article, courtsey of the Plexus Institute.

Other Examples on the Plexus site

The revamped plexus site has an excellent section on stories to do with complexity:

http://www.plexusinstitute.org/services/stories/index.cfm