Geoff Marlow
Making sense of sense-making
January 11, 2023
2:30 PM to 3:15 PM EST
Making sense of sense making
In an increasingly complex, uncertain, and unpredictable world sense making, decision making, and action taking must become ever more tightly coupled, rapidly and repeatedly iterated, deeply embedded and widely distributed throughout an organisation.
Human communities are inherently adaptive – unless rigidly constrained, which is precisely what Western organisations have been designed to be for more than a century. Rigid constraints proved adequately fit for purpose for the many decades when the world was relatively stable and predictable. Organisations designed in this way are now buckling as they seek unattainable stability and predictability in an ever more VUCA world. To thrive in the future, organisations require cultures of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness, where sense making, decision making & action taking are tightly coupled, rapidly and repeatedly iterated, deeply embedded, and widely distributed throughout the organisation. This requires a much clearer understanding of the role of sense making, and how it can be coupled most effectively effectively to decision making and action taking. Creating such a future-fit culture is the primary responsibility of senior executives, whose role is no longer making decisions, but creating conditions – in which good decisions get made, implemented, and iterated as part of everyday business as usual throughout the organisation. Come along to the session to find out what this entails.
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About Geoff Marlow
Geoff began his career as a digital systems engineer with British Aerospace and the BBC, before moving in 1983 to the open innovation services lab Cambridge Consultants Ltd (CCL). CCL helped clients not just with new technologies, but also with removing barriers between internal fiefdoms, factions, and silos. When a client asked Geoff if he could “come and help our people behave more like your people” it established the career path he’s been on ever since, helping client organisations throughout Europe, Asia, and the US create future-fit organisational cultures of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness.