First pop-up sharing of the Personal Strategy community
This week we had our first pop-up sharing, a beautiful conversation between 10 people curious about the Personal Strategy field: Alexei, Bogdan, Brendan, Christa, Christina, Daniela, Indy, Renuka, Romina and myself.
I want to share with you here some of the resources that we exchanged, along with some of my own thoughts.
Hope you’ll join the next pop-up sessions, follow the updates here to get notified about them.
Models & concepts
- Complex Adaptive Systems video — an insightful 3 minutes intro to the world of complexity, simple rules and learning from nature.
- Meta Theory of Change — intriguing lens that connects uncertainty with irritation and with change. I will personally need to deep dive into this sometime soon.
The Meta Theory of Change is an open work of observations, irritations, insights, wisdom, discomforts, and love for the procedural unfolding in and structural coupling of different systems such as psyche, team, and organization.
By making it easier for the user to deal with uncertainty — which is exposed to any system — it creates an internal and external space for irritation. Systems that change are irritated (resp. have been irritated). Living systems are constantly changing. They are constantly exposed to irritation and irritate themselves as long as they exist. On the question of “how”, the Metatheory of Change provides a highly relevant, open basis for thinking and describing with regard to practice.
Against its background and its presence in the user, irritations can be better understood or, as a desired irritation = intervention, entered more concerted into the respective system for change and transformation.
- Johari Window — could interacting with others, having trust in these relationships and being open to feedback reduce the uncertainties that we face? Is personal strategy rather a collaborative endeavor for dealing with the unknown?
Methods
- Effectuation (link 1) (link 2) — method for creating value, inspired by entrepreneurship and based on a few principles described below:
Bird in Hand Principle: Means— When expert entrepreneurs set out to build a new venture, they start with their means: who I am, what I know, and whom I know. Then, the entrepreneurs imagine possibilities that originate from their means.
Lemonade Principle: Leverage Contingencies — Expert entrepreneurs invite the surprise factor. Instead of making “what-if” scenarios to deal with worst-case scenarios, experts interpret “bad” news and surprises as potential clues to create new markets.
Crazy Quilt Principle: Co-Creation Partnership — Expert entrepreneurs build partnerships with self-selecting stakeholders. By obtaining pre-commitments from these key partners early on in the venture, experts reduce uncertainty and co-create the new market with its interested participants.
Pilot-in-the-Plane Principle: Worldview — By focusing on activities within their control, expert entrepreneurs know their actions will result in the desired outcomes. An effectual worldview is rooted in the belief that the future is neither found nor predicted, but rather made.
Affordable Loss Principle: Focus on Downside — Expert entrepreneurs limit risk by understanding what they can afford to lose at each step, instead of seeking large all-or- nothing opportunities. They choose goals and actions where there is upside even if the downside ends up happening.
- Meeting facilitation — great facilitation is an undervalued way of helping people make sense together of things and progress through uncertainty. As part of IAF, I’m looking to promote the power of facilitation and I hope that these pop-up sessions are a good example of this
Learning Programs
- Institute For The Future — I feel that many times we talk about insights and of things beings insightful. Rarely we put insights in balance with hindsights and foresights, to help us figure out our way forward. IFTF is one of the promoters of foresight and you may want to subscribe to their “News from the Future” newsletter.
- INSEAD Masters degree in Change — One of the program objectives is to “become a more reflective and effective agent of organizational change”. At a personal level, made me think of how could each of us become better at reflection and also how might we increase our personal effectiveness, our ability to achieve our purpose and desired outcomes 💡
Books
- Strategy: a History — Currently on my reading list as well, looks like a fascinating read about Strategy. I’m intrigued by the idea that it “sums up a lifetime of reflection on strategy” and I wonder what lessons it holds for personal strategy 🧭💡
I’m grateful for the kindness, openness and generosity that I felt present during the pop-up sharing session and I’m looking forward to our next gatherings.
Next time we’ll explore together the Environment area of the Sense & Change model, along with the question of ”How do you make sense of what goes on around you?”
Enjoy the journey,
Bülent
Follow the updates by subscribing to the Personal Strategy newsletter.
