I recently facilitated a workshop for a Victorian Government Department where the question was around their products and services and how they are working with their market place. We worked with the internal customers to understand their ideas and views and to tap into the considerable repository of knowledge that people within the organistaion have. It was fascinating how many good ideas and thinking emerged when we used the emergent techniques of Cognitive Edge.
We used these techniques as the environment in which the department works is highly complex and shifts and changes all of the time. Linear and traditional ways of working are simply no longer sufficient to answer the questions that they have about their marketplace and customers.
Some of the group embraced the opportunity to do and think differently with both hands while others found it difficult to shift from more traditional ways of thinking and the concept that there was “Right” and “wrong” in a very concrete sense. And this is precisely the point. In a complex world such as the one these people are operating in, there is no right and wrong, but rather a “let’s see if this works” approach necessary. This not only caters for the complex environment, but provides for enormous learning opportunities and a chance to capture and develop knowledge and to be innovative.
It is not right or wrong………just different. The hardest part is sometimes getting people to understand that simple thought.