Ontologies, Heuristics and Strategy
It is useful, as Snowden says, to gain a ‘cognitive edge’ by achieving a
“requisite level of diversity in both the ways we interpret the world and the
way in which we act in it … to enable the sensing of weak signals (terrorist
threats or market opportunity) and avoidance of the all too common pattern of
entrainment of past success” (2005: 2) … [and to avoid situations in which a
method is] extended beyond its ontological boundary (p. 2-3). This takes us a
lot further than the traditional, largely Taylorist “single-ontology sense
making” as it creates space for using both positivist and complex diagnostics and
interventions, “not by denial [of Taylorism], but through bounding and
limiting its applicability” (ibid.)
Cilliers reminds us that “the knowledge we have of complex systems is based
on the models we make of these systems … not merely as a repetition of the
system … We cannot have complete knowledge of complex systems; we can
only have knowledge in terms of a certain framework – we [have to] choose the
frameworks” (2005: 258). Or as Foucault would say, we have to choose our
“gaze”.
And while it can be useful to distinguish between some aspects of Snowden’s
(physical) ontologies of “order, complexity and chaos,” there is no objective
world ‘out there’ that divides neatly into these particular ontologies, or the
additional ontologies of disorder, and as well as un-order, which is used as a
composite category of “complex and chaotic” (ibid.). If anything, these
domains might more usefully be seen as epistemologies, although even that
doesn’t entirely clarify matters.
Broadly speaking, we can distinguish between two ontologies: ‘physical’ and
‘biological’, or live and dead. More to the point, live systems are clearly
complex adaptive systems, physical systems are by and large not, and there
seems to be a residual category which we also need, i.e. the borderline category
of physical-complex systems.
In other words, if we deploy ontological categories, we must do so in terms of
the properties of the constituent elements of these systems as well as their
interactions within these systems. And the crucial distinction between
ontologies is the distinction between those that are or are not self-organising,
and those that are or are not self-reproducing and maintain their own
identities. Snowden’s category of chaos is not, per se, a separate ontological
domain, it is a domain in which we have not yet intervened, or in which our
interventions have unravelled, which would make it an un-ordered or dis-ordered
domain which, given the fundamental entropy of physical systems, might
indeed appear as chaotic or entropic.
If we put these considerations together, we get three ontological categories:
entropic/ physical-complex/ biological complex-adaptive. Once we have
distinguished these basic ontologies, the rest is epistemology, as it were. The
way in which we ‘interpret the world and act in it’ is then defined as an
epistemological choice, a strategic choice and, as Cilliers says, an ethical choice.
The specifically epistemological issue is a fine distinction, but an important
one, as although we can say for instance that “where there are clearly identified
… relationships between cause and effect, which will enable us to control the
future, then the system is ordered” (Snowden op. cit. p. 4), what we should
rather say is that “we can treat the system as if it is ordered”.
Probing,
dampening,
accentuating,
scanning.
Empirical
investigation
Complex
Predictable
Explicit: Better
Predictions
Ante-formal:
Not yet
formalised
Conversations
Social Software
Tacit:
Unquestioned
Practice
Unravelling,
Dis-ordering,
Crashing
Routine
Chaotic
Crisis Intervention
Crisis
Management
Consolidating
Rituals
for phase
changes
Fig. 1: Ontologies, Heuristics and Strategy
We can relate these ontologies to Snowden’s framework as follows (his terms
are in brackets): systems which are primarily physical should be treated as
Predictable (or Complicated, or Ordered); those which are biological and social
should be treated as Complex-adaptive (or Complex); and those which are
either unordered or dis-ordered should be treated as Entropic (or Chaotic: notyet ordered, or dis-ordered). There is also a subset of Predictable systems, i.e.
Routine (or Simple) systems which are systems that, in addition to being
Predictable are also Routine, and which are only ‘Simple’ in an extended sense
of the term, i.e. they are stable, and entrenched. Some very large bureaucratic
systems fall into this category, and though they might well be called
‘simplistic’ they are far from simple (See Figure 1: Ontologies, Heuristics and
Strategy). Routine systems are in other words part of the ‘received wisdom’ or
‘established practice’ of an organisation, so although they are predictable, they
cam vary in the extent to which they are based on ‘scientific’ predictability,
particularly when they tip over into chaos, as in the example of Enron.
And of course all of these systems overlap, and are incorporated into larger
overall management systems.
In terms of ontologies per se, it is useful to use the distinctions: physical/ physicalcomplex/ biological complex-adaptive. We can still use the distinctions between
chaos, ordered, and complex, (or chaotic, complex, complicated and simple),
but in a different context and discourse: i.e. the discourse of management
heuristics, problem identification and analysis, and strategy, which is where
they have been developed, and where they are primarily deployed.
Within a strategic management context these terms (chaotic, complex,
complicated and simple) make a lot of sense, and are very useful. In terms of
the ways in which organisations operate they could be seen, somewhat
metaphorically, as institutional ontologies, i.e. different ways in which
institutions (or parts of institutions) exist, or choose to exist. Snowden’s work
is valuable because it opens up and maps out these four different domains, or
operational states, each of which has its own, different heuristics, and different
types of intervention strategies. His work also opens up the potential for
interaction with, and shifting of issues and problems across the boundaries of
these four domains, both heuristically and strategically.
In a more recent article (Snowden & Boone 2007) these categories are referred
to as contexts rather than ontologies, which overcomes the problem of ontologies
to some extent, although context still has an ontological flavour to it. It might
be more useful to refer to them as systems, which is in a sense a trade off
between the underlying nature of the events on the one hand, and the strategic
decision to manage the events in a particular way on the other hand.
One of Snowden’s key insights is not just that we can approach events from
different perspectives, but that we can shift particular events from one
system/context to another, i.e. we can treat particular events as parts of different
systems, in order to find the appropriate match between strategy and ontology,
so that we precisely don’t extend entrained strategies beyond their ontological
boundaries (op. cit. 2005). So it’s essential to keep the ontological issues in mind,
as well as the tension between strategy and ontology, when we deal with any
of the four domains, contexts, or systems.
Figure 1 outlines some of the relationships between the different contexts or
systems or operational states in Snowden’s framework. The only addition is the
Ante-formal domain (Williams 2006, 2008), which is the domain in which
everyday conversations take place: either face-to-face, or online in a rich
variety of social software; it is a domain in which information and knowledge
has not (yet) been formalised, but is, increasingly, taking on value in its own
right as creative, innovative ideas, and as the ‘wisdom of crowds’, which is
recorded, circulated, and re-versioned within social software platforms and
Creative Commons protocols. The Ante-formal domain is, within this
diagram, inherently part of the Complex-adaptive domain, but it is also a
transitional domain between all the other domains.
Alternatively, we could shift this issue closer to Snowden’s framework: instead
of calling it ‘ante-formal’, we could call it ‘Social Networks & Collaborative
Workshops’ which would include both the informal (social networks) and
more structured interventions (collaborative workshops). That would resituate
the issue quite usefully, by taking it out of the epistemological/ ontological
domain (‘ante-formal’), and placing it squarely within the strategic domain: the
properties remain unaltered (ante-formal), but the domains in the framework
are more coherent.
This also resolves the issue of my discomfort with the Disorder domain which
Snowden places at the centre of his framework.
Probing,
dampening,
accentuating,
scanning.
Empirical
investigation
Complex
Predictable
Explicit : Better
Methods of
Prediction and
Control
Social
Networks
&
.
Collaborative.
Workshops.
.
Tacit:
Unquestioned
Practice
Unravelling,
Dis-ordering,
Crashing
Routine
Chaotic
Crisis
Management
Consolidating
Crisis
Intervention
Fig. 1.1: Ontologies, Heuristics and Strategy
Rituals
for phase
changes
References
Cilliers, P. (2005) Complexity, Deconstruction and Relativism. Theory, Culture
and Society 22(5): 255-267.
Snowden, D. (2005) Multi-ontology sense making. Management Today Yearbook
2005, Vol. 20 .
Snowden, D. J. & Boone M.E. (2007) A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making.
Harvard Business Review Nov. 2007.
Williams R.T. (2006) Narratives of Knowledge and Intelligence – beyond the tacit and
explicit. Journal of Knowledge Management, 10:4, pp 81-99.
Williams R.T. (2008) The Epistemology of Knowledge and the Knowledge Process
Cycle. Journal of Knowledge Management (forthcoming).
Williams R.T. (2009) Complex as well as Commodified Knowledge (submitted).