One of the ‘hot’ presenting issues was the pickle they were in with their creative meetings. This example comes from a transformation project I ran for an arts organisation. The conversation often starts with structures and flows into beliefs, and a richer picture emerges.Ĭase study A: finding the place to intervene in an arts organisation “Where do we have permission, agency and appetite to experiment?” It often triggers new insight about what they’re experiencing and new ideas for how to intervene. A light goes on for people when they see the list of structures, the ‘levers’ they can pull. Its great strength seems to be that it puts the client in the driving seat in a conversation about the interventions to try in their organisation. It’s simple and easy to understand and seems to be at a ‘Mummy Bear’, medium level of abstraction – not so specific that it’s scary and not so vague that it loses all meaning. It uses the metaphor of an iceberg to illustrate that our experiences are deeply influenced by dynamics we cannot easily see: the structures that form the framework within which we operate, and the beliefs we hold about how things work. This model is a very simple representation of a complex system. I have adapted it as I’ve used it with people. The original for this one came from The Systems Thinking Playbook by Linda Booth Sweeney and Dennis Meadows (thanks and respect – it’s a brilliant book). There are many versions of the iceberg model. The iceberg model and why people seem to love it You might find it wonderful and marvel at how it helps people shift to a more systemic way of looking at things. You might balk at its simplicity and the things it omits. You might not love this model if you’re a purist about complexity science or a stickler for precision. It happens every time I share it people love it. I offered a simple iceberg model and my client seized on it, waved it around and started using phrases like “going deeper in the iceberg”.
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