What’s the difference between complicated and complex?
I enjoyed hearing this straightforward comparison between complex and complicated in a talk by Professor Mary Uhl-Bien.
She refers to Paul Cillier’s analogy that a jumbo jet is complicated: equal to the sum of its parts, whereas mayonnaise is complex: once mixed, you can’t separate the parts fundamentally changed by the interaction.
It is often useful to distinguish between the notions “complex” and “complicated.” A jumbo jet is complicated, a mayonnaise is complex (a least for the French). A complicated system is something we can model accurately (at least in principle). Following this line of thought, one may argue that the notion “complex” is merely a term we use for something we cannot yet model.
What does this have to do with learning, leadership and innovation?
Firstly, when we share this understanding (mental model) with others, we can be more precise in learning and leadership decisions. We also establish a more rounded view of impact.
If we are stuck with a rigid view of the educational experience as complicated but not richly interconnected (complex), changes are done with a limited scope and a narrow lens.
Secondly, it provokes us to zoom out and consider the rich connections throughout an education system. The ideas we implement are not just cogs with limited relationships that do not transform each other.
If we believe that a school is an ecosystem, and act that way, we shift our perspective. We realize that every element of a school affects other parts. How our least-advantaged and most at-risk students are treated affects the success of the entire school. How teachers treat one another and students matters. How lunch aides treat students and are treated by other school professionals does matter.
The difference between mayonnaise and inter-continental aircraft is helpful as it illustrates the web of connections, dependencies, adaptations, and transformations within a stable ecosystem.
Learning is difficult to predict
Mayonnaise Vs Jumbo Jets also reminds us of the nature of learning. A rich swathe of interconnected variables is present within teaching and moments of growth. So many unique experiences mediate learning it is difficult to model and simulate.
Pause for a moment to reflect on those great learning experiences you designed that went pear-shaped in a matter of moments. This happened to me frequently as a new kindergarten teacher!
Sometimes you have to respond to something unexpected and it takes all of your attention — a nastily scraped knee, a nosebleed or a toilet problem. You have to go with it.
Lastly, when we reflect on educational innovation, change and development, we are not just changing the tyres — like for like — we are mixing and transforming experience in a complex way. What can you add to mayonnaise?
Cue the mayonnaise recipes! Muddy mayo is one of my favourites.
Your Talking Points
What are the second-order effects of your new idea?
Identify the richly interconnected elements of your student’s experience.
Where do you notice a perception of teaching and learning as complicated but not complex?
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The situation with the pandemic means we are stuck in a constant decision-making diagram. In PC (pre-covid) times, we had enough slack to balance the intense management and leadership needed.
I wondered if the military might provide some insight into making decisions under fire – metaphorically and literally. I discovered a model of decision making called the OODA Loop. Read on for an outline of the model and how you can use the techniques in times of uncertainty.
The OODA Loop
The OODA Loop has four phases: Observation, Orientation, Decide and Act.
It was developed in the late 70s by John Boyd, a military strategist, fighter pilot and Colonel in the United States Air Force.
Insights from studying air combat revealed patterns of decision making which Boyd established as the OODA Loop.
All decisions are based on observations of the evolving situation tempered with implicit filtering of the problem being addressed.
Here are the four stages. I tailored the descriptions and questions to how a leadership team might collaborate on the OODA Loop. But they can be easily adapted to a different context.
Observation
Gather data, input and observations about the environment and unfolding context.
What do we see?
What shared observations do we have?
What might we be missing?
What feedback are we receiving?
Orientation
Position ourselves to take advantage of what we notice. Orientate ourselves towards the future.
What does this information mean for us?
What patterns do we notice?
What feasible options and actions are there?
Decide
Harness implicit understanding and orientation to make a choice.
What does feedforward from Orientation suggest?
What course of action responds accurately to the unfolding information?
What is our hypothesis?
Act
Implement the decision.
What can we test?
What are some prototypes that we can run?
What feedback are we looking for?
What are the signals of impact? What is the first step?
A couple of other notes and ideas resonate with me, which I know you will find helpful.
The OODA Loop Tempo
The key concept with this decision-making model is the pace you move through the loop.
Here is Dr Michael Ryan from the World Health Organisation talking about the speed of response to emergencies, like the ebola outbreak.
Perfection is the enemy of the good when it comes to emergency management. Speed trumps perfection … The greatest error is not to move. The greatest error is to be paralyzed by the fear of failure. If you need to be right before you move, you will never win.
A caveat is the ability to slow the tempo enough to observe and orient with precision. This slower section makes the decide and act phases move faster.
the entire “loop” (not just orientation) is an ongoing many-sided implicit cross-referencing process of projection, empathy, correlation, and rejection.
Analysis Paralysis
You have to guard against this.
Boyd considers the first two phases take the most energy. When we orientate the decision, we access our genetic heritage, cultural traditions, and prior experiences.
In your team, this becomes complex and is often the stumbling block we call paralysis analysis. Your team gets stuck overthinking the information available.
During World War II, Winston Churchill, after hearing that the landing craft designers were spending the majority of their time arguing over design changes, sent this message: “The maxim ‘Nothing avails but perfection’ may be spelt shorter: ‘Paralysis.’”
Feedforward
We use the OODA Loop in rapidly evolving situations, an unfolding environment, or a shifting problem state.
However, if we only focus on feedback, we are always looking to the past.
Feedforward propels us onwards. Information that tips us forwards to the following action. Feedforward helps us identify the next step. In the OODA Loop, it contributes to the next phase.
Identify your signals of stalling. (Analysis Paralysis)
Elicit ideas and information that propels you onward. (Feedforward)
Guard against rushing the observation and orientation phase. (Tempo)
Thanks for exploring this model with me; I hope it helps you improve the speed and precision of your decision making.
This article is a Dialogic Learning Weekly. Regular inspiration to save you time and provoke your thinking—a newsletter designed to build your cognitive toolkit and enhance your practice.
In this post, I want to share some reflections about coaching and how we create the best possible conditions for professional growth.
Below I have shared nine different aspects of successful coaching that play a critical role. Many of these ideas also apply to quality learning experiences and might serve as powerful provocations to consider.
If you are after a planning guide to support your coaching programme – download a copy of my resource. All of the provocations and ideas in the post are included.
[joli-toc]
Choice
One of the downsides of the “roll out” of coaching or large scale implementations in schools and organisations are that it forces people to participate when they are not ready. When people make an active choice to participate, they signal they are ready for the challenge that coaching has to offer.
Our advocacy for coaching might mean we want everyone to have access to it. Which is entirely understandable; it can have a high impact. But, that does not mean it needs to be forced on anyone.
I imagine that many of you have had bad coaching experiences simply because it was something you had to do.
When you remove the choice, you also remove a fundamental aspect of self-awareness. This awareness is something everyone I coach has in common. Do you have similar reflections?
You reach a point where you want the challenge. The benefit from the accountability from coaching is clear.
Critically you choose to continue their professional learning, growth and development with coaching, nobody else.
Are you ready for the challenge of coaching? What dispositions signal you are ready?
Commitment to Coaching
In my opinion, coaching is different when it is short term. Long term commitment changes the dynamic of the experience. We work together to grapple with some of your most significant professional development challenges. This problem solving takes time.
Longer commitments also allow for trusting relationships to form and develop. I commit to you and your professional growth; you commit to coaching, the process and the regular sessions. We commit to the partnership needed for success.
Contracting
An extension to the idea of commitment, contracting is all about establishing the appropriate expectations and what coaching means for us both. During my coaching, this is done in a few simple ways.
Below I have listed some examples:
We establish a medium-term or long-term commitment within the coaching partnership.
It is all agreed within a formal written contract.
Regular time is set aside every fortnight for coaching sessions. These are organised in advance.
We agree to a set of protocols and expectations for each session which focuses on high-quality dialogue and collaboration.
In the first session, we share ideas about the roles and responsibilities we have in our coaching partnership.
The Challenge of Coaching
In the first coaching session with me, we spend some time reflecting on a set of provocations I put to you in advance. One of the questions is, “What do you hope coaching will be?”. The most common response I have received is the hope that coaching ‘challenges me”.
Challenge is unique to everyone. You might be seeking an alternative perspective on the challenges you face in your leadership team. Or perhaps you want to increase your self-awareness to help you see your strengths and those traits that need your attention. The challenge might come from the mirror I hold up and the behaviours that I observe.
Whatever it is for you, coaching needs to be challenging. Yes, you want the safety of a trusting professional relationship. Of course, you want psychological safety to be able to share emerging ideas or perspectives. But you also will gain from an independent viewpoint and calm, honesty about your professional growth. You don’t need more platitudes about your success; you need supportive coaching to strive for your next step.
Sometimes that honesty can be uncomfortable and a little jarring, but you will know it is coming from a place of genuine support and commitment.
Download a copy of my planning guide to support your coaching programme. All of the provocations and ideas in the post are included.
Coaching Consistency
New positive habits and behaviours are an essential outcome of coaching. We want to identify negative assumptions we are making, detrimental behaviours that we should reduce, and seek positive change. Consistency is key. Regular sessions that we both rely upon offer a safe and reliable structure to your professional growth.
I often look to regular one-hour coaching sessions every fortnight, which is an effective, consistent pattern for education clients. It allows enough time to apply the new ideas and mental models. Or to reflect and observe our regular daily practise as part of our coaching cycle.
It is not just about timing, though. We also rely upon the consistent expectations and the level of accountability that each coaching session has. I hold you to what you said you would act upon. Those small steps between each session are essential. That is, you get better, and they accumulate over six months or a year to significant change. We celebrate, debrief and explore those actions in a consistent way every session.
Coaching Conditions
We both play a role in creating the right conditions for quality dialogue to flourish. It is not just my job, and it is not just yours. There is a collective responsibility to contribute to the conditions for professional growth and dialogue that supports you.
Collective responsibility means different things for different people. For some of us, it is about focus and being present. To ensure a coaching session is not interrupted or compromised by competing agendas. For others, it is about remaining open to the challenge of learning and hearing another perspective. We both play a role in creating the ideal conditions for coaching dialogue and collaboration.
I often think of it as creating a space for you to step into. Step out of your daily routine into a world that operates under different conditions, an environment intentionally tuned to your needs. A space that is safe yet challenges you. A space that is trusting yet honest and direct. A coaching space that holds you accountable but also provokes new thinking and generates inspiration.
Cognitive Toolkit
Coaching creates the space to explore new cognitive tools. One of the main ways we do this is by focusing on a range of mental models and thinking structures during each session. These mental models provoke thinking and offer different perspectives to the challenges we explore together.
A key goal of my coaching is to help you develop your cognitive toolkit. I am equipping you with a more diverse set of mental models you can use to navigate your face challenges. At the end of each session, we stop and reflect on the mental models we have referenced or used together.
Collaborate
If we are in a coaching partnership, it is highly collaborative. We create something together. That “something” is new ideas, new thinking, perspectives, solutions and potential paths that support your professional growth.
That is an excellent question. I have some ideas already, but before I share them, what do you think?
I use an expectation that we are both ready to generate, share, and explore new ideas without judgment. When we lose track of where the ideas come from or start a train of thought, we know we are exploring in a dialogic way – a collaboration.
Dialogue and Coaching
Ultimately everything contributes to the quality of dialogue that we share. [I also wanted to break the “everything starts with a C”] This is something I actively pursue when coaching. I strive to create the conditions where we share ideas, questions, thoughts and ponderings – where we make new meaning together through talk.
Dialogue aligns with creativity. Through our talk, we create new, original ideas that have value to your professional practice. When we are free to express ourselves in this way, we move away from analysing the problem or feeling isolated to resolve it, we collaborate and develop new ideas.
I coach teachers and school leaders across Australia. It is always a privilege to be a coach and a vital member of a professional support network.
If you are interested in finding out more about how I could support your professional growth with coaching, I have a few places available; please email me at tom@dialogiclearning.com.
Download a free Coaching Planner
To conclude this article on the Conditions for effective coaching, download my planning template and kickstart your programme design. Simply use the form below.
Inspired by an optics metaphor used in ethnography, this mental model explores our perception and understanding of behaviour. Use it as part of your team’s developmental dialogue and process.
Seeing through a lens
We all bring a different perspective to the challenges we face. My story and my experience is my bias. Recognising this foundational truth to collaboration is an important step.
Explore with your team the lenses that can be held up to view the situation you are in. Consider the lenses that are present in your group and those perspectives not immediately present.
However we are not just looking through a lens, we are attempting to see. Consider what it takes to shift our perspective and reveal gaps in our understanding. Follow your curiosity and deepen your understanding of alternative perspectives.
Your Talking Points
How does my bias impact what I see here?
Are we all using the same lens on this situation?
What combination of lenses might offer something new?
Which lenses are more opaque to us?
Which perspective should be represented more clearly?
Hold up a mirror
A further step is to hold up a mirror and consider our own participation in an issue, problem or challenge. Am I part of the problem?
When we look back, at first, we may identify the role we play or acknowledge our influence on an issue. We may reflect on the positive, negative or neutral impact we have on a situation.
When we look closer and see ourselves, we increase self-awareness which is an important trigger for learning and growth. Reflexivity is that circular loop of seeing and changing because we see.
Look through a lens, but hold up a mirror too.
Your Talking Points
How does this situation provoke my thinking?
What am I noticing my thinking is drifting to?
How might I change as a result of this?
What harm might I be causing?
This has helped me to change because…
What’s in the shadows?
Ethnographic studies of human behaviour often refer to the goal, to uncover the unmet needs or poorly defined issues. For our model here we describe that as exploring what is in the shadows.
These are issues or challenges at the root of behaviour. However they may be masked, obscured or in shadow from everyone. With your team explore the shadows and consider what is poorly represented, unspoken or missing from your dialogue and discussion.
It is a challenge to see what is cloaked and obfuscated. This takes time. Commit to your inquiry and use a range of data sources to reveal more and more. Perhaps data becomes your torch exploring and illuminating the shadow.
Your Talking Points
A blind spot for me is…
What are we not paying attention to?
How do we know this is the right problem to be solving?
What is distracting our attention here?
If we looked in the opposite direction what might we see?
See through a lens ~ Hold up a mirror ~ Explore the shadows
The word spek– is a really old word root meaning “to observe”. If you prefer a little Greek: skopein means to “behold, look, consider”. Or perhaps some end of the week Latin: specere “to look at”.
You can see spek– is the root of the word perspective. This is something we are all seeking at the moment. Our isolation has meant that we are missing the normal connection and interactions that allow us to “consider” and to “observe” how others are. And so how we are.
The word perspective originates from Latin perspectus meaning “clearly perceived”. We want perspective because we seek clarity.
Let’s look at some other uses of the word and how they are important utilities for us right now.
Introspective
You know this one. Looking inside ourselves. Many of us have had to spend more time with ourselves than we might have liked (!)
It is not just about looking and observing. This is a time for increasing self-awareness of our response to change and the problems that have emerged.
Regular introspection and reflection give us the chance to capture what is happening with our disposition. The ups, downs and spirals.
Write it down, talk to a colleague or loved one. Using language to express how we see ourselves is a powerful way to process what we are going through.
Your Talking Point What do you notice about how you have responded to the uncertainty of your current experience?
Retrospective
Looking back is a critical position to take in the coming months, as we transition to some sort of normality. Future innovations will build on the success of the past. They are not disconnected.
Our schools need to consider the powerful practices that were already having a high impact. In our enthusiasm for change and the “new normal” we have to look back at what worked for our community.
What were we doing before? What did we value and how is that different? What still works? Which first principles still exist?
In many ways, it is illogical to consider a snap back to the way things were. Learning, leadership and innovation are intricate and complex behaviours. The stories we carry now and the experiences we have gone through will mean it will be irrevocably changed because we have changed.
Your Talking Point How has your value set shifted and changed?
Prospective
When we add pro- we look forward. We are scanning the horizon and looking ahead. Here in Australia (in early May) we are starting to see a shift in the restrictions and easing of the constraints.
Many of us are looking ahead and figuring out the path through the next few months. Prospective thinking will serve our communities well, as we navigate a return to the normal rhythms of school and consider what is ahead.
There are school events and rituals to be celebrated that will undoubtedly be on our minds. Will we run those as normal? Will they be different this year?
As we lead we need to be prospective. Crucially our students and families will not have had a homogenous experience. Regardless of the synchronous and asynchronous labels we might use. That diversity will mean we might be all looking ahead and prospecting for different things.
Exploring and surfacing that type of insight may help us design a better learning experience in the future.
Your Talking Point How will you discover what your community members are looking forward to?
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As always let me know what resonates.
Look back, and smile on perils past meaning
The blog post “Look back and smile on perils past” is a quote from Sir Walter Scott’s poem, The Bridal of Triermain: Or the Vale of St. John:
That this same stalwart arm of mine, Which could yon oak's prone trunk uprear, Shall shrink beneath, the burden dear Of form so slender, light, and fine; So! now, the danger dared at last, Look back, and smile at perils past!
