The Cairn of Living Systems:

I created this Cairn in 2002 as I was reading Kevin Kelly’s book, Out of Control. It emerged when I was trying to imagine the simplest way to describe how organisms interact with their environment. I still find it amazingly powerful. Harvard educator David Perkins points out that, “Almost all errors of thinking are errors of perception”. This Cairn starts off with perception – Sensing – moving to the observer state and taking in what the environment or situation offers. Once we have taken in all that we can, we can begin to think about it. This is how we create reality and Testing allows us to shape our thinking as we go. Testing is also where we explore possibilities and inquire into our intention. Finally, we arrive at the point of action, and this is a branch point, we can either Adapt or we can Resist and Deny the reality we have recognized so far. This realization led me to the Metamorphic Change process. Successful organisms constantly move around this cycle in a process of give and take with their environment – to use Jim Collins’ terminology, this is the fly wheel of living-systems. As turbulence and uncertainty increase in organizations and markets the ability to rapidly move around this cycle becomes a core competency of successful companies, teams, and leaders.

Here is an example of how I used this Cairn to better understand the organizational planning process:

This Cairn works when you:

• Need to explore and define reality

• Want to induce planned change

• Want to understand the dynamics of a situation in real time