Faint Signal

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Faint Signal

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References

2030 – Guillén (2020)

A First Course in Network Science – Menczer, et. al. (2020)

A More Beautiful Question – Berger (2014)

A Whole New Mind – Pink (2006)

Abductive Thinking and Sensemaking – Kolko (2010)

Abundance – Diamandis and Kotler (2012)

Antifragile – Taleb (2012)

Atomic Habits – Clear (2018)

Cognitive Surplus – Shirky (2010)

Connectography – Khanna (2016)

Creative Confidence – Kelley and Kelley (2013)

Crossing the Chasm – Moore (2009)

Crucial Influence – Grenny, et al. (2023)

Cynefin – Snowden, et al. (2020)

Elastic – Mlodinow (2018)

Essentialism – Mckeown (2014)

Exponential Organizations – Ismail, et al. (2014)

Factfulness – Rosling, et al. (2018)

Frame Innovation – Dorst (2015)

Good Strategy Bad Strategy – Rumelt (2011)

Grit – Duckworth (2016)

How Big Things Get Done – Flyvbjerg and Gardner (2023)

How Do Committees Invent – Conway (1968)

How Innovation Works – Ridley (2020)

Ideaflow – Utley and Klebahn (2022)

Influence – Cialdini (2021)

Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton – Fretwell, et. al. (2013)

Letter to the American Church – Metaxas (2022)

Linked – Barabási, Frangos (2002)

Loonshots – Bahcall (2019)

Make It Stick – Brown (2014)

Martin Luther – Metaxas (2017)

Metaphors We Live By – Lakoff and Johnson (2008)

Mindset – Dweck (2006)

Moonwalking with Einstein – Foer (2011)

Movements That Move – Reach (2016)

Networks and Netwars – Arquilla and Ronfeldt (2001)

Never Split the Difference – Voss, Raz (2016)

Noise – Kahneman, et. al. (2021)

Nonviolent Communication – Rosenberg (2015)

Nudge – Thaler and Sunstein (2021)

Originals – Grant, Sandberg (2016)

Outliers – Gladwell (2008)

Persuadable – Pittampalli (2016)

Playing to Win – Lafley and Martin (2013)

Range – Epstein (2019)

Rare Leadership – Warner and Wilder (2016)

Resilience Thinking – Walker and Salt (2012)

Simple Rules for a Complex World – Sull and Eisenhardt (2012)

Start with Why – Sinek (2009)

Supercommunicators – Duhigg (2024)

Superforecasting – Tetlock, Gardner (2015)

Switch – Heath and Heath (2010)

Taking the Medicine – Burch (2009)

Team of Teams – McChrystal, et al. (2015)

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Covey (2013)

The Advantage – Lencioni (2012)

The Black Swan – Taleb (2010)

The Box – Levinson (2016)

The Checklist Manifesto – Gawande (2009)

The Design of Everyday Things – Norman (2013)

The Fifth Discipline – Senge (2010)

The Great Upheaval – Levine and Van Pelt (2021)

The Infinite Game – Sinek (2019)

The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn – Kuhn (2022)

The Lean Startup – Ries (2011)

The Master Switch – Wu (2010)

The Molecule of More – Lieberman, Long (2018)

The Order of Time – Rovelli (2018)

The Paradox of Choice – Schwartz (2009)

The Power of Habit – Duhigg (2012)

The Scout Mindset – Galef (2021)

The Starfish and the Spider – Brafman and Beckstrom (2006)

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Kuhn (1962)

The Three-Box Solution – Govindarajan (2016)

The True Believer – Hoffer (2011)

The Tyranny of Experts – Easterly (2014)

The Tyranny of Metrics – Muller (2018)

The Voltage Effect – List (2022)

Think Again – Grant (2021)

Think Like a Rocket Scientist – Varol (2020)

Thinking in Systems – Meadows (2008)

Thinking, Fast and Slow – Kahneman (2013)

Understanding Variation – Wheeler (1993)

What Matters Now – Hamel (2012)

When Helping Hurts – Corbett and Fikkert (2012)

Where Good Ideas Come From – Johnson (2011)

Writing to Learn – Zinsser (2013)

Topics

Frame Innovation

Paradigm Shifts

Resilience Thinking

A catalyst starts and moves on from a decentralized organization

A decentralized organization stands on five legs

A missed signal is an opportunity wasted

Accordion Principle says systems oscillate between centralization and decentralization

Adaptability is the capacity of actors to manage the resilience of a system

Addressing symptoms shifts the burden from addressing fundamental causes

Adjacent Possible is the edge of the future

Admitting uncertainty is not necessarily indicative of lack of expertise

Agreement is a spectrum, not a binary

All linked adaptive cycles govern the behavior of a system

All translation loses, adds, or changes information

All-Channel Networks can function without hierarchies

Ambiguity aversion favors the known over the unknown

An idea can fail in any number of ways

An idea is a new connection between two things

Analogical thinking uses a known example to explain something new

Anchoring Bias pulls an unknown value toward a known anchor

Antifragile systems are configured for adaptability

Antifragile Systems become stronger with shocks

Appraisal of a complex problem’s context is objective

Assertive inquiry moves dialog beyond argumentation

Availability Heuristic overestimates likelihood of events

Backcasting works backward from a desired outcome

Bandwagon bias is social proof

Bed of Procrustes

Behavioral change fails when it requires absolute recantation

Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose

Bias for action can mask a bias against thinking

Black Swan events are rare, impactful, and retrospectively predictable

Blame Instinct hinders thinking by pointing fingers

Blue Ocean strategy creates demand

Bright spots show positive deviance

Building habits reduces cognitive strain

Building shared vision results in intrinsic motivation

Catalysts are fundamentally different from CEOs

Causal Loop Diagrams model system dynamics

Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space

Centralized innovation is beset by two weaknesses

Centralized systems are efficient, not disruptively innovative

Challenges are now open, complex, dynamic, and networked

Champions relentlessly promote a new idea

Change efforts are undermined by three measurement mistakes

Changing things happens in the opposite direction

Changing things requires directing the Rider and motivating the Elephant

Checklists account for the mundane but essential tasks

Checklists ensure success in complex conditions

Checklists establish a higher standard of baseline performance

Coevolution simultaneously develops the formulation of and solution to a problem

Communicating ideas requires overcoming the curse of knowledge

Compartmentalization blinds you to new possibilities

Compensating feedback offsets interventions

Complex adaptive systems are unpredictable and non-linear

Complex networks have unique topological features

Complex problems can be solved at the periphery

Complex problems have many interconnected elements

Complex problems require new thinking

Complex situations have multiple levels of explanation

Complex systems are characterized by VUCA

Complex systems exhibit emergent behavior

Complexifying overcomes binary bias

Concept maps are graphical representations of mental models

Concept Networks are the building blocks of thoughts processes

Concrete communication explains in terms of human actions and senses

Confirmation Bias defends one's assumptions

Consistency of rigid management processes decreases flexibility

Consistency principle is a social anchoring effect

Constant change requires constant reformation

Course-correcting early and often

Creating frames improves cognition

Creating frames overcomes the adoption problem

Creation of a process also creates secondary processes which limit it

Creative events bridge problems and solutions

Creativity doesn’t look creative when you’re doing it

Credible communication carries its own credentials

Crises do not always lead to new paradigms

Criticism affecting identity predisposes soldier mindset

Cynefin framework helps interpret systems

Data must be interpreted in context and without noise

Decentralization of industries tends to lower profits

Decentralized organizations emerge from networks

Decentralized systems accelerate innovation

Decentralized systems are easily mistaken for centralized systems

Decentralized systems are incomprehensible to centralized worldviews

Decentralized systems can adapt rapidly

Decentralized systems can grow quickly

Deliberate practice is focused, at the edge, with feedback

Deliberate practice matters more than time on the job

Design expertise has seven levels

Design practice can address open, complex, dynamic, networked challenges

Design Thinking is innovating routinely

Design thinking seeks to discover and solve the actual problem

Destiny Instinct hinders thinking by forgetting that small changes add up

Developing problem situations allows reframing

Dichotomous thinking simplistically resolves ambiguity

Disagree and commit enables unified action

Disruptive innovation is antithetical to good management

Disruptive innovation requires plans for learning rather than implementation

Disruptive innovations are complex

Disruptive innovations are underestimated for three reasons

Disruptive innovations fail because they do not provide immediate financial value

Disruptive innovations tend to be smaller, simpler, and more convenient

Disruptive innovations tend to flourish in new organizations

Disruptive innovations underperform at the outset

Divergent ideas come from the right brain

Diversity of a system affects resilience

Double diamond implements design thinking

Dynamic problems add elements and shift connections over time

Early majority is motivated by why rather than what

Early majority will not shift until someone they trust does first

Effectiveness necessarily differentiates between importance and urgency

Effects of interventions in systems of dynamic complexity are not immediately obvious

Efficiency is purchased by a loss in flexibility

Elastic Thinking can hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously

Elastic Thinking is parallel and integrative

Emergence is non-linear behavior of a system

Emerging markets are decreasingly attractive as organizations get larger

Emotional communication makes people feel something

Empowered execution enables effective adaptation to threats and opportunities

Epistemic confidence pertains to truth

Every problem is an idea problem

Everything we think we know about the world is a model

Existing processes are change-resistant for two reasons

Exploring themes leads to solutions

Extrinsic rewards can crowd out intrinsic motivation

Faint signals are whispers from the future

Familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth

Fear Instinct hinders thinking by confusing risk with fear

Fear of failure is a powerful deterrent to disruptive innovation

Financial structure and organizational culture constrain disruptive innovation

Finding the bright spots clones what is already working

Finding the feeling moves beyond merely knowing things

First Principles thinking allows you to see the obvious hiding in plain sight

Five disciplines develop three core learning capabilities of a team

Fixed mindset believes abilities are set in stone

Flexibility, simplicity and adaptability are simple rules of movements

Forecasting calculates the future from known data

Fostering a discourse shapes behavior

Frame creation begins with investigation

Frame creation considers all stakeholders of the problem and solution

Frame creation develops a plan for transformation

Frame creation identifies common themes as the basis for frames

Frame creation integrates solutions into the stakeholder context

Frame creation is composed of ten principles

Frame creation learns practices and scenarios that may suggest a solution

Frame creation requires understanding the core paradox

Frame creation resolves complex problems in nine steps

Frame creation seeks to understand the root factors of stakeholders

Frame creation thinks forward to identify solutions

Frightening and dangerous are two different things

Fundamental Attribution Error blames others and exonerates me

Fundamental insight can trigger disruptive innovation

Gap Instinct hinders thinking by ignoring the middle majority

General resilience depends on diversity, modularity, and feedbacks

Generalization Instinct hinders thinking by using misleading categories

Generative learning requires systemic thinking

Getting to Trusted

Globalization is a complex system

Good decision-making does not mix values with facts

Grand strategies link means to ends

Groups whose identity is defined by changing a paradigm become committed to preserving the original paradigm

Growing your people cultivates identity and growth mindset

Growth mindset reframes failure as learning

Halo effect is the tendency to like (or dislike) everything about a person

Hanlon's razor avoids paranoia and ideology

High achievers are learners and goal-setters

Human-centered design is the process of ensuring that people’s actual needs are met

Idea quotas foster creativity

Ideaflow is the single most important creative metric

Ideas are like leaves floating on collective thinking

Identity drives behavior

Ideological purity is the best possible camouflage for appalling mediocrity

Ideology is the glue that holds decentralized organizations together

Impact of disruptive innovations cannot be predicted

In decentralized social systems leadership is by influence

Increased knowledge increases influence

Increasing access to the means of production causes a decrease in the average quality of what gets produced

Increasing efficiency tends to lock up a system

Incumbent organizations tend to value sustaining innovations

Incumbents often invent what later destroys them

Influence can only be manipulative or inspirational

Influence focuses on results

Influencing behavior engages six sources of influence

Innovation requires an organizational culture that values it

Innovator’s dilemma is about first-mover advantage

Inquiry into complex issues is seldom rewarded

Institutions become committed to preserving the problem they were formed to solve

Integrative, Macroscopic Thinking is antithetical to higher education

Integrative, macroscopic thinking sees the forest and the trees

Intelligence is spread throughout decentralized systems

Inter-paradigm communication requires paradigmatic bilingualism

Intuition delivers overly extreme predictions

Intuition is pattern recognition

Inversion illuminates solutions by identifying what would make things worse

It is difficult to make someone understand what their salary depends on them not understanding

It is difficult to provide someone with a solution for a problem they do not think they have

It is impossible to teach a man what he thinks he already knows

Kinds of networks

Knowledge of managing sustaining innovations is incommensurable with disruptive innovations

Large systems tend to disintegrate during development

Lateral thinking is range in action

Lateral thinking with withered technology

Leaders cultivate an innovative environment

Leadership becomes more important with increasing complexity

Leadership is by circles in decentralized organizations

Leadership is intentional influence

Leadership is maintaining full engagement from your group

Leadership requires a vision and ability to communicate it

Leading like a gardener creates shared consciousness

Learning organizations create their own future

Learning organizations implement five component technologies

Leverage in the right location is more effective than the amount used

Lexicons constrain the range of possible belief

Liquid Networks foster innovation

Listen to the Suck with Curiosity

Locking down of a problem leads to frozen thinking

Loss aversion values avoiding losses more than achieving gains

Low-leverage interventions are alluring because they work in the short term

Making good decisions in ambiguous scenarios requires elastic thinking

Maps of connectivity reveal strategic dynamics

Memory palaces use physical locations to improve memory

Mental models influence how we think and act

Metaphors form the basis of our ability to think

Metcalfe's Law defines network effects

Metric fixation invites gaming

Modularity of a system affects resilience

Modularity radically reduces risk

Monkey First principle dictates building the hardest part of the moonshot first

Most executives only know how to manage sustaining innovations

Motivated reasoning is the soldier mindset

Near misses lead to taking unwise risks

Need for distribution of authority is commensurate to an organization’s size.

Negativity dominance processes the bad more thoroughly than the good

Negativity Instinct hinders thinking by emphasizing bad news

Networked problems influence each other

Networks at scale increase the number of links more than nodes

New organizations with range beat narrowly-focused incumbents every time

New paradigms are incommensurable with previous ones

New paradigms are preceded by crisis

New paradigms tend to be invented by newcomers

New paradigms tend to emerge all at once

Non-systemic solutions are addictive

Non-systemic thinking relies on familiar (but ineffective) solutions

Nothing has been heard until it has been said several times

Occam's razor leads to first principles thinking

One or two high leverage behaviors produce maximum change

Open licenses provide 5 freedoms

Open problems have unclear or permeable borders

Opportunity Cost is the sum of all the benefits provided by the options not chosen

Optimization aims to hold a system in an optimal state

Optimizing a system reduces its resilience

Organizational structures optimized for efficiency cannot manage disruptive innovations

Organizations entrenched in what they do need to return to why they do it

Organizations expand when prestige is correlated to budget size

Organizations focused on competitors become entrenched

Organizations need intentional structures for disruptive innovation

Overcome loss aversion with hands-on experience

Overton Window is a range of possibilities

Paradigm arguments are circular

Paradigm changes are preceded by awareness and recognition

Paradigm shifts create a new framework of thinking

Paradigm shifts reconstruct the field from new fundamentals

Paradigms can have phenomenal longevity

Paradigms change when they can no longer address anomalies

Pareto Principle leverages effort for maximum impact

Paternalism is doing for others what they can do for themselves

Path dependence shapes what we do next

Pattern recognition primes decision-making

People are more inclined to be influenced by multiple experts

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it

People judge the book by the cover

People tend to adopt their own ideas

People who have new ideas are threatening to the status quo

Perceived impartiality increases influence

Perception is Reality

Perseverance balances faith and honesty

Personal mastery is life in service of your highest aspirations

Planning fallacy confuses “best-guess” with “best-case” scenario

Planning is an active, iterative, learning process

Pointing to the destination shows why we're going

Positive Test Strategy reinforces Confirmation Bias

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Power Law distributions

Practice one or two specific skills

Practice skills at the edge of ability

Practice with immediate feedback and coaching

Premortem works backward from an undesirable outcome in order to prevent it

Pressure to meet a target value changes the system or the data

Prime directive of institutions is self-preservation

Problem-solving follows a four step process

Prolifically creative people pursue a network of projects

Property rights locks up a decentralized movement

Proximity to a threshold decreases the shock required to cross it

Psychological Safety is a prerequisite for creativity

Quality arises from quantity

Rallying the herd makes behavior contagious

Reference-class forecasting avoids uniqueness bias

Reference-class forecasting overcomes the planning fallacy

Reframing shifts perspective to see things in a new way

Resilience is the capacity to absorb shocks and retain function

Resilience is the distance between the system and its nearest threshold

Resilience is the key to overcoming the innovator’s dilemma

Resilience Thinking creates antifragile systems

Resilience Thinking embraces the reality that things change

Resilience Thinking understands thresholds and adaptive cycles

Resilient systems require both specified and general resilience

Results are produced by vital behaviors

Reverse-engineering focuses strategic options

Rough Consensus enables forward progress

Scale magnifies complexity

Scale-free patterns are fractal

Scenario Planning envisions the future

Scientific thinking is understanding something before it is observed

Scout mindset acknowledges own shortcomings

Scout mindset is the pursuit of truth

Scout mindset uses thought experiments to test for motivated reasoning

Scouts frequently update their maps

Scouts view anomalies as puzzle pieces

Scripting the critical moves shapes specific behaviors

Selection Bias happens when the sample is not representative

Shared consciousness maximizes availability of strategic information

Shifting paradigms requires macroscopic, integrative thinking

Shrinking the change reduces fear

Simple communication expresses the core of an idea

Simple rules tame complexity

Single Perspective Instinct hinders thinking by having only a hammer

Size Instinct hinders thinking by considering a number without context

Small sample sizes means variations will fluctuate wildly

Smart autonomy is freedom to act according to strategic intent

Social proof is most influential under three conditions

Solutions to complex problems are based on pattern recognition

Solutions to complex problems are rooted in context

Solutions to complex problems depend on creation of themes

Solutions to complex problems depends on a clear frame

Solving complex problems avoids simplification

Solving complex problems requires having the right participants

Solving complex problems requires intentional follow-through

Solving complex problems requires laying considerable groundwork

Solving complex problems requires understanding the context

Specialization tends to reduce range

Specified resilience defends against known disturbances

Specifying conditions reverse engineers a possibility

Spiral of Silence means the price of speaking out rises over time

Stanford Prison Experiment

Status quo bias favors the current state

Story-based communication elicits effective responses

Straight Line Instinct hinders thinking by assuming trends will continue

Strategic capability is required for thinking your way out of difficult positions

Strategic Cascade aligns activities with purpose

Strategic forecasting guides decision-making and catalyzes innovation

Strategy defines the choices for winning in a chosen field

Strategy formulation is an iterative process

Strategy identifies capabilities needed for winning in a chosen field

Strategy identifies management systems needed for winning

Strategy is focused on a winning aspiration

Strategy is formulated and communicated at every level

Strategy is the answer to five questions

Strategy narrows the competitive field

Structural explanations address underlying causes

Structure influences behavior

Structures of which we are unaware hold us prisoner

Substitution answers an easier, similar question instead

Successful projects develop a clear, informed understanding of the goal

Sunk Cost Fallacy avoids facing a loss

Superforecasters think differently

Superforecasting is the intersection of range and mindset

Survivorship bias focuses only on successful examples

Sustaining innovations improve performance

Symptomatic solutions exacerbate fundamental causes

Synthesis of innovation frameworks

System noise is undesirable variability in judgments

System structure produces behavior revealed as events over time

Systems archetypes embody the key to systems thinking

Systems are integrative, cohesive, and indivisible

Systems cannot be held in an optimal state

Systems grow best at their optimal rate, not faster

Systems image their design groups

Systems mindset examines the quality of decisions, not just outcomes

Systems of nature tend to follow an adaptive cycle

Systems Theory studies the relationships and structure of systems

Systems thinking accounts for events, structure, and behavior (over time)

Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing inter-relationships

Systems thinking is defined by laws

Systems Thinking perceives the relationships and structure of complex systems

Tactical Empathy understands another's feelings and mindset

Taking a stand triggers the consistency principle

Teachers of a tradition tend to resist its correction

Team learning is thinking together

Ten questions differentiate centralized and decentralized systems

The best plans maximize experience and experimentation

The clarity of a map is not easily distinguished from its accuracy

The default carries immense power

The kernel of a good strategy includes three things

The map is not the territory

The price of knowledge is a change in lexicon

The taste of better things excites revolt

The two halves of the brain speak different languages

Theory of influence asks why and how

Think slow, act fast is the secret of success

Thinking from right to left begins with the goal

Three questions form the essence of innovation

Tightness of feedback loops affects a system’s resilience

Time passes more slowly in some places than others

Tools both illuminate and limit our understanding

Trailblazers amplify weak signals

Transformability is the capacity to create a new system

Tribalism is human nature

Trolley problem illustrates an ethical dilemma

Trustworthy vs. Trusted

Turkey problem illustrates erroneously predicting the future based on a false narrative of the past

Tweaking the environment changes behavior

Typical organizational structures impede innovation

Typologies underscore the most characteristic elements of a type

Unchecked optimism leads to project failure

Understanding the systemic structure is powerfully generative

Unexpected communication violates expectations

Urgency Instinct hinders thinking by exaggerating a decision's urgency

Use of funding for training does not disrupt movements

Using emoji and memory palaces to memorize passages

Visionaries alienate pragmatists in four ways

Visionaries and pragmatists are fundamentally different in how they think

Visionaries only succeed together with implementers

What others do is the stimulus, not the cause, of feelings

What you see is all there is

When attacked, decentralized systems tend to become moreso

When facing potentially extreme outcomes, forecast risk

Wicked learning environments prevent learning

Wicked problems are difficult or impossible to solve

Wicked problems can only be addressed by systems thinking

Writing clarifies thinking

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Essentialism – Mckeown (2014)

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title: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
authors: Greg Mckeown
year: 2014
publisher: Crown Business
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