In this guide we'r capturing some of the strategies and approaches for navigating change, exploring the unknown, dealing with uncertainty, and making sense of complexity. It's not an exhaustive account, but a guide from our travels exploring this space.

Why now you might ask... Well, since the time of Galileo, Decartes, and Newton the dominant worldview has been a reductionist perspective. A cause is expected to be knowable, and a solution predictable, stable, isolated and explainable by cause and effect, much like Netwon's natural laws. The dominant metaphors used in society and science ever since have been those of a 'machine'. There is also a duality implied, we are outside of the world, we do something to the world. This has brought us much progress, and will continue to do so. However, it is also becoming clear that it has its limits.

If you look around, the not so easy stuff you're faced with in work and life, is usually very contextual, open ended, and often deeply connected to other things in unexpected ways. We are starting to realise that for a big part the world is not that 'simple' and predictable, but emergent and serendipitous. In addition, it turns out that the challenges we face are volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.

We are an intricate part of our environment, and so are our open ended challenges. Navigating and appreciating this complexity requires an upgrade in our sense making and an upgrade in our practice. Luckily humans are actually pretty good at it, after all we've managed to survive as a species between 200.000 and 300.000 years.. well before this complex organism of a tree dropped an apple on Newton's head.