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Showing posts from February, 2023

Can models help us navigate uncertainty?

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Probably not but at there end there are 10 ways to prevent assumptions becoming culture   Post the 2008 global financial crisis, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, said in an opening address at the ECB Central Banking Conference Frankfurt, 18 November 2010, “ As a policymaker during the crisis, I found the available models of limited help. In fact, I would go further: In the face of the crisis, we felt abandoned by conventional tools .” The Gap Many in executive and leadership positions have faced for a while a feeling that our models, simulations and computations are ill-suited to addressing big, messy, complicated real-world problems. There is a gap between the reality we read and measure today and the model that predicted today a short period ago.   Since we have yet to create new models and continue to utilise the same ideals, we know there is a gap between prediction and reality, and that gap is leading to poor decisions, which make us see a bigger g

Bias and Trauma

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I have been exploring the research and concepts that bias and trauma are deeply linked.  The linkage and directionality are much debated.   Trauma creates bias, and equally, bias creates trauma. It would appear that either can be a starting point, but they definitely feed each other, creating complex positive (healing) and negative (detrimental) feedback loops which extend beyond the individual and their immediate relationships to wider society.     Using systems-mapping to address Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and trauma: A qualitative study of stakeholder experiences  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0273361 Why does this matter, as all data has a bias?  Fundamental to a decision-making role based on data is to demand that we recognise bias and try to remove bias; however, I am now thinking that if we remove the bias, we assume there is no trauma, and therefore, everyone will be rational.  Yes, there are some big ugly assumptions in that state

Love this - but let's not pretend we all agree on what or why we are doing something.

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The future isn’t what it used to be: Here's how strategic foresight can help ; it is a high-quality, well-written, thoughtful piece from WEF.  It is presented by Olivier Woeffray, Practice Lead, Strategic Intelligence, World Economic Forum and Paulo Carvalho, Executive Director, MBA, Lisbon School of Economics & Management. The truth of the opening statement set the scene, “ [We are moving] from a world of relative predictability … to a world with more fragility – greater uncertainty, higher economic volatility, geopolitical confrontations .” However, something niggled me.  I love the future system and exponential thinking; however, I was wondering if the Venn diagram was the right one, but that took me off into thinking about the presentation, not the content.  My gut said I was missing something, but I could add all my initial objections into the future or systems thinking buckets. I was warming to the model and indeed feel it is a positive and valuable contribution, but it