Why this module matters

  • Challenges how you think about cause and effect

    Understand why single root causes rarely explain outcomes in complex, interconnected systems.

  • Introduces a richer way to think about change

    Learn concepts like enabling conditions, propensities, and context to see how change actually happens.

  • Shifts you from engineer to gardener

    Move from controlling outcomes directly to shaping the conditions that make the outcomes you want more likely.

Learning outcomes

A detailed breakdown of the main learning outcomes for this module

  • Articulate different approaches to causation in complexity and how they differ from more predictable causation

  • Apply concepts of causation in complexity to make your actions more context aware (e.g. enabling conditions, constraints, powers)

  • Articulate the engineer vs gardener approach to problem solving, and judge what to use when

  • Analyse potential first- and second-order effects of specific actions in complexity

Practise with hands-on exercises

In this exercise kit, you will take a real challenge and shift your own stance from an engineer forcing a fix to a gardener tending conditions, then work with your team to map the forces pushing toward and away from your desired outcome and identify small, safe changes to the conditions that make it more likely.

Instructor(s)

Marco Valente

Complexity expert

Marco helps leaders and teams, at the highest organizational levels, find their way forward in complex, messy challenges. Through a flexible array of simple practices, he will help you with approaches that are easy to use and that help you develop bigger minds over time. His fluency in facilitation provides us flexible design options to create meaningful leadership development experiences, and in creating the right dialogue formats for you to get great work done, find your answer in complexity, all the while learning and developing as a team and as leaders over time.

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