Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

Our tendency to categorise and the effect on sensemaking

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —November 22, 2005
Filed in Culture

Patti over at 37 Days provides a brilliant and humorous description of Richard Nisbett’s work on how westerners and Asians perceive the world differently. Her …

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Great quote from Brian Arthur on sensemaking

Posted by  Andrew Rixon —October 16, 2005
Filed in Culture, Leadership Posts

This has got to be one of the best quotes I’ve seen regarding sensemaking, from an article of Brian Arthur’s in the Harvard Business Review. Imagine …

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A couple of things I’ve learnt about interventions

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —September 27, 2005
Filed in Collaboration, Culture

Late last year I described some initial thoughts on what makes an intervention. Here is an excerpt: We call them ‘interventions’ because they are designed …

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Cultural attractors – Dan Sperber on the Edge

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —July 30, 2005
Filed in Culture

If you love reading essays by some of the world’s top thinkers, then get onto the Edge mailing list (www.edge.org). This month’s set of essays …

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An example of an intervention

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —April 28, 2005
Filed in Culture, News

In a previous post I’ve described the difference between interventions and projects. On the radio this morning (ABC 774) I heard about what I would …

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Skimming over the organisational issues

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —March 14, 2005
Filed in Culture

James Dellow made the following comment: I think there are some barriers to blogging inside corporates that Shawn’s paper skims overs. For example, IT architecture, …

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What is an attractor?

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —February 25, 2005
Filed in Culture

Managers can apply complexity science as a metaphor to better understand their organisation. Like all metaphors, they are only a partial description and will always …

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cc or die

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —December 3, 2004
Filed in Anecdotes, Culture

I heard the following anecdote the other day: ‘When I arrived I was told I should put every in writing as an email. This didn’t …

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