This reminded me of the work we sometimes did as consultants with frameworks, strategy models and elaborate templates. I felt that we didn’t really capture the complexity, we reduced and simplified it in a way which didn’t really work. I don’t think we really saw and allowed for an open system which constantly emerges dynamically, but aimed more for a controlled setting with plans and execution:

“Boisot felt that a fundamental premise underlying bureaucracies was a belief that knowledge is something that can be simplified, and then easily transferred between parties – an orientation towards reducing complexity. (…)

Boisot recognised that shifting the way companies worked with knowledge presented significant cultural and organisational challenges. He felt that the ability to make the shift from reducing to absorbing complexity would be one of the key determining factors about which companies survive the transition to a knowledge economy and which would become the dinosaurs of a former era.”

The fewer assumptions a model has, the more flexible we are and the less obstructed in our observations. The higher our capacity for learning. And the swifter we can act and change course when needed.

Quote from article: Strategy as Hypothesis