Jeff Conklin > Quotes

“Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them. Laurence J. Peter (Peter’s Almanac, entry for 24 September 1982)”
― Jeff Conklin, Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems

“To function in such a hierarchy often means to collude in systematic denial of the complex and ill-structured dynamics of wicked problems, a phenomenon dubbed ‘skilled incompetence’ by Chris Argyris (e.g.”
― Jeff Conklin, Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems

“hierarchical authority could always be used to sort out the hardest parts. Now, in the ‘knowledge workforce,’ more democratic models of decision making are being used.”
― Jeff Conklin, Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems

“Thus social complexity is not just a function of the number of stakeholders – it is also a function of structural relationships among the stakeholders.”
― Jeff Conklin, Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems

“Thus, social complexity makes wicked problems even more wicked, raising the bar of collaborative success higher than ever.”
― Jeff Conklin, Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems

“As a result, there are two common organizational coping mechanisms that are routinely applied to wicked problems: studying the problem, and taming it.”
― Jeff Conklin, Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems

“However, attempting to tame a wicked problem, while appealing in the short run, fails in the long run.”
― Jeff Conklin, Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems