Estuarine Mapping: Part One

Background and Mapping Day

In late 2023, I attended the virtual Estuarine Mapping workshop, hosted by The Cynefin Co. The framework was created by Dave Snowden, the creator of the Cynefin Framework.

This article is the first in a three-part series, and aims to walk through my experience applying the framework in a real-world setting.

OFFICIAL TRAINING

The official training took place over three separate days. It was a mixture of instructor-led sessions, Q&As with Dave Snowden and his team, and then breakout sessions so we could get our hands dirty with the framework.

One of the things that became very apparent to me in the breakout sessions was that the terminology had everyone spinning their wheels. The session began with a lot of excitement and energy, but soon drifted into exhaustive, circular debate about the terminology. Actants. Effects. Constructors. Constraints. Counter-Factuals. And more. There are a lot of terms to get used to.

There was a moment where I became briefly disengaged as the debates weren’t really productive. In this moment, I stepped back and asked: “If we are struggling with this, how are a group of ordinary, everyday employees going to handle this?” I wanted to be sure that if I brought this approach to a business, it would be a fruitful exercise, free of unnecessary energy drains.

Further discussions convinced me that I had to find a way to create a lightweight skin around this framework so that we could maintain the energy and focus in the room.

I did this by simplifying everything into two categories:

• Effects: observable patterns that are seen in the organization.

• Modulators: things that are theorized (or known) to influence one or more Effects.

The approach would then be simple: to map the modulators and then work with the client to create safe-to-fail probes to either amplify or dampen the modulators selected for change.

CLIENT PRIMING

It wasn’t long before I had a client who was ready to go all-in with me on the framework: a small federally-funded healthcare company in rural Missouri, with approximately 100 employees. Their CEO had worked with me on a Facebook Workplace implementation a few years ago and was very taken with my knowledge of behavioral science.

I told him about the Estuarine Mapping framework and made a quick video to prime the Executive Team for the work. The video gave them everything they needed to set expectations correctly and give them a window into how this would all work:

NARRATIVE GATHERING

One of the reasons the CEO has approached me was that he did not feel he was getting “the real story” from traditional surveys and exit interviews. There was a feeling that something else was going on beneath the surface.

I put a team together, comprised of myself and two other consultants. We planned to spend some time at the client site and interview staff, one-by-one. We did this by sending out a note directly to every employee, asking each individual to either opt in or out of the discussions. The executive team were completely bypassed; they had no idea who had signed up or declined. A physical setting was then picked to maximize privacy.

We then were able to conduct over 60 interviews beginning with the question: “If someone of a valued relation to you were offered a job here, what would you tell them?” We tried not to bias questions towards only finding problems, as we wanted to gather both positive and negative narratives. Problems eventually did bubble up when employees felt they had the psychological safety to speak their minds.

Other questions we asked were:

• What does a good day look like?

• What does a bad day look like?

• How would you describe the culture here?

• If you won the lottery tomorrow and could give one piece of brutal, parting advice to the leadership team, what would it be?

Our team of three meant that one person could ask questions and keep the interviewees engaged; one person could take verbatim statements (we also piloted an AI to do this too); and the last person could watch body language carefully and interject when necessary. One technique I used for this is called Forensic Listening, which I learned from Chip Massey, a retired FBI hostage negotiator, co-author of Convince Me.

Conducting the interviews as in-person turned out to be a wise idea, as many employees did not initially believe that what they said would truly be kept confidential. By sitting across from them and being able to look into their eyes and personally reassure them, we were able to instill a level of confidence and safety in them that would not have been possible if they were just handed an iPad or a link to an online tool.

PATTERN MINING

After the interviews were complete, my team spent a day at a large whiteboard in our office, clustering all of the comments together into patterns. We then put a document together that contained each pattern, some verbatim statements related to it, and some possible modulators based on our discussions with the employees. The Executive Team were asked to add their own as well.

The traditional method of capturing narratives is to use the SenseMaker® software from The Cynefin Co. We took an old-school approach that did leave us short in some areas. For example, by not using SenseMaker®, we missed out on some fascinating features such as self-interpretation where respondents can add layers of meaning to their stories using Triads:

After we had catalogued every pattern, we sent those over to the Executive Team at our client. We then had a 30 minute call with them to discuss the results and explain next steps. The client was initially quite shocked by how overwhelmingly negative the comments and stories were. We had to spend extra time reassuring them that almost every employee had, indeed, said they would recommend their workplace.

The client was instructed to schedule a single day on-site with us to run the actual Estuarine Mapping session. The agenda was broken down by each pattern (one hour each) and staff affected by the pattern were brought into the room. This meant that we always had the appropriate people in the room and a strong cross-functional representation from across the organization at each session.

MAPPING DAY

On June 18th, 2024, we arrived at the client site ready for the big mapping day.

We were provided with a huge room that had two prominent whiteboards. We had also brought a number of sticky notes and markers with us. I re-arranged the room to create an open, interactive space. All desks were pushed to the sides and back of the room. A few staff seemed unhappy that they had no desk, but this was mainly due to us not properly setting expectations around the activity. People had brought pens and notepads with them, but those were not going to be needed!

Each session worked as follows:

• We explained who we were and why we were there

• We gave a brief overview of the activity and what they could expect for the hour

• We listed out each modulator that had been previously agreed with the executive team

• We asked the employees if they could think of any other modulators

• Some modulators were merged if we realized they were the same thing

• Once all modulators were mapped onto the board, we then moved to safe-to-fail probes

The original plan had been to map everything and then start looking at safe-to-fail probes at the very end once we knew the terrain and which items were in-play. However, things did not go to plan, and I’m really pleased with how things ended up turning out.

The reason is that everyone was very familiar with the purpose of the map. The executives were incredibly realistic about the counter-factuals placed in the top-right corner.

So once the modulators had been listed, the conversations were already drifting naturally to interventions. Some of the best ideas for the safe-to-fail probes actually came from regular staff. The Executive Team even admitted they would not have thought of these ideas on their own. That is the power of having the right, diverse group of people in the room for each pattern.

By the end of the day we had a final map and a candidate list of safe-to-fail probes.

FINAL THOUGHTS AND LESSONS LEARNED

If I did this exercise all over again there are a few things I would do differently:

• Make sure employees understood exactly what would be happening during the session

• Use sticky tape on the post-it notes (some kept falling off the whiteboard which was a constant distraction)

• Prepare the Executive Team for a bias towards negative stories from employees, even if things were generally thought to be going well

Two members of the Executive Team approached us after the session to compliment the process. They said there were two specific teams who always locked horns; they were amazed to see them actively collaborate! They admitted they didn’t know how effective the session would be but they felt they had pulled out so much insight than they could ever have imagined.

The CFO, on Estuarine Mapping, closed with “When you first told me the name of this framework I wondered what on Earth this had to do with horses!” I guess we will have to leave “Equestrian Mapping” for another day!

Stay tuned for Part Two. Due Fall 2024.