Descriptive self-awareness

Descriptive self-awareness refers to the creations of anomalous circumstances where attention is heightened through contrast. This enables decision-makers to develop their own novel awareness of the situation and conclusions without the need for external intervention or "preaching". The contrast can be created through the parallel presentation of different perspectives on reality (for example one created through different groups going through the same sense-making exercise) or through the contrasting of an ideal representation of reality with what actually emerges when we look at it. Crucially, this contrasting presentation needs to be accompanied by no evaluation, so conclusions are reached without external guidance.

Concept

Descriptive self-awareness is key in many complex facilitation methods, some of which are listed in the section below. The questions typically asked at the comparison stage of any activity ("What was the same?", "What was different?", "What really surprised you?") are also designed to trigger descriptive self-awareness.

The concept appears in the PAGODA mnemonic, representing key principles in complexity interventions and is especially represented by the creation of anomalies (the first A in PAGODA) through the exploration of parallel process with groups of people that lead them into situations where they have to become more aware of differences by seeing the divergent outcomes of a shared process, and therefore becoming more sensitive to differences and capable of contextually appropriate action.

In addition to promoting awareness and a wider perspective on a situation, and creating the conditions for action at the appropriate level or context, descriptive self-awareness can also be a mechanism promoting more organic connection across diverging silos and perspectives.

Examples

In naturalizing sense-making:

• A key example of naturalising sense-making in action, descriptive self-awareness in based on insights from neuroscience on the nature of human attention and cognition, combating phenomena such as Inattentional blindness and drawing from the work of Andy Clark and others

In complexity methods:

• Although descriptive self-awareness is a feature of multiple methods, a selection of which appears below, perhaps its most typical application at scale is in SenseMaker, where we can use the potential of software to both involve more and more diverse perspectives and to minimise the influence of the facilitator by focusing on the patterns that result from self-interpretation. In the words of Dave Snowden, in the blog post linked below, "If we take a cluster of the narratives/observations signified (our word for interpreted or indexed) in a similar way and present it to other groups and ask them to interpret the material, then they have gone through the same process; no expert who can be dismissed, no algorithm that can be blamed: they did it, and now they have to think about the consequences."

Related

Methods

• Archetype extraction
• SenseMaker
• 3-points
• Decision mapping
• Future backwards

References

Blog posts

• Dave Snowden, What is thought to be is rarely real, Cognitive Edge Blog (November 5, 2014), reference to descriptive self-awareness in the context of decision mapping and the use of SenseMaker®
• Dave Snowden, PAGODA, Cognitive Edge Blog (September 16, 2024)
• Dave Snowden, Differences that make a difference, Cognitive Edge Blog (February 27, 2024)
• Dave Snowden, Of people, roles and ritual (3 of 3), Cognitive Edge Blog (September 29, 2021)
• Dave Snowden, Learning: an anthro-complexity perspective, Cognitive Edge Blog (September 9, 2021)