Creating aporia

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Linguistic

Neologisms

Examples would include Gould’s creation of Exaptation to contrast with Adaptation along with Weick’s creation of sensemaking without a hyphen. Used well these combine the familiar with an unfamiliar twist.

Foreign words

Everyone in philosophy uses Weltanschauung, a german compound noun that means so much more than the literal translation world view. Nonaka’s use of BA, mine of the Cynefin. Use a word from another language and you can tell the story of its meaning

Paradox

Think of Zeno, or the liars paradox I always lie which means I just lied so I am telling the truth and so on. Paradoxical statements mean that you cannot resolve the question in a conventional way so you have to think about the problem differently

Metaphor

Has always been powerful. I recently used mycorrhiza to illustrate the role of informal networks in organisations. The Children’s Party story is still the best teaching story I have ever created and it makes the point about the nature of a complex adaptive system clear in a way that anyone can relate to.

Counterfactuals

A narrative form but powerful, it takes a situation that everyone knows and suggests an alternative. If Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had committed his troops to support Simon de Montfort at the battle of Evesham Wales might well still be independent. Something that of course, any educated person would know. A more obscure example would be if Wolfe hadn’t used Highland troops to scale the cliffs then he would not have won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and as a result, the threat of French Invasion would have meant the American War of Independence would now have happened. If Lee had not had to reorganise his battle command structure following the death of Jackson, he would have won Gettysburg and so on. Sorry, I like this technique too much so have given more than one historical example, but it also works within organisations, and our Future Backwards method is based on this idea.

Use poetry

One of the great human capabilities, Poetry creates space by playing with words that create different ways of thinking. I have used Frost’s Mending Walls many a time along with R.S.Thomas and others. I’m exploring the magical realist’s poets at the moment so expect some posts on that.

Quotations

Probably one of the most popular approaches. I used Heidegger above, and I often use Lincoln’s As the times are anew, so we must think anew, act anew. There are many, many others. The authority of the person quoted, the formulation of the words can all achieve change.