Tangles

Much of what I spend my days doing is about tangles.

Typically it starts with an innocuous problem. Something isn’t happening fast enough, or at all and, despite suspicions, no one is quite sure why. It feels like it should be simple, like people should just get it, like a little bit more effort will get that momentum back. And yet… it doesn’t.

My mental model for this is a tangle. It’s like people, teams, organisations, have a piece of string that they are pulling and pulling and they can’t quite figure out why it won’t come free. In fact, the more people or energy they throw at it the more stuck it seems to get. The truth is that the ‘piece of string’ is a part of something much bigger. Perhaps it’s tangled up with assumptions, misfiring incentives or internal politics. Perhaps there’s an unspoken knowledge or fear about what tugging loose the string would actually mean. Perhaps everyone is actually pulling on a different bit of string and no-one realises, or perhaps some are pushing it back in to the tangle.

I love tangles. I enjoy feeling out the shape of them, exploring the main elements, and connections. Looking for externalities, assumptions, weaknesses and strengths in the whole jumble. And, from there, looking at why things aren’t working as expected or hoped for.

Over time, I’ve noticed the same two stumbling blocks appear again and again.

The first comes during the early stage of understanding the tangle itself. The challenge is not accessing information. It’s building and sustaining the trust that allows us to sit with the discomfort for a bit. It’s hard to justify stepping back when everyone feels pressure to move forward. It’s even harder to accept that the effort you’ve been putting into something may not pay off, or may need redirecting. The sense of sunk cost is very real.

The change in mode from pushing and pushing and pushing (or pulling to maintain my string metaphor) to pausing and reflecting is a real shift. Often, by the time I am involved, teams feel they need visible progress immediately. It can feel too late to even appear to slow down.

The second stumbling block is when understanding turns into diagnosis and action. When it becomes clear where effort should be applied, or removed. The challenge here is disbelief. The idea that something familiar should be done differently, or that work could be easier, can feel wrong. By this point, people may be expending so much energy that easing off feels like failure. As if work must be hard, exhausting and fraught, otherwise what was all that effort for?

When this happens, it is dispiriting. A large part of my work is finding ways to soften this transition.

Of course, this is only a metaphor. The tangle is a model of a little, select bit of reality. It stands in for politics, policies, skills, technical realities, logistics, personalities, constraints, the economy, hopes, beliefs… and so much more. The point is not to untangle the tangle, but to see the right patterns that allow progress, relief and reconciliation.

Without tangles, my work would be far less challenging, and far less enjoyable.

So, what’s your current tangle?