In response to a post by Marshall Goldsmith of Harvard Business review on Dan Arley, the author of “Predictably Irrational”, for which Marshall posted a thank-you note.

There’s a great way to actually trace a lot of these phenomena as they happen

December 26, 2008 at 1:32 PM (w/ minor edit)

Marshall,

There’s a great way to actually trace a lot of these phenomena as they happen, and learn how to recognize some of the early signals that people who don’t know how to read complex processes get tripped up bye. It’s by considering them as complex system learning processes.

Recognizing that many system processes are back and forth response patterns between a local system and an environment helps a lot. The changes in direction of accumulative change then read as reflecting changes in what each is ‘learning’ about the other, and opens lots of doors to understanding what they are learning.

I have a number of approaches. Watching learning curves (records of developmental change generally) takes learning to ask questions about derivative rate signals of diminishing returns and things, but quite helpful. Curvature reversal points signal whole system changes in developmental directions.

In any developmental process from first beginning to final end there are always two principle inflection points (with curvature reversals) that point to reversals in the rate of return, the accumulative environmental response or the the accumulative system assembly or disassembly process, ¸¸.•´ ¯ `•.¸¸, or both.

Best, P.F. Henshaw