The Cynefin Company has been challenging conventional thinking on strategy, leadership, culture and change management since 2005. Incorporating the science of complexity into our practice and recognising the necessity of managing for an unpredictable future, we have moved beyond empty promises of offering control. Instead, we offer a partnership to help with mitigating risks and seizing new opportunities.

Our view of reality is based on years of research in the fields of anthropology, natural sciences and the neuroscience of perception and decision-making. But we’re not all theory. Our practical work has been battle-tested, literally. From the front lines of counter-terrorism research, giving a voice to citizens and refugee camps, to employee involvement in business improvement and large-scale transformation, understanding the vagaries of the marketplace, and due-diligence in acquisitions, we have been there. Wherever human beings have had energy, ambition or the desire to solve complex problems without cutting corners, our tools have been used.

Our methods and tools are designed to complement traditional engineering approaches and are implemented in a guiding-partnership format in organisations and programmes through our network of associates, practitioners and sensemaking partners.
Engage with us today to explore how we can help you navigate complexity.

For almost two decades, we have immersed ourselves in everything complexity. Long before it became a buzzword and a trendy topic: before that, when it was hard. We are renowned stewards and pioneers of anthro-complexity thinking – applied complexity with a focus on human systems.

Anthro-complexity respects human judgement, intelligence, and agency: the study of the human aspect of complex adaptive systems. Our approach argues that human beings and societies are radically different than insects, birds, robots, or chemical reactions and therefore cannot be modelled in the same way. At the same time, we can make sense of the world we live in and take action in it, even in conditions of uncertainty, by following complexity-appropriate methods and letting natural science define the outer limits of our practice.

Complexity, the science of uncertainty, allows us insight into reality. Anthro-complexity, the science of human complex adaptive systems, allows us to co-create new realities in our uncertainty and volatility.