The Third Lens Multi-ontology Sense-making and Strategic Decision-making

Advancing new sense-making tools for organizational strategy, this book demonstrates how to deal with asymmetric threats and opportunities. It employs participatory methods and multiple sector strategies to shift strategic thinking into considering disorder complexity and chaos. The contributors examine whether the 'third lens' or ontology of a project (its nature, work and strategic landscape) should influence the two other 'lenses' (our epistemological and methodological choices) that create an understanding of the world we live in. The book also considers the importance of time, in particular spatio-temporal relations that serve as reflection points for sense-making and strategic decision-making, both with respect to the situation in which they take place and as conceptual vehicles for managing multiple times and realities. Written for 21st century strategists, this volume will benefit people and organizations who struggle daily with multiple co-existing ontological, epistemological and methodological discourses.

Contents: Introduction - before this book was written. Part 1 Re-Setting Our Thoughts: Strategic decision-making - how it is, and how it used to be, Mika Aaltonen; Making sense of the past, present and future, Mika Aaltonen; Sense-making in relation to time and the strategic landscape, Mika Aaltonen. Part 2 Modelling Sense-Making: A foresight model for evaluating long-term growth: Formel-G, Stefan Bergheim; A political early warning-response system to address global and regional threats, Tapio Kanninen; Platforms, pieces and probabilities - introducing the 3P-model, Mika Aaltonen. Part 3 Revisiting Causal Theory: Sensitiveness to initial conditions: reconceptualising cause, Mika Aaltonen and T. Irene Saunders; Making sense of a complex world, Paul Cilliers; The emergence of final cause, Eve Mitleton-Kelly. Part 4 Conclusions: Conclusions - after this book was written, Mika Aaltonen; Bibliography; Index.

Mika Aaltonen is Head and Chairman of the Board of StraX (the research unit for strategic intelligence and exploration of futures) at Helsinki University of Technology, Finland