Anatomy of an Omnipattern
If we treat patterns as situated hypotheses for acting under tension, and we express them through consequence-focused reflection, then they become portable, adaptive tools for navigating complexity across difference.
This pattern emerges when people want to document, share, or evolve ways of working without collapsing them into toolkits, checklists, or cultural generalisations. In complex environments, practices must remain revisable and grounded in lived experience.
We call them patterns, not practices, because a pattern is a reusable structure of action shaped by recurring tension and defined by its anticipated consequences. This definition follows the pragmatic maxim: meaning is found in what the pattern is expected to change in the world, not what it claims to represent
Patterns should support variation, reinterpretation, and collective inquiry. This anatomy exists to help hold that intent.
Tension Constellation Mapping
If we have surfaced relational tensions (through a Terrain Map, Sorting Circle, or reflective practice) and we construct a constellation of insight around a selected tension, then we create the conditions for generative, abductive research and probe-led action.
Many tensions emerge through story, behaviour, policy, or emotion but they’re rarely explored in the round. Tension Constellation Mapping helps us slow down and build a multidimensional field around a tension before we act. This allows patterns, contradictions, gaps, and assumptions to become visible. We move from naming tension to situating it, sensing what’s at stake, and designing exploratory moves that deepen collective understanding.
Learning Rhythm Map
If we are stuck in misaligned or stagnant learning rhythms, and we map the actual pulses of energy, insight, and change within our system, then we tend to design reflection cycles that are more timely, strategic, and alive, enabling real-time learning and adaptive coherence.
When strategy falters in complexity, it’s rarely due to poor intent or lack of data. More often, it’s because reflection happens out of sync with lived work. Learning is treated as a scheduled event rather than an emergent rhythm. In most organisations, the moments when insight arises, improvisation under pressure, hallway chats, debriefs after failure, are invisible to the official review cadence.
Strategic Beta Canvas
If we treat strategy as a set of testable tensions, and we design small, time-bound probes that reveal consequence and coherence, then we tend to act more wisely, learn more quickly, and evolve more resiliently.
In complex systems, bold ideas either stall in debate or rush into rollout before they’re ready. Strategy lives in tension: too slow to act, and the window closes; too fast, and you harden the wrong assumptions. The Strategic Beta Canvas helps you move with purpose but without pretence, turning strategy into small, deliberate probes tied to real tensions, real learning, and real consequences.
Strategic Constellation Gallery
If we curate multiple constellations of insight and hold them in visual, reflective space, then we tend to make abductive leaps, see patterns across difference, and shape strategy that is more situated, plural, and alive.
In complex systems, insights rarely arrive neatly packaged. We gather fragments, stories, beliefs, tensions, field notes but struggle to hold them all in view. Traditional synthesis flattens them into themes or KPIs too early. The Strategic Constellation Gallery creates a space to walk among constellations of meaning: each a living arrangement of tensions, beliefs, and strategic energy.
Coherence Mapping
If teams use a shared visual map to locate tensions in relation to their energy and emotional tone, and they revisit and reflect on those tensions regularly, then they tend to deepen their learning, notice shifts, and act with more coherence.
When teams surface tensions, they often lose track of them, forgetting what sparked energy or confusion in the first place. Without a shared way to hold, revisit, and make sense of tensions over time, learning fragments and action becomes reactive. Coherence Mapping offers a durable artefact that allows teams to place, reflect on, and adapt tensions as part of an ongoing inquiry.
Disposition Mapping
If we encounter persistent friction or value-laden tensions and map the dispositions (e.g. beliefs, values, and intentions) across affected perspectives, we tend to reveal deeper logic, reduce blame, and enable more coherent yet plural action.
When teams experience recurring tensions, they often sense something deeper is at play, beyond policy, process, or personality. These tensions are usually rooted in different dispositions: lived beliefs, value commitments, and patterned responses to uncertainty. Disposition Mapping helps surface the constellation of these stances so that people can engage them reflectively rather than defensively.
Team Coherence Reflection
If a team is sensing emotional or relational drift, and they engage in shared reflection using a simple mapping structure, then patterns of coherence and tension tend to emerge, allowing more grounded and adaptive action to become possible.
Teams often sense that something is off, misaligned, or stuck, but struggle to name what it is without jumping to conclusions. Meetings can feel slightly off-rhythm, energy drifts, or efforts stall, yet there is no shared language for these subtle experiences. This pattern provides a way to make the invisible visible by inviting individual reflection and collective conversation using a shared visual artefact.
Tension Search
If we are facing hidden tensions and fragmented understanding, and we convene a temporary, participatory gathering focused on surfacing lived tensions, then patterns of conflict, energy, and possibility tend to emerge, allowing more grounded follow-on action.
In many organisations, underlying tensions shape what gets said, who gets heard, and how decisions play out, but they remain invisible in traditional meetings and planning sessions. People feel the drift, but lack a collective way to surface what’s pulling at them. Tension Search offers a structured, participatory gathering where these undercurrents can be named safely and usefully. It treats tension not as a sign of failure, but as a source of insight, coherence, and future energy.
Tension Sorting Circle
If we are collecting frontline journals or narrative fragments, and we create a shared space to read and sort them based on felt tension, then we tend to surface meaningful contradictions, deepen collective insight, and lay the groundwork for coherence mapping and adaptive action.
Journals and microstories often capture fragments of rich organisational life, but without a way to explore them together, the signal is lost. Teams need a regular, lightweight rhythm to sort through lived experience, not by theme, but by tension and the energy that arises when expectations and reality collide.
Tension Inversion
If a team is navigating subtle or persistent friction, and they engage in an inversion exercise that exaggerates or distorts their current behaviour, then they tend to surface richer, more honest tensions that can guide inquiry and learning.
When teams sense that something is off, they often fall into problem-solving mode too quickly. This rush can surface superficial issues while deeper tensions remain unspoken. Tension Inversion slows the process by deliberately inviting exaggeration and inversion. By flipping the situation and asking what would make things worse, teams can safely reveal the unspoken contradictions, role conflicts, and unacknowledged patterns driving their experience.
Relational Terrain Mapping
If we are working across a complex web of actors and systems, and we map their relational proximity, perspectives, and tensions, then we tend to surface critical dynamics that shape the work, enabling more adaptive, grounded, and coherent movement.
Most mapping tools show who’s involved, but not how they actually relate. In complex systems, what shapes outcomes isn’t just structure, it’s the lived dynamics of trust, history, tension, and belief. The Relational Terrain Map reveals this messy, emotional, power-sensitive landscape. It makes visible the field of connection, contradiction, and meaning so teams can act with awareness, not assumption.
1-Minute Journal
If we are operating in complex frontline environments, and we create an informal, rapid way to capture surprising or awkward moments in real time, then we tend to surface insights that reveal systemic tensions, inspire adaptive learning, and support organisational coherence.
Moments of friction, surprise, or quiet improvisation in frontline work often go unnoticed and unrecorded. These are not anomalies, they are the pulse of how complex systems actually function. Yet most organisations lack a lightweight, culturally resonant way to surface these moments for collective sensemaking.
Reflective Relay
If we frame strategic intent as a shared tension, and we invite teams to interpret, reframe, and critique it through structured dialogue, then strategy becomes a living narrative. More coherent, adaptive, and grounded in reality.
Most strategy fails not because it’s wrong, but because it’s unrelational. Meaning is assumed to cascade. Leaders broadcast intent, teams nod, and everyone quietly translates or resists in their own way. Reflective Relay flips this. Strategy becomes a co-authored act of interpretation, passed through multiple lenses, interrogated through tension, and reframed with lived insight. The aim is not agreement, but situated coherence.
Probe Storming
If we are holding a meaningful tension, and we deliberately generate varied, safe-to-fail probes aimed at learning rather than control, then we tend to uncover unexpected insight, test implicit assumptions, and discover more coherent paths forward.
This pattern emerged from the repeated difficulty teams face when trying to move from deep insight to tangible action. In complex environments, the instinct is often to fix or decide prematurely. Probe Storming addresses the need to stay curious and experimental in the face of complexity, turning the moment of tension into an invitation to explore, not resolve.