The Tidal Wave: Facing the Six Truths

Belief is a wound that knowledge must heal. – Ursula Le Guin

The Tidal Wave

Throughout my career, I've had a recurring dream.

I am standing alone in a tall cave. The stone walls drip moisture onto my clothes. Looking out of the cave's wide mouth … I see a tidal wave heading towards me.

I shout at it.

That's the entire dream. Yelling at a tidal wave that never arrives but is always encroaching.

Perhaps you’ve felt like this in your daily worklife; shouting at forces you can not compel? This chapter gives you productive things to focus on instead. A map of Six Truths that help you stop yelling at the tidal wave -- and pathways towards something different.

“Gaslit” is what you feel when the epistemic infrastructure (the current flow of knowledge) makes you doubt your own perception of reality. The true Gaslight Masters are the Six Dominant Delusions (of Tidal Wave Size). They can be so big, The Notorious RBG couldn’t get a job as a lawyer.

The power of delusions comes from feeding them our attention. We must invest our time, energy, and attention reinforcing them. Rather than building the system we actually need.

I no longer dream of tidal waves. I stopped believing, "If I can just catch a break, I’ll finally get some work done." Increasingly, I know how to get work done without paying the TIdal Wave Toll.

I no longer stand in front of the oncoming Pain Train, hoping to stop it -- as if I’m Superman with arms of steel. After being run over, again and again, the train just kept on rolling.

Instead, I invest my time, energy and attention in generating knowledge flow. And, in helping others to do the same.

The Six Inconceivable Truths

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -- The Princess Bride

This chapter is an orientation. A high-level map of our journey forward. You’ll be introduced to the truths and pathways that you’ll be exploring.

Truth (worldview) -> Spiral Path (practices)

1. Knowledge is Shaped by Time, Energy, and Attention -> Navigating Temporal Currents
2. Knowledge is Relational Reciprocity -> Cultivating Coherence
3. Knowledge is Emergent Meaning -> Architecting Emergent Meaning
4. Knowledge Leadership is Facilitation -> Stewarding Distributed Decisions
5. Knowledge is Many Ways of Knowing -> Mastermind Cognitive Ecologies
6. Knowledge is Engineered Through Learning -> Designing Learning Loops

Reading this chapter might feel a bit like a tidal wave. Don’t try to memorize any of it. Just get the feel, the rhythm, of what's ahead. We’ll break each one path in subsequent chapters -- you can take your time.

These are not perfect frameworks. They don’t address every challenge that every organization will ever face. The Six Truths are road signs pointing away from the dominant delusions, towards smarter systems. The paths describe, and encourage, divergent activities that when done together, generate modern knowledge work.

You’ll also need fundamental competencies, regardless of which paths you take. In the next chapter, we'll explore those competencies. And I'll recommend activities that you can practice, right away, to help you cultivate them.

In Chapter 5, we’ll return to these paths. You’ll take one step in each direction by adopting a keystone practice.

For now, rest into a world where the delusions are right sized. Where they serve a knowledge system rather than strangling it. Where we can re-architect how we invest our time, energy and attention.

Don’t worry if you find this world difficult to imagine at scale. You don't have to believe. We’ve been doing the same things in the same ways for a long time. There’s no hurry to “get it”. You are not deploying a new system, or replacing the old one. You are taking one step at a time.

One step at a time is enough to transform the world entire.

Knowledge is Shaped by Time, Energy, and Attention

Knowledge is not a static possession, a Confluence page waiting to be discovered. Knowledge emerges as we invest our time, energy, and attention in meaning-directed, practices , taking feedback-informed action.

Time is not a uniform, one-way line. Decisions cause ripples, not fixes. A single event can trigger time loops (recurring decisions), delays (blockers), acceleration (emergencies), and cascades (fire drills) in a chaotic way.

Rather than managing time, controlling it with Gantt charts and set-in-stone project plans, we adopt practices that treat time as a living medium we are moving through.

This is called temporal intelligence: the organizational capacity to design asyncronous systems.

Navigating temporal currents is the path we follow. On tht path, we develop the temporal intelligence needed to design dynamic patterns rather than linear fixes. We design meaningful responses to real-time events. Not one-size-fits-all responses, we also respond in context.

An example of temporal intelligence is Async Event Response Design:

When a single significant event happens (e.g., the internet goes down, a big sale launches, changing shipping vendors) we can design an asynchronous response plan.

We can keep meaning coherent across roles and times; as information flows, we understand how every context is impacted. We understand what each person or software system need to know. We don't think of this as an emergency to control. We enable operational pattern to shift how do they respond, depending on what they experience. We encourage other parts of the system (software and teams) to consider impact and design ways to support each other.

Chances are, you have already designed temporal intelligence. Whenever a system talks back through feedback, like querying a database, that's an example! Whenever you expand simple give and receive transactional patterns into dynamic listening patterns, you are taking a step towards flow. And paying attention to the impact of "who is paying attention to what", in real time.

Knowledge is Relational Reciprocity

Knowledge doesn’t trickle down, it flows across systemic relationships: people, teams, and tools exchanging perspective and context.

Reciprocity means "how the parts working together". It is a mechanism, the recognition that parts of a system (teams, software) should work together. It means, fundamentally, that we need to share our knowledge.

Well-designed reciprocity translates context across roles. For example, when I take an action, I understand why that action matters. I'm not simply doing what I'm told, I'm acting on something I understand.

Reciprocity leverages tacit know‑how by integrating the hands-on insights we can’t easily explain. For example, when I'm writing the code that delivers a new user experience, I can also help shape the "strategy and requirements" that governs my activity. I help the organization integrate machine thinking into business goals and human activities by integrating strategic ideas with implementation wisdom.

Without relational reciprocity, our time, energy, and attention fall into the gaps — between people, teams, software sytems, roles, and points of view. WIthout it, we are throwing the money we pay for knowledge work into a well, where it lies dormant.

Human, organizational, and technical dynamics intertwine. This is what we mean when we say sociotechnical systems. Social process and our technology systems co-create each other. Our epistemic infrastructure can co-create coherence, enable these parts to act in harmony. Or lack thereof, creating blockers, gaps, silos or a firehose of meaningless information to scan (I'm looking at you Slack channels.)

Coherence isn't something experienced by one person, team, leader or piece of software. It lives in the relationships between people, tools, practices, and contexts. It enables parts of a system to move in relation to one another -- and still make sense together.

Coherence creates resonance, enough autonomy and adaptation to operate like a jazz ensemble rather than four six-year-olds playing a kazoo.

You are cultivating coherence when you intentionally design patterns of relationship between people, tools, practices, and contexts. When meaning can travel across boundaries, when others understand why something matters, or the impact of their decisions, you are cultivating coherence.

Most systems, including human systems, thrive when meaning can travel across boundaries without excessive need for executive command and control.

An example of coherence building is developing shared language. An ontology, a set of concepts and categories relevant to your domain. For example, what do we mean by "product", "platform", "value", "manager", "Agile", "customer"? Shared language builds coherence -- many, many gaps between organizational units exist simply because the people do not, can not, speak the same language. If we can't share the same concepts, we can't design knowledge flow.

When we make the core concepts that structure meaning in an organizational domain visible, we can also structure relationships between them. (In Domain-Driven Design, this is called ubiquitous language.)

If you want to experiment, you can AI to analyze artifacts used by three or four diverse parts of the organization. (For example, engineering teams, product, finance or HR and operations.) Highlight the most-used terms and their relationships. Review the list as a group, are they consistent? Do some concepts cross boundaries? Do some concepts shift in ways that dissolve shared understanding?

An ontology, shared concepts, is an enabling constraints. Meaning it is not used as a constriction or commandment. It simply enables more creativity in living systems by shifting attention away from endless cat herding, towards natural cross-functional collaboration.

Knowledge is Emergent Meaning

When we venerate efficiency of execution, we also block the flow of knowledge.

Efficiency is context-stripping, it isolates the work we do (and the people who do it) from real-world impact. It separates why something matters to do from the doing. Efficiency rarely learns from its mistakes.

The antithesis of efficient execution is not endless deliberation. Endless deliberation, frankly, sucks. It is, ironically, the inevitable result of over-focusing on efficiency. When there's no time to find signal, every process fills with noise.

The true antithesis is: executing effectively.

Knowledge architecture structures the movement of knowledge. Actions are grounded in insight when decisions are informed, timely, and connected to context. When we design patterns of interaction, constrains, knowledge sharing — decisions can be coherent across organizational boundaries.

This is called architecting emergent meaning and knowledge flow depends on it. Processes that are intertwingled by design. Connective practices, like ontologies, interrelated artifacts, rituals, and pattern libraries, that create coherence. Meaningful action arises because you have architected the ideal flow for your system. Not because your OKRs made it magically happen.

When meaning naturally emerges, people understand what's happening. They can talk to each other about it, diagnose patterns that keep them stuck. As for help when the need it, take action in areas that matter most.

An example of architecting emergent meaning is capability-story mapping. Connecting what the system must do (publish article, ship products, notify users) to the real world flow of experiences. This is not only UX. This is understanding the effectiveness of these capabilities across the entire system. Everyone identifying the gaps, easing the pain points, and reducing friction in whatever role they play.

Capabilities shift teams away from simply adding features and fixing problems towards improving what the system must do -- to deliver the best experiences. The most valuable experiences. Competative advantage.

Innovation.

Knowledge Leadership is Facilitation

Command and control leadership compresses what can be known into the shape of what a few people know. When there is no organizational learning, growth is stymied. When knowledge can't change shape to fit the circumstances, there is no emergence.

An organization can’t become greater than the sum of its parts.

Relational leadership is leadership through facilitation. Facilitating decision making processes that distribute the right information, to the right people, at the right time.

Facilitation removes friction and encourages relational coherence while still providing governance and structured inquiry. It is far more difficult to lead a team towards emergent innovation than it is to tell them, exactly, what to do. This is not a laisez faire approach, I don't mean everyone gets to be a cat ... and you herd them.

Relationship leadership is the design of organizational intelligence.

Stewarding distributed decisions is arriving at a sound decision across three teams with divergent viewpoints -- by facilitating thinking well together. Using design patterns and learning processes that distribute authority without losing coherence.

For example, a team recommends a change that involves cross-functional decision making. The team maps the decision process: who’s involved, what inputs do they need, what is unknown and how will they explore, where might delays occur; what conflicts exist and why are people pushing in different directions? They proactively engage in these questions, synthesizing knowledge until their path becomes clear.

Distributed decisions are not delegations. They weave perspectives, ensure transparency and govern by reason, insight, and fairness.

Knowledge is Many Ways of Knowing

During my career, I've encountered rampant derision towards ways of thinking that aren't purely rational, concrete, and documented in linear steps. Reasoning about code is seen as the only form of intelligence needed to solve difficult problems.

Cultural walls are designed to keep out any mention of feelings or intuition, as if they are a zombie apocalypse. I am guilty of reinforcing this myth. I prefer rationality over talking about feelings. Understanding what product and business people are saying is ... not always easy for me.

But organizational intelligence is the integration of multiple modes of cognition. Thinking systems must include diverse cognitive modes: rational analysis, embodied intuition, collective sensemaking, and storytelling. When we build practices that recognize and combine multiple modes of thought -- we are masterminding cognitive ecologies.

In that ecology, people with different types of cognition become allies rather than competitors. I don't have to think like a someone else; I need to partner with them. Well-designed cognitive ecologies recognize and combine multiple modes of thought (analytic, embodied, intuitive, relational). They resolve the problems that arise by integrating mental models and ways of thinking.

They are emergent, delivering fresh insights and innovative, meaningful solutions that one type of thinking could never deliver alone.

For example, two teams are stuck in a recurring pattern that won’t fix. They have tried five ways to solve a problem and it just gets worse. They use the Iceberg Model to identify the core mental models, organizational structures and patterns that might be contributing. Using this systems tool shifts not just what they think -- but how they are allowed to think. It shifts them into architecting the thinking system instead of simply reacting to it.

Then, they can design a mental model that supports the outcome they are looking for. Together, they identify which structure(s) and pattern(s) needs to shift in order to sustain the change.

From the outside, it's hard to see why their approach will solve the problem. But soon, others experience the positive benefits of the change.

Knowledge is Engineered Through Learning

A knowledge system isn’t a pipeline flowing inexorably and exclusively to delivery. Engineering that system isn’t limited to writing code or building machines -- it includes designing feedback loops, spaces for reflection, and experiments that turn experiences into understanding.

Engineering requires thinking in systems. (Because knowledge is many ways of knowing.)

When people shape knowledge with their time, energy and attention, every role participates in engineering. Everyone is designing learning experiences -- by sending knowledge back to originators and across the system. When we engineer knowledge through learning, we make impact visible.

Knowledge flow recycles energy rather than spewing it out of a delivery pipeline. Instead of linear “plan → build → deliver,” knowledge flow is an evolving loop:

notice → test → reframe → act

Organizations don't become more effective by moving faster ... they become effective by learning better.

Sociotechnical systems that learn grow more resilient as conditions change. Designing learning loops on purpose embeds feedback, reflection, and experimentation into everydayl practices. Knowledge adapts in real time because the system is designed to listen.

For example, when facing a challenge, a team identities and describes how they will

• Percieve
• Diagnose
• Connect
• Create
• Launch
• Learn

(These are the core competencies you’ll learn in the next chapter.)

They don't rush to a solution, because they know that seeing the problem correctly is essential to solving it. When they act, they already know how they'll learn from the outcome. They understand how insight will travel back into the system and how they will iterate as they learn.

This isn't "slow delivery".

This is effective engineering.

Summary

That was a lot of information, coming at you all at once. You don’t need to remember it all, or any of it really. We’ll come back, in a learning loop, to each Truth and Path.

Here’s the lay of the land, where we’re going and why we’re going there. That’s all the matters right now. The rest will come.The Six Inconceivable Truths

1. Knowledge is shaped by time, energy, and attention: it emerges through lived practice, not static assets.
2. Knowledge is relational reciprocity — meaning travels through relationships, not hierarchies.
3. Knowledge is emergent meaning — coherence comes from patterns and context, not efficiency alone.
4. Knowledge leadership is facilitation — authority grows by removing friction, not hoarding control.
5. Knowledge is many ways of knowing — organizations thrive on multiple modes of thought.
6. Knowledge is engineered through learning — systems strengthen through loops of feedback and reflection.

The best way to engage what you’ve just read is to reflect on it. In Chapter 5, you’ll step onto each path by adopting one keystone practice. Take time to reflect first.

Listen to your own mind for awhile. That’s where the action is happening.

A Peak Into the Future

Each of these Truths has a Spiral Path. A learning journey that guides you towards living the truth of knowledge flow in daily life. We will pack our bag first, with some core skillsets, then ... we'll head out.

Here's what's coming:

1. Navigating Temporal Currents — design responses that work across time and uncertainty.
2. Cultivating Coherence — align relationships so meaning flows across boundaries.
3. Architecting Emergent Meaning — create connective artifacts (ontologies, maps, vocabularies).
4. Stewarding Distributed Decisions — legitimize authority-sharing without losing coherence.
5. Mastermind Cognitive Ecologies — weave analytic, intuitive, embodied, relational ways of knowing.
6. Designing Learning Loops — embed feedback and reflection into daily work.

Activity Three: Spot the Patterns

In the previous chapters, we explored the delusions that block knowledge flow. Here, we touched the truths.

The most important truth is this: you will learn more from lived experience than from reading my abstractions.

Are the delusions real and do they impact you? Do the truths matter? Are there more?

Go see.

Like all of us, I am limited by my own experiences … other people expand my view. And I am not living your circumstances, you might need to focus on patterns not mentioned, or respond differently than I would to the same challenges.

Find out.

Add a space to your Knowledge Studio for detecting, identifying, and reflecting on patterns. Notice examples as they show up in your daily life. Consider ways to respond to them that might increase your effectiveness.

Spot the Patterns