# Sailing in Complexity — The End of Best Practice > Markdown (GEO/AEO) version of . Author: **Mauricio Yokoyama Issei** · en-BR · Published: 2026-02-05 · Updated: 2026-06-21. ## The Trap of Appearance Many organizations suffer from **isomorphic mimicry**: copy the form of successful companies (structures, positions, agile rituals) and do not replicate the function (results). A school with new buildings is form; literate students, function. Adopting the " Spotify Model" is form; real adaptability, function. You don't buy an "already grown plant" (the best practice) to plant on any soil — innovation requires preparing the soil and cultivating. Behind this are the difference between tacit (experience) and explicit (manual) knowledge and the risk of "capacity traps". ## Cynefin: when there is no previous map The Cynefin framework identifies the terrain to choose the tool: - **Sorted / Complicated** — clear cause and effect, expertise. Feel → analyze → respond. Tool: best practices. - **Complex** — unpredictable; the cause is only retrospective. Sondar → feel → respond. Tool: emerging practice, with safe experiments to fail. - **Chaotic** — no visible patterns, immediate crisis. Act → feel → respond. Tool: Quick response. The recurring error is to treat complex problems (innovation, culture) as complicated, seeking universal recipes. ## How to cultivate real solutions **Communities of practice** socialize tacit knowledge that is not written — in formats like Lean Coffee, Aquarius (fishbowl) and clinics of real peer problems. O **evolutionary design** postpones decisions for the "last responsible moment", keeping low the cost of change: starts slow and accelerates when the traditional planning stagnant. ## Organization as a living kitchen The central analogy exchanges the assembly line for professional cuisine — a complex and adaptive system: - **Recipe × gesture of the chef** — explicit and tacit knowledge, and the SECI cycle (socialization, externalization, combination, internalization). - **Terroir** — replicating Toyota's Lean without considering the context is hollow imitation; the output is glocalization, with conscious hybrids. - **Brigade** — legitimate peripheral participation: the novice begins in low-risk tasks before criticism. - **Mise en place** — psychological readiness and safety: error becomes learning, not trauma. - **Continuous tasting** — high frequency feedback loops and retrospective loops. - **Routines and Traps** — balance exploitation and exploration so as not to look great in something obsolete. - **Leadership as Orchestration** — enabling restrictions, self-organization and amplification of weak signals. - **Abilene Paradox** — secure channels for dissension before false consensus becomes dysfunction. - **GenAI as sous-chef** — accelerates externalization, but homogenity and does not replace human judgment: the AI suggests, the valid human. - **Dissipative structures and participatory design** — teams maintain order by consuming energy; controlled disturbances and co-creation renew the system. Conclusion: organizations are living ecosystems, not machines. Who understands this stops seeking magical recipes and starts to cultivate adaptive capacities. ## Main references Snowden & Boone, *A Leader's Framework for Decision Making* (HBR, 2007); Nonaka & Takeuchi, *The Knowledge-Creating Company* (1995); Wenger, *Communities of Practice* (1998); Wash & Wenger, *Situationd Learning* (1991); Pritchett, Woolcock & Andrews, *Capability Traps?* (2010) and *Looking Like a State* (2012); DiMaggio & Powell, *The Iron Cage Revisited* (1983); Seng, *The Fifth Discipline* (1990); Nelson & Winter, *An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change* (1982). The page brings the full bibliography. *© 2026 Mauritius Yokoyama Issei. Citable content with assignment (fair use educational).*