#021 How Small Stories Solve Big Problems with Ellie Snowden

Making Business Art

Big complex problems don’t necessarily have to be overwhelming. My guest and applied anthropologist, Ellie Snowden, harnesses the power of small stories to help people in organizations turn big intractable problems into manageable ones. She argues that one-size-fits-all solutions don’t work. Instead, we can create much more impactful interventions by quickly gathering many small and granular stories related to a complex problem and then bring together multiple expert perspectives to envision the best path forward. The approach employed by Ellie and her colleagues is helpful in identifying what is truly needed to effectively address a big complex problem while opening fresh possibilities for the future.

In this conversation, Ellie and I discuss her unique approach to work at The Cynefin (pronounced kuh-nev-in, it’s a Welsh word) Company; how she uses a software tool called SenseMaker to gather stories and facilitate collaborative problem-solving work; how studying medical anthropology, yoga, and massage has shaped her approach to her work; and her take on embodied knowledge, humanizing business and doing meaningful work.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Ellie Snowden works at the Cynefin Company as a senior research consultant focused on enabling clients to make use of distributed ethnography (SenseMaker®), and participatory sense-making methods. The Cynefin Company is a centre for applied complexity: bridging principles from the natural sciences, with narrative inquiry.

Ellie's academic background is in the anthropology of social development and transformation, with a specialism in medical anthropology. After working as a qualitative researcher in public policy and employment research, she found herself coming back to her roots and joining the Cynefin Centre in 2016.

Ellie currently leads development of the Centre’s Health Programme. Some of her more recent projects include: identifying drivers of child and early forced marriage with the Women’s Refugee Commission in the Philippines and Zimbabwe; an oral history of Nurses experiences during COVID-19 with the Royal College of Nursing (Northern Ireland and Scotland). The work currently in development is focused on how best to support the healthcare workforce in the years to come.

Ever a proponent of embodied knowledge and exploring the epistemological and ontological possibilities of different modalities of health and healing, Ellie is also a trained massage therapist and yoga teacher.

ABOUT MAKING BUSINESS ART

Making Business Art is a podcast for curious people where we explore how to make our work more meaningful and enchanting for ourselves and the people we serve. We draw lessons and inspiration from entrepreneurs, designers, scientists, creative leaders and artists about creating remarkable experiences that light up our customers and our teams.

This podcast is the creation of and hosted by me, Ezequiel Williams. I am an entrepreneur, innovation strategist, facilitator, and business designer. I help leaders and teams see their challenges differently and find ways to deliver value that are more desirable and satisfying for the people they serve. I am very curious and love to learn about how things work, what makes people tick, and how to create more joy in the world.

Instagram: @MakingBusinessArt