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Greg Githens on Strategic Thinking:
A few summers ago I spent many hours removing pretty-leafed invasive ivy from a flowerbed. I would dig out a shovelful of earth and carefully pick out any trace of its root system, because a small segment of root would re-sprout. Botanists call this kind of root system a called rhizome. Rhizomes are characterized by root systems that explore, connect and reconnect, and establish new shoots.
The analogy of a rhizome is relevant to learning and practicing strategic thinking. The similarities include:
It is about making connections. With a holistic point of view, you can make the case that there is a multiplicity: everything is connected to everything. Similarly, every person is connected to every person. What would happen if we connected a group of competent strategic thinkers?
It is distributed. You can start your discovery anywhere. You can follow the thread, and end up knowing more. Yet, there will always be individuals who have a different and deeper knowledge, simply because they’ve spend more time on a different path.
A “rupture” line will emerge with a new shoot. If you make a digression or get interrupted, you will probably follow a different direction for your line of thought. Strategic thinking is inherently non-linear just like a rhizome. You can travel along a segment of a rhizome (such as reading a story) but inevitably some interesting point or curiosity or connection will take you in a different direction.
The rhizome analogy fits the non-linear nature of strategic thinking. Instead of an idealized and rational body of knowledge, it is better to see it as a subjective, growing, recursive, tangled, and sprouting structure. The following graphic should help you visualize the strategic thinking rhizome.