​The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning…
Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom,
where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern…
a shifting harmony of sub-patterns
Charles S Sherrington’s famous metaphor for the human mind.

The very visual images you are processing to see the text on this page are synergistic effects, they are artifacts of how our uniquely human brain processes and interprets information. Most other animals see things very differently. Amazingly the brain stitches and integrates discrete images from each eye including our blind spot.

Synergy is a creative dynamo and the driving source of innovation both in nature and within organisations. We need to better understand and tap into this dynamo, for our very existence as a species depends on us understanding the effects produced by the relationships between things.

We need to continue to be the ​inventive ape, to look beyond simple and deterministic solutions. The challenge lies in embracing complex systems and the inherent complexity implied. This means weaning ourselves from long-held archetypes of the 'selfish ape' the 'killer ape', man the 'hunter', and woman the 'gatherer' and embrace archetypes associated with the 'co-operative ape', the 'inventive ape' and the 'synergistic ape'.