Method: timing, position, change, measure
Shízhōng, 'the timely mean', comes from the Doctrine of the Mean: 'the noble person is centred in accordance with the time.' It means doing the right thing at the right moment. Our method is organised by four ideas, unfolds in six phases, and always works alongside established management tools.
Four ideas
時
Timing
The same decision means something different at different moments. We ask 'what time is it?' before we ask 'what should we do?'
位
Position
Where a person or a unit sits in a structure determines what they can see, what they can do and what they should do. The six lines are six positions.
變
Change
The situation is changing; the question is in which direction. Moving lines and the resulting hexagram put 'now' and 'where it tends' side by side.
中
Measure
Neither too much nor too little. Many failures are not wrong directions but overreach or under-reach.
The six-lines method
The six lines of a hexagram, read from the bottom, describe a situation from its first stirrings to its excess. Our engagements move through the same six phases:
- 6 Beyond
Guard against overreach
What happens if we go too far? Review and exit conditions.
Review date and exit conditions
- 5 Decision
Decide together
Options and timing, weighed with the board.
Decision record
- 4 Approach
Stakeholders
Who is close to the decision, who is affected, who is missing.
Stakeholder map
- 3 Threshold
Locate the risk
Where opportunity tips into danger; the pre-mortem.
Risk map, pre-mortem
- 2 Inner centre
Diagnose
The organisation's real position and capabilities.
Position map
- 1 Foundation
Listen and map
Interviews, data, documents: the facts beneath the story.
Interview notes, fact base
As a map of positions
The six lines are mapped to six levels of the organisation or six phases of a project, so the team can see where it stands. This use involves no casting.
As a second perspective
With the client's consent, a hexagram is cast around one question and its texts are used to redescribe the situation, then set against the data. Its value lies in the change of angle, not in prediction.
As a vocabulary for culture
'Hidden dragon, do not act'; 'the arrogant dragon will have cause to repent'; 'the noble person strengthens themself without pause': shared metaphors make values discussable and memorable.
Modern tools we combine with it
| Tool | Source | Where in the method |
|---|---|---|
| Scenario planning | Pierre Wack, Shell; Harvard Business Review, 1985 | 3, 5 |
| Pre-mortem | Gary Klein, Harvard Business Review, 2007 | 3 |
| Cynefin framework | Snowden and Boone, Harvard Business Review, 2007 | 2 |
| Decision hygiene and noise audits | Kahneman, Sibony and Sunstein, Noise, 2021 | 5 |
| Psychological safety | Amy Edmondson, 1999 | 1, 4 |
| Five forces | Michael Porter, 1979 | 2 |
| Blue ocean strategy | Kim and Mauborgne, 2005 | 5 |
| Eight steps of change | John Kotter, 1995 | 6 |
| Calibrated forecasting | Tetlock and Gardner, Superforecasting, 2015 | 5 |
| Self-distancing | Research by Kross and Ayduk | Individual work |
- We do not predict the future or promise any outcome.
- We do not provide psychotherapy, medical, legal, tax, audit or investment advice; when needed we refer to licensed professionals.
- We never treat a reading as the sole basis for a decision.
- We take no commissions from third parties; we stay independent.
- We never cast a hexagram in client work without consent.
- The question to decide (one sentence)
- Date, participants and the final decision-maker
- Options considered (at least three, including 'do nothing')
- The chosen option and why
- Key assumptions, and how each will be tested
- Pre-mortem: if this has failed a year from now, the most likely reasons
- Hexagram and principal text used (if any)
- Review date and exit conditions