An effective change to an altered situation comes from understanding complex adaptive systems and adaptive action. In this book the author keeps it simple by breaking our observations, Orientation decision and actions down in What? So what? And Now what? She does so by illustrating through what she terms the CDE model (Container, Differences and Exchanges. Or the strategic game of interaction laid out academically but simplified. If you want to change a complex pattern, you can do only one of three kinds of things. • Change the container that holds the similarities by making it bigger or smaller, by breaking up large ones or introducing small ones • Change the differences by incorporating new ones in or excluding old ones from the current container, or ignoring or focusing on differences that exist within the current container • Change the exchanges by breaking existing ones, by altering them (making them stronger or weaker, wider or narrower, longer or shorter), or by adding new connections where none existed before. That is it. Those are your only options for influencing the emergent patterns in complex adaptive systems.I highly t commend this book!