The Fractured Lens: A Sense Making Tool

What is The Fractured Lens?

The Fractured Lens is a way of making sense of the world, of organisations, leadership, identity, and systems, by focusing on four fundamental forces: Unknowing, Meaning, Belonging, and the Dynamics of Power & Change. These aren’t abstract concepts floating in the ether; they are the very currents shaping how we think, act, and relate to one another.

Most frameworks attempt to simplify reality, breaking things into neatly ordered steps or models that make the complex digestible. The Fractured Lens does the opposite, it embraces the fractured, shifting, and relational nature of human systems. It doesn’t impose a single narrative or truth but instead helps us navigate how meaning is constructed, how belonging is shaped, how power flows, and why uncertainty is the only real constant.

This isn’t about replacing one rigid model with another. It’s about offering a lens, one that helps us see the hidden forces at play in our decisions, our cultures, and our ways of being. It’s about acknowledging that certainty is a myth, clarity is contextual, and knowledge is always unfinished.

The Four Forces of The Fractured Lens

Rather than a step-by-step guide, The Fractured Lens focuses on four interconnected forces that shape our experience:

Unknowing, The acceptance that what we believe to be true is always provisional, shaped by context, power, and history. Unknowing is not just about ignorance; it is the practice of recognising the limits of our certainty.

Meaning, The stories, symbols, and narratives that help us make sense of the world. Meaning is never neutral, it is shaped, contested, and rewritten over time.

Belonging, The deep human need to be part of something greater than ourselves. Belonging isn’t just about connection; it’s about identity, inclusion, and exclusion.

Dynamics of Power & Change, The forces that shape who gets to define reality, how authority is established, and how systems evolve. Power is never static, and change is rarely linear.

Each of these forces is constantly shifting, reshaping our experience in ways we rarely notice. To see through The Fractured Lens is to ask better questions: How is this knowledge shaped? Who decides what matters? What is left unsaid? Where is power flowing?

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The Fractured Lens doesn’t emerge in a vacuum, it stands on the work of thinkers, philosophers, and researchers who have long explored the nature of knowledge, systems, and human behaviour. Some of the key intellectual threads woven into this framework include:

Social Constructionism (Berger & Luckmann, Gergen, Shotter) , The idea that reality is not just ‘out there’ but co-created through our language, interactions, and institutions. The Fractured Lens builds on this by asking: If knowledge is constructed, then what are the forces shaping that construction?

Foucault & Power, Michel Foucault’s work on power and discourse deeply informs the Dynamics of Power & Change. Power is not just held but exercised through language, institutions, and norms. Seeing through The Fractured Lens means recognising where power is shaping what we accept as ‘truth’.

Bateson & Systems Thinking, Gregory Bateson’s insights into feedback loops, double binds, and ecological thinking provide a crucial backdrop for understanding the interconnectivity of these forces. The Fractured Lens doesn’t separate meaning from belonging, or power from uncertainty, they are always in relation.

Edgar Schein & Organisational Culture, Schein’s work on culture and leadership highlights how meaning and belonging shape organisational life. The Fractured Lens extends this by interrogating who gets to define meaning and belonging within systems of power.

Jung & the Shadow, Carl Jung’s exploration of the unconscious and the ‘shadow’ aligns with The Fractured Lens’ focus on unknowing. What we repress, personally, culturally, organisationally. doesn’t disappear; it shapes us in unseen ways.

This is just a fraction of the intellectual lineage feeding into this framework. The Fractured Lens is not about claiming to have a new answer; it’s about creating a way to see better, question deeper, and understand more fully the forces that shape our lives.

Why This Matters

In organisations, leadership, and life, we often seek certainty. We want the right answer, the best strategy, the clear direction. But what if the real challenge isn’t finding certainty, but learning to navigate without it?

The Fractured Lens is a way of thinking that invites curiosity over control, inquiry over expertise, and adaptation over rigidity. It’s about recognising that meaning is not fixed, power is not neutral, and belonging is not just about inclusion, it’s also about exclusion.

To engage with this framework is not to adopt another management theory or leadership model. It’s to become more attuned to the hidden forces shaping your work, your organisation, and your own sense of self. It’s to step into unknowing, not as a weakness, but as the only place where true learning, growth, and transformation can occur.

This is the foundation. The next step is to explore each of these forces, Unknowing, Meaning, Belonging, and Power & Change, more deeply. Each deserves its own interrogation, its own set of questions, and its own space for exploration.

But for now, the invitation is simple: What if you could see the world through a different lens?