A story of inappropriate technology: in the 1970s it was decided to modernize the rice farming of Sri Lanka, whose system that had not changed much for 3000 years. The goal was to replace the water buffalo with the modern tractor, but the attempt had disastrous consequences… pic.twitter.com/XIl5sUQf8k
A story of inappropriate technology: in the 1970s it was decided to modernize the rice farming of Sri Lanka, whose system that had not changed much for 3000 years. The goal was to replace the water buffalo with the modern tractor, but the attempt had disastrous consequences… pic.twitter.com/XIl5sUQf8k
Causal layered analysis works by identifying many different levels, and attempting to make synchronized changes at all levels to create a coherent new future. Inayatullah’s original paper[3] as well as his TEDx talk[4] identify four levels:
The litany: This includes quantitative trends, often exaggerated and used for political purposes. The result could be a feeling of apathy, helplessness, or projected action. Inayatullah calls this “the conventional level of futures research which can readily create a politics of fear.”[3]
Social causes, including economic, cultural, political, and historical factors.
Structure and the discourse that legitimizes and supports the structure.
CLA was first introduced explicitly as a futures research technique by Sohail Inayatullah in a 1998 article for Futures that would come to be widely cited.[3] Later, Inayatullah would edit the CLA Reader, that featured chapters from a number of futurists and practitioners describing their experience with CLA.[5][6]
Inayatullah’s work on CLA was examined in a book by Jose W. Ramos in 2003.[7]
A 2008 article by Chris Riedy examined the similarities, differences, and possible combinations of CLA and Ken Wilber‘s integral theory.[8]
A 2010 article by Gary P. Hampson explored the relationship between integral futures and CLA further, and also considered Richard Slaughter‘s critique of CLA.[9]
Sohail Inayatullah and Ivana Milojevic have published an update in 2015.[10] With various authors, they investigate topics such as:
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio18.9K subscribersSUBSCRIBEDOcean tides are not simple. If our planet had no continents, tides would be hemispheric-sized bulges of water moving westward with the moon and sun. This animation shows the tides as a complex system of rotating and trapped waves with a mixture of frequencies. Waves run relatively unimpeded westward only around Antarctica. Even there, we see a complicated pattern as waves merge from the north and others separate northwards or southwards under Antarctic ice shelves. In the North Atlantic, we see waves mainly rotating anti-clockwise, with small amplitudes in the middle of the ocean and high amplitudes around the boundaries, especially along the coasts of northwest Europe and Britain. Waves are trapped and rotating around New Zealand, causing a high tide on one side of the islands with a simultaneous low tide on the other side. The Topex/Poseidon and Jason satellite altimeter missions were designed to observe and record this complexity. Altimeters, on these missions, acted as flying tide gauges. After several years collecting data, researchers could analyze the signals at each ocean location to determine the tidal characteristics. With that knowledge, plus near-perfect knowledge of the motion of the sun and moon, the tide can be predicted at any location and at any time in the future. The data used in this visualization is from the Goddard Space Flight Center’s barotropic tides simulation and runs for slightly longer than one Earth day. The level of the tides is exaggerated in order to show how the tides vary around the world. This animation with voiceover narration shows the barotropic global ocean tides as a complex system of rotating and trapped waves with a mixture of frequencies. Complete transcript available. Visualizer: Greg Shirah (lead) For more information or to download this public domain video, go to https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4821#28859
Bucking the system: a cybernetic approach to transformation
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Bucking the system: a cybernetic approach to transformation
Thursday, Dec 17, 2020, 5:30 PM
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Systems thinking creates a lot of buzz these days. This episode explores the surprising dynamics of feedback, emergence and interconnectedness and the powerful effects these have on our lives.
Organizational behavior management (OBM) is a subdiscipline of applied behavior analysis (ABA), which is the application of behavior analytic principles and contingency management techniques to change behavior in organizational settings. Through these principles and assessment of behavior, OBM seeks to analyze and employ antecedent, influencing actions of an individual before the action occurs, and consequence, what happens as a result of someone’s actions, interventions which influence behaviors linked to the mission and key objectives of the organization and its workers. Such interventions have proven effective through research in improving common organizational areas including employee productivity, delivery of feedback, safety, and overall morale of said organization
TOP LINKS & INSPIRATION ON SYSTEMS CHANGE “Warm and human facilitation, good structure, sense of openness. The huge diversity of work people are undertaking was stimulating and inspiring” – Participant In the Thick of It
In the Thick of It is an international peer-learning Cohort for people leading systems change initiatives, typically feeling isolated, overwhelmed and like they’d love to talk to more people who ‘get it’.
The Systems Sisterhood is for women who work in systems change. We talk about the personal and the professional and the systemic with a gender lens. Participants value the amazing women they meet and the structured place to reflect.
We will have small groups (up to 9 people) and attract an international Cohort of people working on everything from climate change to child poverty and beyond. Join us!
We are also offering a Deep Democracy training workshop on Feb 24th & 25th, 7am-2:30pm PST/ 10am-5:30pm EST to our Sisterhood alumni with the amazing Camille Dumond, (Conflict and Organizational Change Facilitator, Somatic Therapist from Dignity Facilitation). Find out more of what we will cover here and contact us directly if you are interested, we have limited spots available.
Work is underway on our Gender Based Violence Learning Lab in Nova Scotia. We have over 30 participants from across the field and we’re teaching systems practice, then hosting a peer learning community throughout 2021.
We have just launched The Kitchen Cabinet with MakeWay and other women leaders in in Canada. It’s a diverse and curated peer-learning Community to support women’s leadership and systems change at the intersection of climate, nature and care.
Bridgers, part of our work in Illuminate has just kicked off with Tanya Birl Torres (SoHumanity) and Jorge Salazar (Inner Activist) in our core team. It will be a series of inquiries into the role of ‘Bridgers’ in service of systems change. Much more to come in 2021.
We have launched the Illuminate website, an international Systems Change Field Building project Illuminate. Many new projects will be emerging from this in the new year and we’re excited at the momentum that’s taking place.
We have an increasing number of individual coaching sessions with women systems leaders to explore everything from transitions to strategy to equity. Reach out if you’re looking for support. OUR THINKING Our new guide with useful frameworks on Building Ecosystems for Positive ChangeTowards a new holistic framework for systems change: Adapting Geels’ Transition Theory, Tatiana Fraser and Juniper Glass LINKS FROM THE FIELD OF SYSTEMS CHANGE We’ve been gathering resources on power and systems change this month and these are our favorites so far: Building Better Systems Exploring the roles of purpose, power, relationships & resources in unlocking Systems change, by Charles Leadbeater and Jennie WinhallPower a Practical Guide for Facilitating Social Change by Raji Hunjan and Jethro Pettit H/T CKX team For theoretical and practical framing around power, check out Power Packwebsite The Power Manual by Cyndi Suarez, H/T Seanna Davidson COURSES The Bertha Center in South Africa offering an online 9-week course on Systems Change & Social Impact – to build ecosystems for entrepreneurship. The School for Systems Change has launched Investors in Change – a new virtual program for funders of systems change.
We coach individuals, teams and ecosystems internationally, who are trying to shift unhealthy systems.
Specifically we work with systems practitioners who are experimenting with systemic interventions, and women leading systems change.
We speak, teach, host virtual peer-learning programs, we coach teams and individuals.
We hold emotional intelligence, and kick-ass strategy for systems change in equal regard.
We are open, honest and compassionate and knowledgeable, entrepreneurial and tactical all at the same time.
We love what we do, and most of all, we love the way we work.
Systems change is fundamentally about changing culture.
Our biggest ambition is to spread a culture that represents a different way of leading and showing up in the world, to all kinds of unhealthy systems, internationally.
CLICK HERE TO SEE ONLINE AND SUBSCRIBE
TOP LINKS & INSPIRATION ON SYSTEMS CHANGE “Warm and human facilitation, good structure, sense of openness. The huge diversity of work people are undertaking was stimulating and inspiring” – Participant In the Thick of It
Networks and Biology: Wiring ourselves into a bad theory
The one thing that can be said about networks is that they are easy to draw. Anyone who’s done “join the dots”, or who has looked at a map, or studied physiology or neuroanatomy understands networks in their essence: a set of points joined together with lines. The join-the-dots pattern permeates the natural world like a kind of fractal motif. But what we see and what things actually are, are not the same. How would we know if networks actually exist?
In order to know whether a network is real, we would have to be able to establish some kind of correlation between our observations of the network’s structure (which is “the network”), its behaviour, and any changes we might make to that structure. Obviously, if the network is human-made, then the relationship between an electronic network’s structure, how it behaves, and predictable outcomes in the light of changes to it would seem to be straight-forward. But in complex artificial networks, such as those defined by machine learning models, predictability in the light of network change is elusive. We are strangely unbothered by this, because we see the same type of unpredictability in natural networks.
Before being born, until the day we die we depend on systems
We are largely unaware of our dependence on systems, until we need them, or when they fail us — when governments and health systems seem unable to protect us from a pandemic, when the economy is in poor health and we cannot find work, when flood defence systems fail, the car breaks down, high levels of pollution impact our health, crime rates surge, we are the victim of a cyber security attack, or our internet connection fails.
Given their fundamental importance to each and every one of us, should we not have a far better understanding of systems — the way they work and their impact on us? This question led to the formation of the Critical Systems Forum, a think tank hosted by the Enlightened Enterprise Academy. It will focus on both Critical Systems Thinking and Practice, sharing knowledge and offering courses.
A widespread understanding of the benefits of Critical Systems Thinking and Practice will be valuable to government, business, and organisations of all types in all sectors. They will be able to: Mitigate system failures and underperformance; Maximise the chances of positive outcomes from systems design, change, and management; Demonstrate systemic leadership; Address problems holistically; Take better decisions; Be more innovative; Undertake organisational transformation; Get the best out of people and teams; Provide service excellence; Demonstrably contribute to societal and environmental improvement; and promote inclusion. Our work will produce a growing body of knowledge that the leaders of enterprises will be able to access whenever it is needed. They will also be able to read, or watch, up to date research and interviews from a wide range of international sources.
Dr Michael Jackson invited the Enlightened Enterprise Academy (EEA) to establish a ‘think-tank’ with a focus on Critical Systems Thinking and practice, in relation to major social, environmental, and organisational issues, and relevant to businesses and organisations in all sectors.
The invitation followed separate discussions between Dr Jackson and Paul Barnett, Founder of the EEA, regarding the design of executive education courses in Critical Systems Thinking and Practice (CST&P), starting early 2021.
That conversation was itself preceded by Dr Jackson’s participation in the conference “Undaunted: How Successful Leaders Face Up to Wicked Problems and Avoid Predictable Surprises” which took place in March 2020 at the Royal Society of Arts in London. The focus was problem solving, complexity, decision making, risk and systems thinking.
The Critical Systems Forum is now being designed and developed for a launch in in early 2021. A Draft Development Plan will be considered by the Steering Committee that is currently being formed.
In today’s post, I am looking at the Maximum Entropy principle, a brainchild of the eminent physicist E. T. Jaynes. This idea is based on Claude Shannon’s Information Theory. The Maximum Entropy principle (an extension of the Principle of Insufficient Reason) is the ideal epistemic stance. Loosely put, we should model only what is known, and we should assign maximum uncertainty for what is unknown. To explain this further, let’s look at an example of a coin toss.
If we don’t know anything about the coin, our prior assumption should be that heads or tails are equally likely to happen. This is a stance of maximum entropy. If we assumed that the coin was loaded, we would be trying to “load” our assumption model, and claim unfair certainty. Entropy is a measure proposed by Claude Shannon as part of his information theory. Low entropy messages have low information content or…
As a promoter of systems thinking, I’ve discovered a big missing piece.
Systems thinkers present their body of work as essential to building strong relationships, creating resilient systems, coordinating efforts across diverse stakeholders, and generally making the world a better place. But when it comes down to it, I haven’t seen examples of systems thinkers working together at the scale that I believe is warranted, and crucial. I haven’t seen a higher rate of co-promotion among systems thinking schools and luminaries than among other interest groups.
This is a cry for help from a little, local systems thinker (me) to the world of big, luminary systems thinkers. I would expect to see a high level of coordination among a global community of systems thinkers, which would help me in my work, but this is not happening, yet. (An alternative title to this blog entry might be, “Can we create an ecosystem of systems thinkers?”)
ABSTRACT: Between 1899 and 1906, Alexander Bogdanov developed a scientific philosophy intended to substantiate the basic principle of historical materialism—the idea that existence determines consciousness—in terms of the most advanced science and empiricist epistemology/ontology of his day. At the same time, however, he strove ‘to answer the broad needs of our workers for an overall worldview’, and in the process of doing so he elaborated a complete philosophical system and a holistic worldview. Although his intention was to serve the proletariat and advance socialist revolution, Bogdanov also provided the sort of integral vision of the interconnectedness of the individual, society, and the cosmos that the Russian intelligentsia had traditionally pursued. Bogdanov adopted a number of the principles of nineteenth-century German and Russian idealism, including the concept of the unity of the subject and the object and the ideas that the laws of thought…
Welcome to the home of Systemist – the journal of the UK Systems Society.
Our mission is to promote dialogue among academic and practitioner Systems thinkers. We believe that ‘experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play’. Our aim is therefore to to promote developments in our discipline.
We publish papers from any perspective in Systems thinking or practice. These may include hard, soft, critical, philosophical or applied approaches. We also welcome case studies from practice.
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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