Registration link: https://www.theorsociety.com/ORS/Event_Display.aspx?EventKey=SYSTEMSFEB&WebsiteKey=c1745213-aec0-45e5-a960-0ec98ebabd4e

Systems thinking and complexity – incompatible or what?

Join us for the online event exploring Systems Thinking and complexity with our guest speakers Mike Jackson & Jean Boulton.

Mike Jackson styles himself a systems thinker and Jean Boulton ‘embraces complexity’. Both have written recent and very different books. On the surface of it, they seem to inhabit different worlds. But do they? How do these differing views complement each other? Are there incompatibilities; or is it more of a question of what you are trying to do?

Mike and Jean will introduce their perspectives through their books and discuss similarities, differences and whether it matters….

About the Speakers: 

Professor Michael C Jackson

Mike is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Hull and MD of Systems Research Ltd. He graduated from Oxford University, gained an MA from Lancaster University and a PhD from Hull. He has worked in the civil service, in academia and as a consultant. Mike was Dean of Hull University Business School, founded the universities Centre for Systems Studies, and he has been President of the IFSR and ISSS. Mike is well known for his contribution of Critical Systems Thinking which suggests diversity can be a strength rather than a weakness, by revealing how different systems methodologies address various aspects of complexity and how they can be used in combination to resolve the messiest of wicked problems. His latest book ‘Critical Systems Thinking: A Practitioners Guide‘ was published by Wiley in 2024.

Dr Jean Boulton

Jean Boulton PhD, MPhil, MBA studied physics at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and worked in applied physics before turning to management and the social sciences. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a visiting academic with the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at Bath, and with Cranfield School of Management.  Jean consults, writes, researches, and lectures about the science of complexity and its implications for strategy, change and leadership. See www.embracingcomplexity.com. She has held executive management positions in large corporates and consulted to global organisations in the private and not-for-profit sectors. Her latest book ‘The Dao of Complexity: Making Sense and Making Waves in Turbulent Times‘, published by De Gruyter in 2024, introduces process complexity, reflects on its resonance with ideas from many other fields of knowledge – from neuroscience to politics to quantum gravity – and asks how we can ‘make waves’ in a world of increasing fragility, polarisation and  alienation.

26/02/2025 17:30 – 18:45
GMT Standard Time

Where

Online

link:

Systems Thinking – Systems thinking and complexity – incompatible or what? ORS