The concept of system is central to any discussion of organisation; few managers, perhaps, would think of that concept exactly as a tool. It is, they might consider, a term to be defined, and then to be properly used. In Chapter One, however, we begin to probe the connotation of the word ‘system’. The target definition turns out to be elusive. It seems more important to recognise that we are handling a conceptual tool, because a tool has to be understood in terms of its capability to facilitate the work undertaken, and also in terms of the limitations that its own shortcomings (in this case of reliable definition) impose on that work. In an effort to elucidate all this, the chapter engages in some mental exercises intended to loosen-up rigid attitudes to whatever is systemic about enterprises, and to promote an enquiry rather than a didactic ethos for the whole book. The examples are exclusively managerial, and deal with both economic and human affairs.
Author Archives: antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor
Kybernetes: Vol. 49 Iss. 8 | Emerald Insight
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Kybernetes: Vol. 49 Iss. 8 | Emerald Insight
Kybernetes: Volume 49 Issue 8
Strapline:
The international journal of cybernetics, systems and management sciences
Category:
Electrical and Electronic EngineeringSubscribe to Table of Content Alerts
Table Of Contents – Special Issue: Cybernetic frameworks for a shared world
Guest editorial
Jocelyn Chapman, Christiane M. Herr, Ben SweetingPDF (80 KB)
Owning one’s epistemology in religious studies research methodology
There is a lack of epistemological considerations in religious studies methodologies, which have resulted in an on-going critique in this field. In addressing this…PDF (434 KB)
Learning the Ashby Box: an experiment in second order cybernetic modeling
W. Ross Ashby’s elementary non-trivial machine, known in the cybernetic literature as the “Ashby Box,” has been described as the prototypical example of a black box…PDF (2.8 MB)
Narratives of exploration: from “Failure is not an Option” to “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
To trace a shift in attitudes towards control since the mid-twentieth century, as reflected in a shift in rhetoric that accompanied the extension from first- to…PDF (1 MB)
Design cybernetics in support of cross-disciplinary collaboration: educating the next generation of Chinese architects and structural engineers
This paper offers design cybernetics as a theoretical common ground to bridge diverging approaches to design as they frequently occur in collaborative design projects…PDF (921 KB)
Traces left by Herbert Brün that orient my cybernetics (Maybe)
Herbert Brün was a composer of many things including electronic and computer music. His compositions were, by design, nested in his passions for designing a new society �…PDF (156 KB)
Understanding the contributions of some Russian scientists to developing systems thinking and the theory of evolution
This study aims to explain and illustrate the character of Russian systems thinking and to show how it is different and similar to traditions in the West. This study’s…PDF (153 KB)
A proposal for the role of the arts in a new phase of second-order cybernetics
The purpose of this paper is to suggest a more central role for reflexive artistic practices in a clarified research agenda for second-order cybernetics (SOC). This is…PDF (213 KB)
The art of conversation: design cybernetics and its ethics
The purpose of this paper to discuss ethical principles that are implicit in second-order cybernetics, with the aim of arriving at a better understanding of how…
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Kybernetes: Vol. 49 Iss. 8 | Emerald Insight
Systems Thinking and Systems Modelling, by The Sustainability Laboratory with Loops Consulting – free courses on Kumu (Apr 2018)
Systems Thinking and Systems Modelling An Online Course for Understanding and Creating Systems Mo
Systems Thinking and Systems Modelling, by The Sustainability Laboratory with Loops Consulting
Computational Complexity as an Ultimate Constraint on Evolution
Complexity Digest http://comdig.unam.mx/2019/03/16/computational-complexity-as-an-ultimate-constraint-on-evolution/
Experiments show that evolutionary fitness landscapes can have a rich combinatorial structure due to epistasis. For some landscapes, this structure can produce a computational constraint that prevents evolution from finding local fitness optima — thus overturning the traditional assumption that local fitness peaks can always be reached quickly if no other evolutionary forces challenge natural selection. Here, I introduce a distinction between easy landscapes of traditional theory where local fitness peaks can be found in a moderate number of steps and hard landscapes where finding local optima requires an infeasible amount of time. Hard examples exist even among landscapes with no reciprocal sign epistasis; on these semi-smooth fitness landscapes, strong selection weak mutation dynamics cannot find the unique peak in polynomial time. More generally, on hard rugged fitness landscapes that include reciprocal sign epistasis, no evolutionary dynamics — even ones that do not follow adaptive paths — can find a…
source: http://comdig.unam.mx/2019/03/16/computational-complexity-as-an-ultimate-constraint-on-evolution/
To Adapt or Not to Adapt: A Quantification Technique for Measuring an Expected Degree of Self-Adaptation
Complexity Digest
To Adapt or Not to Adapt: A Quantification Technique for Measuring an Expected Degree of Self-Adaptation
Sven Tomforde and Martin Goller
Computers 2020, 9(1), 21
Self-adaptation and self-organization (SASO) have been introduced to the management of technical systems as an attempt to improve robustness and administrability. In particular, both mechanisms adapt the system’s structure and behavior in response to dynamics of the environment and internal or external disturbances. By now, adaptivity has been considered to be fully desirable. This position paper argues that too much adaptation conflicts with goals such as stability and user acceptance. Consequently, a kind of situation-dependent degree of adaptation is desired, which defines the amount and severity of tolerated adaptations in certain situations. As a first step into this direction, this position paper presents a quantification approach for measuring the current adaptation behavior based on generative, probabilistic models. The behavior of this method is analyzed in terms of three application scenarios: urban traffic control, the swidden farming model, and data communication…
View original post http://comdig.unam.mx/2020/03/25/to-adapt-or-not-to-adapt-a-quantification-technique-for-measuring-an-expected-degree-of-self-adaptation/
The Force in organisational life — the story so far | by Benjamin P. Taylor | 28 Aug, 2020
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https://chosenpath.wordpress.com/2020/08/28/the-force-in-organisational-life-the-story-so-far/
Three fundamental truths about uncertainty – Richard Hughes-Jones
I don’t know why my editorialising is so often triggered by ‘complexity pieces’. But I think it’s a good illustration of the problem of focusing on ‘ontological complexity’ (complexity ‘in the world’) that the two main examples here are Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (wrong scale for most of reality), and Poincare’s three body problem, which was conceptually solved in 1912, and “It is now possible to get most results just by direct numerical computation using for example NDSolve.” (https://wolframscience.com/reference/notes/972d…).
Certain valuable approaches separate ontological and epistemological complexity (or let’s say, to be clearer, ‘inherent complexity in the world and the complexity of multiple perspectives and views’), but, for me, the real point is that ‘complexity’ is dependent on framing, context, perspective, knowledge, and purpose. And this applies across multiple actors.
(The second of the three points is that ‘the world is getting more uncertain’ – in the context of the above, that’s of course debatable, since we know more and can understand more – but anyway it’s just a bunch of assertions from big names).
Love Jennifer Garvey-Berger’s framing in the final bit, though.
(Also, I’m sure I’ve seen these three points in roughly this form before?)
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Three fundamental truths about uncertainty
Three fundamental truths about uncertainty
We like to think that our lives are ordered, predictable and subject to a great deal of control. The past is finite; we see only one outcome. We attach causality and narrative to it so that it makes sense. We roll our ability to make sense of the past over into the future, which is infinite; there are many outcomes, as yet unknown and unknowable. Randomness, chance, and luck influence us far more than we realize. Uncertainty is everywhere.
This article explores three of its fundamental truths:
1. The world is inherently uncertain
2. The world is getting more uncertain
3. Humans are hardwired to hate uncertainty
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Three fundamental truths about uncertainty
Stories of Change webinar series #schoolofsystemchange | Forum for the Future from September
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Our events | Forum for the Future
Stories of Change 1: Multi-level Perspective – The Birth of Rock N Roll
Join us on 29 September 2020 for the first in a new three-part webinar series called ‘Stories of Change’. This session discusses the Multi-Level Perspective framework to understand transitions, such as the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1950s.READ MORE
Stories of Change 2: Iceberg Model – The Rise of the Civil Rights Movement
Join us on 13 October 2020 for the second in a new three-part webinar series called ‘Stories of Change’. This session discusses the Iceberg Model to explore blindspots and challenge mental models underneath the rise of the Civil Rights Movement.READ MORE
Stories of Change 3: Regenerative Model – Water Resilience in Mexico City
Join us on 27 October 2020 for the last in a new three-part webinar series called ‘Stories of Change’. This session explains the Regenerative Model through the story of water management in Mexico City and shifting from away from extraction.READ MORE
Stories of Change NZ 1: Multi-level Perspective – The Birth of Rock N Roll
For our colleagues and partners in New Zealand. Join us on 17 September 2020 for the first in a new three-part webinar series called ‘Stories of Change’. This session discusses the Multi-Level Perspective framework to understand transitions, such as the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1950s.READ MORE
Stories of Change NZ 2: Iceberg Model – Rise of the Civil Rights Movement
For our colleagues and partners in New Zealand. Join us on 1 October 2020 for the second in a new three-part webinar series called ‘Stories of Change’. This session discusses the Iceberg Model to explore blindspots and challenge mental models underneath the rise of the Civil Rights Movement.READ MORE
Stories of Change NZ 3: Regenerative Model -Water Resilience in Mexico City
For our colleagues and partners in New Zealand. Join us on 15 October 2020 for the last in a new three-part webinar series called ‘Stories of Change’. This session explains the Regenerative Model through the story of water management in Mexico City and shifting from away from extraction.READ MORE
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Our events | Forum for the Future
Evaluating System Change: A Planning Guide
Evaluating System Change: A Planning Guide (2010)
Publisher:Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy ResearchApr 30, 2010AuthorsMargaret B. HargreavesProvides guidance on planning effective evaluation of system change interventions.
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Evaluating System Change: A Planning Guide
Adam Thompson on LinkedIn (video) – Barry Oshry’s Organic Systems Framework and why cross-functional work is so difficult
“Want cross-functional work so you get value streams and initiatives happening?
“Tired of ‘silo’ being the first word crossed off when you play work word bingo?
“Here’s what’s happening, and what to do.”
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adamgthompson_designyourorgtowork-nosilos-crossfunctional-ugcPost-6704137919021543424-sx0p/
Driving systems change on the African continent – Ventures Africa
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Driving systems change on the African continent – Ventures Africa
DRIVING SYSTEMS CHANGE ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT
In recognition of the need to address systemic problems that have hindered the potential growth of Africa for decades and accelerate systems change initiatives across the continent, African Philanthropy Forum (APF) launched the APF Systems Change Program to build an African network of systems change leaders and philanthropists who can help cultivate conditions to make their transformative visions a reality.
The Systems Change Program, which began with a rigorous selection process managed by Dalberg, is a pilot with six initiatives led by system entrepreneurs who are solving problems in multiple SDG areas, including quality education, decent work, and economic growth, good health and wellbeing, clean water and sanitation and reduced inequality. It is a direct response to the need to think differently and accelerate when considering Africa’s problems and solutions.
The Program commenced in May 2020 and was publicly launched at a virtual event on August 20, where panelists and the system entrepreneurs took part in a stimulating conversation about Driving Systems Change in Africa towards achieving sustainable and inclusive development. The speakers included Randy Newcomb, Senior Advisor at The Omidyar Group; Dr. Angela Gichaga, CEO of Financing Alliance for Health; Mosun Layode, Executive Director, African Philanthropy Forum; Elena Bonometti, CEO, Tostan International; as well as Jeff Walker, Chairman New Profit/APF Board Member who served as the moderator.
“There is a need to work and change the whole system rather than focus on smaller group activities.” – Jeff Walker.
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Driving systems change on the African continent – Ventures Africa
Management Cybernetics and the Force in organisational life – Benjamin Taylor| Tuesday, October 27, 2020 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM GMT+1, free online
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM GMT+1
Details
“Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” ―Obi-Wan Kenobi
The Force in organisations is real. It can shape and control you and your organisation – or you can learn to shape them. This will be an introduction to the jedi arts of management cybernetics.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antlerboy/?originalSubdomain=uk
Benjamin is the chief executive of the Public Service Transformation Academy, a not-for-profit social enterprise working with the UK government, managing partner/founder at RedQuadrant. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University before becoming co-ordinator of a youth development charity. He then worked at the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham for seven years, from the front line to Adviser to Mayor/Leader. He has provided service consultancy at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Sector Projects (part of Capita group), where he worked with clients from the Government of Armenia to Birmingham City council. He has undertaken voluntary accreditation missions for Youth Business International in Bangladesh and Dominica.
Benjamin is passionate about commissioning, systems thinking, customer-led transformation, lean, and better ways to run and lead organisations. He holds a lean six sigma black belt and is an accredited power+systems trainer. Benjamin is a visiting lecturer in applied systems thinking at Cass Business School, City University, and has lectured at Nottingham Business School and Oxford Said/HEC Paris.
You can also see my series on ‘The Force’ in organisationa life (so far) here:
- Parts 1-4 (the purpose of the system is what it does, the hidden essential organisatioanal logic, the inevitability of the shaping of culture by leaders and systems, and the importance of ‘Worlds’) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/force-organisational-life-becoming-jedi-beginning-taylor/?trackingId=5%2F6s2gdPTQCkHn1jIxH1Tw%3D%3D
- Part 5 – how dominant/other patterns create system fragility https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6689067857860546560/
- Part 6 – the dark side of human responses https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6691582543411736576/?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A(activity%3A6691582543411736576%2C6691588169026027520)
- part 7 – structural coupling https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_organisations-relationships-activity-6694138139893743616-NzI3/
- part 8 – control, framing, paradigms, politics, self-knowledge, and lust for power! https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_organisations-society-activity-6696667153329983488-pa2L
- parts 5-8
- part 9 – fit and stretch of work to people https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_society-organisations-activity-6699205886520500224-JWiR
- part 10 – Human needs and the impact of trauma, shame, and referred pain
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_organisations-society-activity-6701742668155879424-W_mv
Driving Systems Change Forward Webinar – Collective Impact Forum – Monday, August 31 4pm-5pm EST
source:
Webinar Registration – Zoom
Driving Systems Change Forward Webinar Registration
Driving Systems Change Forward
Multisite, cross-sector initiatives bring together stakeholders to tackle difficult issues – housing, health, education, and more – facing communities across the United States.
In the new report Driving Systems Change Forward, authored by the Urban Institute and published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, you’ll learn key lessons from initiatives from across the country about what it takes to advance systems change forward by shifting power and promoting racial equity.
Join us for a virtual coffee chat on August 31 from 4pm – 5pm ET with one of the report authors—Corianne Scally—from the Urban Institute and contributing practitioner, Andrea Akita, who leads the Communities of Opportunity Initiative for King County, Washington. They’ll discuss the report findings and how initiatives can build on this learning to change the structures, relationships and attitudes that keep racism rooted in place and communities struggling.
Can’t make the exact time to join? Registering also means you’ll be notified when the recording is available, normally within 24 hours of live event.
Joining us for this discussion are:
- Andrea Akita, Communities of Opportunity Director, King County Public Health
- Corianne Payton Scally, Principal Research Associate, Urban Institute
Title: Driving Systems Change Forward
Date: Monday, August 31
Time: 4pm – 5pm ET
Cost: Free
book at source:
Webinar Registration – Zoom
Driving Systems Change Forward: Leveraging Multisite, Cross-Sector Initiatives to Change Systems, Advance Racial Equity, and Shift Power | Urban Institute
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Driving Systems Change Forward: Leveraging Multisite, Cross-Sector Initiatives to Change Systems, Advance Racial Equity, and Shift Power | Urban Institute
RESEARCH REPORT
Driving Systems Change Forward: Leveraging Multisite, Cross-Sector Initiatives to Change Systems, Advance Racial Equity, and Shift Power
August 3, 2020
Abstract
A slate of multisite, cross-sector initiatives has emerged to address structural root causes of inequities by changing the systems that shape community conditions and individual well-being. These new, connected sets of activities were planned and implemented to achieve a goal that spans more than one site (e.g., a neighborhood, school, city, region) and involve a mix of institutions from the public, nonprofit, philanthropic, and/or private sectors. This report reflects on recent progress and shortcomings and provides strategies for initiative funders, intermediaries, sites, and evaluators who wish to evolve their efforts in ways that drive systems change forward. The findings highlight the complex intersections of systems, racial equity, and power that can work for or against systems change.
The executive summary and full report are available here.
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Driving Systems Change Forward: Leveraging Multisite, Cross-Sector Initiatives to Change Systems, Advance Racial Equity, and Shift Power | Urban Institute
Ideas Arrangements Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice – Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
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Ideas Arrangements Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice – Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
CHANGING POWER RELATIONS, RACIAL JUSTICE
Ideas Arrangements Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice
Design Studio for Social Intervention (Lori Lobenstine, Kenneth Bailey, and Ayako Maruyama)
July 13, 2020Print ShareTweet19ShareEmail19SHARES
Editors’ note: This article was excerpted, with minor edits, from Ideas Arrangements Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice (Minor Compositions, 2020), for the summer 2020 edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly. This edition of the magazine is about the need to understand the often unacknowledged and unspoken design principles behind some of the practices and structures that pervade our work. We recommend the book highly. All illustrations are by Ayako Maruyama.
Activists, artists, philanthropists, young people, academics—all manner of folks—constantly battle injustices and negative effects in their lives and the lives of others. We take to the streets, to the Internet, to the voting booth, and more to fight for better outcomes. To the same degree, we argue vehemently about the ideas that underlie these injustices—from notions of public and private to ideas about categorizing our bodies, to all the “isms” that say some categories (and people) matter more than others.
But the arena for intervention that we at DS4SI want to make a case for is a less obvious one: that of the multiple, overlapping social arrangements that shape our lives. We believe that creating new effects—ones that make a society more just and enjoyable—calls for sensing, questioning, intervening in, and reimagining our existing arrangements. Simply put, we see rearranging the social as a practical and powerful way to create social change. And we want those of us who care about social justice to see ourselves as potential designers of this world, rather than simply as participants in a world we didn’t create or consent to. Instead of constantly reacting to the latest injustice, we want activists to have the tools and time to imagine and enact a new world.
As Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, wrote in her 2018 debut op-ed for the New York Times:
Resistance is a reactive state of mind. While it can be necessary for survival and to prevent catastrophic harm, it can also tempt us to set our sights too low and to restrict our field of vision to the next election cycle, leading us to forget our ultimate purpose and place in history….Those of us who are committed to the radical evolution of American democracy are not merely resisting an unwanted reality. To the contrary, the struggle for human freedom and dignity extends back centuries and is likely to continue for generations to come.1
With the weight of lifetime Supreme Court appointments or healthcare or climate change seeming to hang in the balance of our elections, it is easy to get stuck there. But as Alexander points out, our fixation with politics and policies as the grand arrangement from which all other forms of social justice and injustice flow serves to “set our sights too low.”2 When do we get to imagine the daily arrangements of “human freedom and dignity”?3 We know this won’t happen overnight. It takes time and investment for social arrangements to institutionalize and endure, and it will take time to change them. But it is critical that we try. And to do that, we need to be better at sensing arrangements, intervening in them, and imagining new ones.
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Ideas Arrangements Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice – Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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