The always-brilliant systems studio newsletter. I’ll post some of the key contents separately (and already have posted some) – but I always think this is worth sharing alone.
Source: Top Inspiration, Events and News on Systems Change
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Author Archives: antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor
Systemic Leadership for Local Governance – Tapping the Resource Within | Catherine Hobbs | Palgrave Macmillan
One priced for academic libraries but I feel obligated to get one for the RedQuadrant library – I expect it to be very good.
© 2019
Systemic Leadership for Local Governance
Tapping the Resource Within
Authors: Hobbs, Catherine
- Breaks the mould by accepting and working with complexity rather than trying to impose control
- Explores the prospect of social learning for complexity in a highly practical way by looking at leadership through the lens of the Systems Sciences
- Supports collective sensemaking for the common good at the level of local governance (rather than the more usual predictive approach)
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“A truly expansive and valuable book that challenges the assumptions and constraints of current leadership thinking… Its focus on integrating theory and practice is particularly helpful in linking its key ideas to current public sector management concerns.”—Gareth Morgan, Author of Images of Organization
“While other authors have offered general principles of systemic leadership or given readers single approaches, Hobbs is much more ambitious: she brings together diverse, well-tested theoretical, methodological and practical approaches to provide today’s leaders with a multifaceted resource that can aid them in thinking systemically. In this respect, her book is a significant advance on previous offerings, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to leaders, aspiring leaders and leadership academics around the world.”—Gerald Midgley, University of Hull, UK
“This is an impressive and innovative work that draws together the disparate strands of complexity theory, systems thinking and operational research to build an adaptive social learning approach for local governance, helping to shift it from a service-led to systemic-deliberative model. This is essential reading for local government actors, students of local policy and for the public policy generalist.”—Robert Geyer, Lancaster University, UK
Addressing matters of complexity systemically rather than mechanistically is now an ethical and practical paradigm-changing challenge for public policy. This optimistic book explores how action could be led in a joined-up way, signposting resources to thinking differently. Attention is paid to leading the design of adaptive social learning around what matters, re-connecting with public purpose to enable tailoring towards contemporary needs and constraints. Relevant to postgraduates, academics, local government managers, curious practitioners and the wider public, private and third sectors where there is interest in interpreting leadership via the cognitive capabilities of Systems Science.
Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Introduction: Local Government Reform and a Journey to the Empty Quarter
Pages 1-42
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Thinking Differently Matters
Pages 43-54
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Assumptions Matter
Pages 55-74
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The Wider Context Matters
Pages 75-105
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People Matter
Pages 107-136
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Buy this book
A Conversation with Otto Scharmer – Academy for Systems Change
Source: A Conversation with Otto Scharmer – Academy for Systems Change
A Conversation with Otto Scharmer
A Conversation with Otto Scharmer
In this 60 minute recorded webinar, the Academy hosts Otto Scharmer in discussion about his work on Theory U, focusing on core principles and applications. Academy Founders, Peter Senge and Darcy Winslow, along with Academy Fellow and Strategic Design Manager, Katie Stubley, talk about turning theory into practice and take questions from participants as to how we can implement this work in our daily lives.
Otto Scharmer is a Senior Lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management and founder of the Presencing Institute. He chairs the MIT IDEAS program for cross-sector innovation, which helps leaders in business, government, and civil society to innovate at the level of the whole system. Scharmer introduced the concept of “presencing” – learning from the emerging future – in his bestselling books Theory U and Presence (the latter co-authored with Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers). His new book, The Essentials of Theory U (2018), is a powerful pocket guide for practitioners that distills all of the research and materials found in his seminal texts Theory U and Leading from the Emerging Future. This book enables leaders and organizations in all industries and sectors to shift awareness, connect with the highest future possibilities, and strengthen the capacity to co-shape the future.
A System Leader’s Fieldbook from the Academy for Systems Change
Source: A System Leader’s Fieldbook
A System Leader’s FieldbookA System Leader’s Fieldbook
Gaining traction on today’s ever-more complex challenges requires collective leadership. That means practicing new ways of operating at the levels of Self, Team, Organization, and System. This online Fieldbook provides tools and resources for system leaders to use in supporting people and groups as they develop the skills to accelerate progress on intractable problems together.
To make real and lasting change, we need to:
Recognize that we are part of the systems we seek to change: Self
Interact productively with—and learn from—others: Team
Collaborate across internal stakeholder groups: Organization
Work across boundaries to co-create the future: System
Hover over the different segments of the circle, to the left, to identify the modules that will help you build your capacity to become a system leader.
Developing Systems-wise People
“Change must start from within—with deep self-awareness. We start by identifying and discussing what each individual already has—their roots—and we work with them as they learn from a mentor and practice by doing.”
Large teams develop and small teams disrupt science and technology
One of the most universal trends in science and technology today is the growth of large teams in all areas, as solitary researchers and small teams diminish in prevalence1,2,3. Increases in team size have been attributed to the specialization of scientific activities3, improvements in communication technology4,5, or the complexity of modern problems that require interdisciplinary solutions6,7,8. This shift in team size raises the question of whether and how the character of the science and technology produced by large teams differs from that of small teams. Here we analyse more than 65 million papers, patents and software products that span the period 1954–2014, and demonstrate that across this period smaller teams have tended to disrupt science and technology with new ideas and opportunities, whereas larger teams have tended to develop existing ones. Work from larger teams builds on more-recent and popular developments, and attention to their work comes immediately. By contrast…
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Systems Literacy | A global action to create a systems literate world
Another initiative from the ISSS
Source: Systems Literacy | A global action to create a systems literate world
“Grand Vision” for Systems Sciences on Vimeo – Peter Tuddenham, President of ISSS
link: https://vimeo.com/317104695
Complex Networks: Theory, Methods, and Applications – Lake Como School of Advanced Studies – May 13-17, 2019
Complex networks: theory, methods, and applications (5th edition)
Villa del Grumello, Como, Italy, May 13-17, 2019
Many real systems can be modeled as networks, where the elements of the system are nodes and interactions between elements are edges. An even larger set of systems can be modeled using dynamical processes on networks, which are in turn affected by the dynamics. Networks thus represent the backbone of many complex systems, and their theoretical and computational analysis makes it possible to gain insights into numerous applications. Networks permeate almost every conceivable discipline —including sociology, transportation, economics and finance, biology, and myriad others — and the study of “network science” has thus become a crucial component of modern scientific education.
The school “Complex Networks: Theory, Methods, and Applications” offers a succinct education in network science. It is open to all aspiring scholars in any area of science or engineering who wish to study networks of any kind…
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Detecting sequences of system states in temporal networks
…continuing my discussion of ‘complexity’ methods – this looks like a truly fascinating attempt to infer something essential or internal to a system from description of observable characteristics, using hard maths.
There’s something about a focus on the material here, and perhaps an equivalent to informed brute-force decryption attacks?
Many time-evolving systems in nature, society and technology leave traces of the interactions within them. These interactions form temporal networks that reflect the states of the systems. In this work, we pursue a coarse-grained description of these systems by proposing a method to assign discrete states to the systems and inferring the sequence of such states from the data. Such states could, for example, correspond to a mental state (as inferred from neuroimaging data) or the operational state of an organization (as inferred by interpersonal communication). Our method combines a graph distance measure and hierarchical clustering. Using several empirical data sets of social temporal networks, we show that our method is capable of inferring the system’s states such as distinct activities in a school and a weekday state as opposed to a weekend state. We expect the methods to be equally useful in other settings such as temporally varying protein…
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LEARNING TOGETHER IN LIVING SYSTEMS • Public Forum with Nora Bateson – University of Technology Sydney – Mon 18/02/2019 at 6:00 pm (sorry, sold out!)
Worth clicking through if you’re in the Sydney area for more on the Anthropocene Transitions series.
LEARNING TOGETHER IN LIVING SYSTEMS • Public Forum with Nora Bateson
Event Information
Description
“How we can improve our perception of the complexity we live within, so we may improve our interaction with the world?”
An international lecturer, researcher and writer, Nora wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her celebrated father — systems theorist, holistic thinker, anthropologist and pioneer of cybernetics, Gregory Bateson. Building on her father’s legacy, Nora brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in the ecologies of living systems. She is President of the Swedish-based International Bateson Institute.
Her book Small Arcs of Larger Circles (Triarchy Press, UK, 2016) is a revolutionary personal approach to the study of systems and complexity. Nora is uniquely qualified to facilitate cross disciplinary discussions. As an “interdisciplinary interloper” she travels between conversations in different fields and with different audiences bringing multiple perspectives into view to reveal larger patterns.
In her public lecture on Monday 18th February, Nora will address four themes which will then become the framework for the two-day workshop she will lead on Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20th February:
- Systems thinking and everyday life
- Identity in complexity
- How systems learn
- Warm Data
Systems Thinking and Everyday Life
Nora’s teaching, and her challenge to us, is about developing our capacity for taking a systemic approach of mutual learning to everyday life, from family, to groups, organisations and society.
‘Symmathesy’* is a new term created by Nora that derives from the Greek prefix sym (together) and mathesi, (to learn). Symmathesy is not about finding five-step solutions, it is about deepening, expanding and exploring the sensitivity with which we interpret and interact with our complex world more creatively and positively, and less destructively. Be sure, this is not a tweaking of thinking and approach, but a profound shift.
Combining theory, art, story-telling, poetry and emerging practice, Nora will guide us to take a different look at how to approach the seemingly intractable problems that we face personally and as a society. She will take us on a journey exploring the art and science of complexity, transcontextuality* and how systems learn. Along the way, we will explore notions of identity, agency, leadership, pain and double binds—and how such notions become paradoxical and ambiguous when seen through a systemic lens. Once we embrace the creative tension in this perspective, we can see new possibilities for altering and easing how we live, individually and collectively.
*(The meaning of anything depends on its context. We live in many contexts, spread over time, space and relationships, that are continually shifting. Identity, for example, is what Nora calls ‘transcontextual’, in that it is shaped and changed not by one context but by many.)
Identity in Complexity
In meeting the needs of a changing world, our two most valuable assets are sensitivity and complexity. As individuals and within larger communities our notions of identity inform us as to who we are in relation to the systems we live within. But this era is a time of upheaval; the ecosystems and social systems around the globe are in rapid transition. While change is a constant in living systems, the rate of change now is unprecedented. Who are we in this changing world? As families, as professionals, as cultures, how is our perception of ourselves changing . . . and what if it doesn’t?
Identity—in fact all meaning—depends on context. We live in many contexts, spread over time, space and relationships, that are continually shifting. If we are open, we continue to
learn from our deceased ancestors and from our children and generations to come. In this sense, identity is what Nora calls ‘transcontextual’, in that it is shaped and changed not by one context but by many. Identity often seems to depend on belonging to a particular gender, nationality, political party, religion etc. with its attendant problems at the edges where one belonging rubs up against another.
Identity is a personal matter, but it also matters in terms of society, ecosystems, and the future. Double binds of identity, and other traps of obsolete fragmentation in our thinking can be seen with greater insight through the lens of complexity and systems.
As our ability to perceive the complexity of our own identity is increased, so is our ability to perceive the complexity of our world. With this perception we have much better information from which to make the important decisions, as well as much more sensitivity. For example, through a lens of complexity, how is the experience of pain expanded? Pain is often reduced to a singular causation and experience, and then numbed away. But right now we need to be able to feel the sadness and anxiety of our world in a larger colour spectrum . . . we cannot afford to anesthetize our interaction with the world around us.
How Systems Learn
There is much focus on complexity these days, but our predominant metaphors are still linear and mechanistic. It is hardwired into us all at a deeply personal level and tends to rule the day. Even when we think we are approaching things systemically we are likely to revert to our habitual linear mode of thinking. If we are genuinely thinking systemically or ecologically, what is the meaning of notions such as ‘agency’ and ‘leadership’, which become paradoxical in a systemic world?
All of biological evolution, and development of culture and society, would seem to be a testament to the characteristics of contextual multilayered shiftings through time. Nothing stays the same, clearly. So could it be that change is a kind of learning? If a living entity transforms, even slightly, the contextual interrelationships it is within change and these changes can cascade through the bigger systems in which it is embedded. The same kind of tree in the same forest does not necessarily grow to be the same shape. Some may have higher winds to contend with, or grow in a thicker density of flora around them. The trees in these contrasting contexts live into their contexts by receiving the many forms of relational information they are within, and responding to them. They grow into
different shapes and metabolize at different levels . . . learning, calibrating, and through stochastic process, responding to their contextual interrelationships. And aren’t we all a little bit like those trees? Becoming who we are in the contexts of our lives . . .
Warm Data
Nora will also speak about ‘warm data,’ which (in contrast to ‘cool’ or hard data) she defines as “transcontextual information about the interrelationships that integrate a complex system.”
On December 7, 2018, Nora posted:
“The world is ready for warm data. After years of what has felt like starting fires in the rain, finally there is a recognition that the way problem solving has been considered, has not been adequate to meet the complexity of the issues we face. I am just back from an amazing Warm Data session in Mexico, preparing to bring together public service groups in Puebla and Mexico City in 2019. Next up is a deep dive on Warm Data in London this week. The session is completely full. Meanwhile the United Nations General Assembly has taken an interest in Warm Data as well. Here is a new blog post of the piece going into the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) 2019 Global Assessment Report on Risk.” Warm Data to Better Meet the Complex Risks of This Era
Thinking in complexity requires the ability to perceive across multiple perspectives and contexts. This is not a muscle that has been trained into us in school or in the work world. It is a skill acutely needed in this era to meet our personal, professional and collective need to respond to crisis, and to improve our lives.
Nora has devised a process that she calls a “Warm Data Lab” for use with groups who are interested in strengthening and further practicing their collective ability to perceive, discuss and research complex issues. By shifting perspectives, the Warm Data Lab process increases ability to respond to difficult or “wicked” issues. Because so many of the challenges that we face now are complex, we need approaches to meeting that complexity. Although there is a desire to reframe these complex issues in simple terms that might lend themselves to easy solutions, this usually leads to the dangers of unintended consequences of reductionism . . . and thus further problems. It is a living kaleidoscope of conversation in which information and formulation of cross-contextual knowing is generated. The conversational process is designed to seamlessly engage
multiple theoretical principals in a practical format. The process relies on using two concepts: Transcontextual Interaction and Symmathesy.
Transcontextual Interaction is the recognition that complex systems do not exist in single contexts but rather are formed between multiple contexts that overlap in living communication.
The ways in which systemic interdependency forms is through contextual interaction and mutual learning. Symmathesy is the concept of mutual learning that encourages us to concentrate on how these contextual interactions inform one another and generate learning.
Need help finding the venue? Easy….
A simple (but long)run-through of the Systems Changers programme – Cassie Robinson
Source: A simple (but long)run-through of the Systems Changers programme
A simple (but long)run-through of the Systems Changers programme
We are 5 months in to the Systems Changers programme with the Children’s Society and Lankelly Chase and there will be more posts to come about the learning from that, but as the programme evolves and is adapted for different contexts I thought it might be valuable to write a post that simply lays out the programme in it’s simplest form* — as it was, when we first designed it, back in 2014 (delivered in 2015).
The programme was initially designed for frontline workers working in organisations trying to change the systems that perpetuate severe and multiple disadvantage. It was designed to be a 6 month programme, with 10–12 participants. The ambition was that it could always be used in other contexts — with all the different people working in those systems — from commissioners and policy makers through to middle managers and local citizens.
The premise of the programme was to take & deploy a systemic lens for change by…
- Acknowledging the Sectors that have less power & voice
- Making the invisible, visible
- Building systems’ adaptive capacity
And in 2018 we edited and adapted the design principles.
The programme has always used the three lens’ as shown below — to build a literacy in plural perspectives and holding both the micro and macro view.
The programme has always emphasised the middle space visualised below. It has some aspects of a personal development programme, but that is not what it is. In the same way it isn’t an incubator or accelerator programme fixated on solutions. In fact we always said that if people left their jobs after taking part in the programme, we had failed. The programme is about surfacing, nourishing and directing the wisdom (insights) from the frontline to influence change. It was always a challenge to hold this space — people on the frontline like springing in to action and are great “do-er’s” and problem solvers.
And the focus was always on the collective insights (intelligence and wisdom) of the group as much as on each frontline workers individual journey and experience. What does the collective know that the individual can’t? How can a collective sense-making across a system be useful in generating new insights? It’s why the programme was originally designed to be made up of people working in different places and parts of the system.
The programme broadly follows the stages below, although it is not linear — the mapping, testing, reflecting and adapting are all continuous.
The participants were asked to do maps of the systems in which they work,
Continues in source: A simple (but long)run-through of the Systems Changers programme
The Multilayer Structure of Corporate Networks
Various company interactions can be described by networks, for instance the ownership networks and the board membership networks. To understand the ecosystem of companies, these interactions cannot be seen in isolation. For this purpose we construct a new multilayer network of interactions between companies in Germany and in the United Kingdom, combining ownership links, social ties through joint board directors, R&D collaborations and stock correlations in one linked multiplex dataset. We describe the features of this network and show there exists a non-trivial overlap between these different types of networks, where the different types of connections complement each other and make the overall structure more complex. This highlights that corporate control, boardroom influence and other connections have different structures and together make an even smaller corporate world than previously reported. We have a first look at the relation between company performance and location in the network structure.
The Multilayer…
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Viable system model training
Putting Henri Bortoft’s Philosophy of Wholeness into Practice through Holonomics
Henri Bortoft at Schumacher College
I have now reached the end of my project of publishing the entire series of lectures from 2009 which Henri Bortoft gave at Schumacher College as part of the foundation of the masters degree in Holistic Science. I would like to thank all those of you who have watched, enjoyed and also taken the time to either leave comments or contact me about this series.
The links to all of the lectures, which include my lecture notes can be found at the end of my introduction: The Henri Bortoft Lectures: An Introduction
Having participated in the lectures and understanding just how powerful and transformative Henri’s teachings were, it was a long-time dream to be able to make these available for anyone wishing to really develop a deep understanding of the dynamic conception of wholeness in Goethe and European thought.
Photo: Simon Robinson
I thought I…
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Complexity and Management Conference 17th-19th May – booking now.
This year’s Complexity and Management Conference, on 17th-19th May: What does it mean to be critical? – complexity, reflexivity and doubt in everyday organisational life offers the opportunity for delegates to reflect on what it means to be critical and why it is important to be so in today’s organisations. On the first morning of the conference we have invited Professor Andre Spicer to help us get the discussion going. If you want to sign up for the conference and save yourself some money before the early bird deadline expires, then click here.
Here are a few ideas on the traditions of thought to which we will be contributing.
We have a strong critical tradition in western thought, starting with the ancient Greeks. However, the contemporary philosopher Julian Baggini has shown us how a variety of cultures have their own traditions of systematically thinking about the…
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