Observing Systems Heinz von Foerster

Observing Systems | Heinz von Foerster | download

Cybernetics’s Reflexive Turns

“Cybernetics’s Reflexive Turns” by Klaus Krippendorff

Louis H. Kauffman

Louis H. Kauffman

e.g. EigenForm (2003) http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/Eigen.pdf

I missed this book when it first came out, but I saw I did blog one (https://stream.syscoi.com/2019/09/06/why-highly-diverse-work-teams-are-better-at-untangling-complexity/) of a series of articles that came out around this time which talked mostly about Requisite Variety at a team/problem-solving level. The book has been recommended to me by Kevin Gillick who saw refence to Beer and to Ashby’s Law. Come to see, it’s written by a couple of people out of the Malik school (and gives credit up front), and from what can be seen from Google Books it offers another structured large-group process (comparable to FutureSearch, MG Taylor method, Team Syntegrity etc). Looks more interesting than I would originally have thought.

source:

Cracking Complexity | Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog

06.13.19

Cracking Complexity

THERE ARE complicated problems, and there are complex problems. Complicated problems are technical in nature. They are linear, orderly, and predictable. Complex problems are adaptive challenges. They are messy, unstable, and unpredictable. “Having a wedding is complicated; having a happy marriage is complex.”

If you want to crack a complex problem, you need the code. David Benjamin and David Komlos provide the code in Cracking Complexity.

We can master highly sophisticated technical and technological challenges because we’re quite skilled at making linear connections from one technical feat to the next. But complex, multidimensional challenges are categorically different. They are not linear. They are not solved or even solvable through technical prowess. They don’t stand still. They don’t patiently await solutions. Complexity is a whole different ball game.

The question is, “How can we best deal with something we’ve never dealt with before, without foreknowledge of what’s going to work?” Conventional approaches to problem-solving typically rely on small groups of smart people cloistered away tasked with deciding the best way forward. We need a new approach to complex problems that allow us to cocreate in large groups.

The Complexity Formula

A foundational idea behind the formula is Ashby’s Law or the Law of Requisite Variety which states: Only variety destroys variety. “Ashby’s Law says you need to bring a matching amount of variety to the solving process.” In other words, a high-variety group that can collectively address the variety inherent in the issue to be solved. The Complexity Formula helps you to unlock the skills, knowledge, experience, and expertise of the people around you.

All the steps in the Formula are complementary and build one upon the next to deliver rapid leaps on complex issues.

The first five steps set things up. Steps six through nine are where a requisite-variety of people can spend a short amount of time—typically two days—to sense, absorb, think, decide, and then in Step ten to act on the complex problem.

Listed below are the ten steps with some key thoughts on each:

1. Acknowledge the Complexity

The first step is to determine exactly what kind of problem you are faced with. A complicated problem or a problem that is truly complex. The first step is “recognizing that there are no known answers, that no outsourced provider is going to figure it out for you—at least fast enough—and that the old way of figuring things out isn’t going to work anymore.”

2. Construct A Really, Really Good Question

Frame the issue with a good question. A complex issue needs a question that addresses the complexity. “A good gut check on the question is how people react to it. Are they uncomfortable with it because it challenges the status quo, sets the bar high, or suggests a lot of work needs to be done? Conversely, are they completely comfortable with it because it’s easy to answer? Don’t necessarily retreat from what you think is a good question because people are reacting negatively, and don’t be satisfied if people aren’t pushing back.” Example: “What must we do in the next 12 months to drive necessary changes in mind-set, action, and behavior to fully realize the benefits of…?”

3. Target A Requisite Variety of Solvers

Involve the right people. Identify the requisite variety of people needed to match and absorb the complexity. “Your goal is to include the necessary perspectives, characteristics, roles, functions, hierarchical levels, and so on. If you shortchange requisite variety, you’re setting yourself up for no or partial solution and weak execution.” The authors provide a system to be sure you’re getting the right people together.

4. Localize the Solvers

Get everyone together face-to-face. It allows for neural synchronization. In Google’s team study, they found what distinguished high-performing teams from low-performing teams is not team cohesion, motivation, or average IQ, but rather frequent turn-taking in conversations and high social sensitivity toward what team members are thinking and feeling.

5. Eliminate the Noise

Noise takes all forms: “too much information all at once; too much wrong or inaccurate information; and too much missing, ambiguous, unreliable, or fragmented information.” They recommend that we “Err on the side of too little research, too little data, information, and knowledge—invest the effort instead in the requisite variety of people who carry the tacit data banks and the powerful processors around between their two ears.”

6. Agree on the Right Agenda

Do not preset the agenda. Once you get everyone together, begin by deciding what to talk about. “Let the group decide what they have to talk about in order to answer the question. Their first task together is agreeing on how to deconstruct the question into the right component parts to discuss.”

7. Put people On A Collision Course

A highly engineered conversation—engineered serendipity. “Serendipity often happens where people, domains, and/or systems collide. And collisions can be engineered. When we talk about domains and systems colliding, we mean people from one domain or system bumping into people from another domain or system.”

8. Advance Iteratively and Emergently

You must trust that the answers will emerge. “Your requisite variety group needs to operate with energy and an expectation that the right answers will arise from the right kinds of interactions together.” Also, “Having set their agenda, your group needs to go through that entire agenda once, then again, then again.” Three times is the number—more yields diminishing returns.

9. Change How People Interact

Nothing will happen if the interactions between your group members are not productive ones. To be effective, they need to be “candid, incisive, unconstrained, unguarded, transparent, fierce, and focused.” That requires, “discipline and structure, right-sized teams (no more than 8), effective conversation roles, and environment where productive friction is expected and not frowned upon, and have a neutral note taker.”

10. Translate Clarity and Insights into Action

“The actions that result from the use of the Complexity Formula fall into three categories: Things to do, things to try, and the newly revealed complexities.” The job in step ten is to categorize the solutions in the three categories and then to attack “each pile in the right way to make progress, to continue learning, and to get after the next big challenge.” Sometimes working on one complexity reveals yet another complexity that needs to be resolved.

source:

Cracking Complexity | Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog

linkedin update:

Post | Feed | LinkedIn

How to weave systems out of our stories? And what is our default learning mode?

The honest answer is: I don’t know. But that is a good starting point.

In the pursuit to grow our understanding of the world and its relationship to us, it might be worth looking at how we make our message coherent.
The concept of Frame has become popular and easy to appeal to because it gives us space to connect context, people and minds. It helps us share entire systems, rather than just isolated bits of knowledge.
Sense-Framing is a model that can act as an inclusive and transformative network of processing intelligible content.

The ‘Senses’ are the nodes that connect the network and help information circulate.

The Insights/Breakthroughs are the Knots of the network where change and transformation can happen. 

Learning to learn has been a personal struggle of mine. Instead of complaining about the system, I set on a journey to discover how do I learn and how can I share it with others. I think Sense-Framing is an important milestone in this journey.

Link to ebook (signup required):

Adaptability is set to be the key skill for the future Jessica Schueller and Hugo Figueiredo  03 July 2021

Adaptability is set to be the key skill for the future

CONCEPT MAP

Concept Map — New England Complex Systems Institute

91st meeting for Systems Thinking Ontario

Systems Thinking Ontario – 2021-06-14

June 14 (the second Monday of the month) is the 91st meeting for Systems Thinking Ontario. The registration is on Eventbrite at https://synthesis-map-expo-2021-1.eventbrite.ca.

Synthesis Map Expo 2021 (#1), Strategic Foresight and Innovation program

Every year Systems Thinking Ontario hosts a series of summer evening events for presentations of synthesis maps (complex systems maps) created in systemic design courses in OCAD University graduate programs.

• This first evening, June 14, we have three presentations.
• The second evening, July 12, we’re considering to have another three presentations.
• The third evening, August 9, we’re holding if there is more interest

Synthesis maps are rich visualizations that illustrate the real-world complexity of systemic challenges, and typically used to not only “map system problems” but to propose design recommendations for systems change and policies (from health to public policy, from service experiences to social change) from evidence gathered in stakeholder research. Policymakers and organizational stakeholders use synthesis maps for strategic advising, long-term planning, and considering interventions for social and systemic challenges (wicked problems).

While we are still sorting out the final slate of presenters, we are expecting:

• Emerging Possibilities for Users in a Web 3.0 Social Media Ecology
  • Aimee Burnett, Alyssa Yuhas, Eduardo Alarcon, Emily Stover, Steph Marcil
• Social Purpose Economy in Canada
  • Elisa Arnold, Tejashri Kapura, Elizabeth Lane, Zemina Meghji and Emily Rho
• Why We Buy – A systems study of consumerism
  • Amy Morell, Nicole Brkic, Alejandra Farias Fornes, Martha Chomyn, and Razane Hanna

Venue:

• The link for a Zoom conference will be sent upon preregistration.
• It’s really too bad that we can’t use the OCADU Visual Analytics Lab to meet in person!

Suggested pre-reading:

What are Synthesis Maps and Gigamaps? at https://slab.ocadu.ca/project/synthesis-maps-gigamaps

SYSTEMS 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMS THINKING $5.29 The first textbook on systems thinking written for a broad audience, and now updated for the modern reader, Systems 1 is a perfect introduction to the complex systems that make up the world around us. Originally written in 1980, it has remained a classic and a mainstay of workshops and classrooms around the world for 40 years. It has been used in courses for gifted middle schoolers as well as graduate programs. It is the introductory text in Roadmaps, the MIT course on systems theory for educators, and has been incorporated into many business and military training programs. The Chinese translation of the 3rd edition is also widely available. The book begins with a basic summary of systems theory, and proceeds through simple steps to help the reader understand some of the more complex systems that we deal with every day. It concludes with “Kauffman’s Rules,” 30 proverbs that every systems thinker needs to know. The 4th edition has been completely updated, including an entirely new chapter on exponential growth.

Systems 1: An Introduction to Systems Thinking | System Dynamics Society

Meaningful measures of human society in the twenty-first century

Meaningful measures of human society in the twenty-first century | Nature

Meaningful measures of human society in the twenty-first century

• David Lazer, 
• Eszter Hargittai, 
• Deen Freelon, 
• Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon, 
• Kevin Munger, 
• Katherine Ognyanova & 
• Jason Radford 

Nature (2021)Cite this article

• 77 Altmetric
• Metricsdetails

Abstract

Science rarely proceeds beyond what scientists can observe and measure, and sometimes what can be observed proceeds far ahead of scientific understanding. The twenty-first century offers such a moment in the study of human societies. A vastly larger share of behaviours is observed today than would have been imaginable at the close of the twentieth century. Our interpersonal communication, our movements and many of our everyday actions, are all potentially accessible for scientific research; sometimes through purposive instrumentation for scientific objectives (for example, satellite imagery), but far more often these objectives are, literally, an afterthought (for example, Twitter data streams). Here we evaluate the potential of this massive instrumentation—the creation of techniques for the structured representation and quantification—of human behaviour through the lens of scientific measurement and its principles. In particular, we focus on the question of how we extract scientific meaning from data that often were not created for such purposes. These data present conceptual, computational and ethical challenges that require a rejuvenation of our scientific theories to keep up with the rapidly changing social realities and our capacities to capture them. We require, in other words, new approaches to manage, use and analyse data.

The Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change

Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change

About the Journal

Awareness-based systems change is a consciousness-based, action research approach to social transformation. It is an emergent cross-sectoral, inter- and transdisciplinary field that brings a first- and second-person lens to the field of systems thinking and systems change.

The Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change  is a place for creative scholarship that is breaking new ground in research and further evolving this emergent field. The journal aims to reveal and support rigour in these new forms of research. It is also a place for highlighting current interesting examples of promising transformative practices and to co-inquire into these. Instead of providing definite answers, the journal seeks to ask new questions. We believe new understanding will surface through emerging patterns across the range of place-based and viable solutions/approaches provided. This mirrors an important spirit of our time and moment around the collective exploration of transformation from an awareness-based perspective.

The Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change sees itself as one element of a larger intention which is to co-create a global platform which aligns and brings together a community of researchers and practitioners who, over the next decade, will advance and amplify the field of awareness-based systems change by co-developing the concepts, methods, tools and frames needed to illuminate and catalyze the evolution of social fields.

Social Field

The social field can be defined as the source conditions that give rise to patterns of thinking, conversing, and organizing in systems, which in turn produce practical results. In this way, the social field is the social system seen not only from the outside (the third-person view) but also from within (the first- and second- person views). A social field perspective addresses the less visible levels of individual, social and relational reality creation: the dynamics, processes and particularly the levels of awareness that underlie and shape the behavior we see more readily. It is a theoretical and practical innovation with significant implications for changing practice and taking a fresh look at what is needed to shift social systems.

Awareness-based systems change, therefore, is a process of co-inquiry into the deeper structures of the social systems—the source conditions—in order to see, sense and shift them.

CURRENT ISSUE

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2021): Inaugural Issue of the Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change

Sense of Coherence Sense of coherence refers to a person’s ability to use existing and potential resources to combat stress and promote health, and it is measured based on one’s perception of manageability, meaning, and comprehensibility (Antonovsky, 1987). From: International Journal of Nursing Studies, 2020

Sense of Coherence – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

Sense of Coherence

Sense of coherence refers to a person’s ability to use existing and potential resources to combat stress and promote health, and it is measured based on one’s perception of manageability, meaning, and comprehensibility (Antonovsky, 1987).

From: International Journal of Nursing Studies, 2020

The Handbook of Salutogenesis – Chapter 11 – The Sense of Coherence in the Salutogenic Model of HEalth – Monica Eriksson

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK435812/

Published online: September 3, 2016.

This section aims to describe the salutogenic construct of the sense of coherence. It begins with a reflection of the ontological and epistemological background of salutogenesis, which is not particularly described and explained to any significant extent in the publications by Antonovsky. The core concepts, the sense of coherence and the generalized resistance resources within the salutogenic model of health are explained. The measurement of the sense of coherence and the validity and reliability of the sense of coherence scales are extensively described. The sense of coherence is a concept that can be applied at different system levels, at an individual level, a group (family), on organizations and societal level. Therefore, a life cycle perspective is adopted for this section, describing sense of coherence in children and families, in adolescents and in older adults. Finally, salutogenesis, a resource-oriented approach on peoples’ abilities, is much more than the measurement of the sense of coherence. The salutogenic umbrella is here used as a metaphor for showing some related concepts.

Keywords:

Antonovsky, Aaron; Salutogenesis; The sense of coherence; Generalized resistance resources

https://positivepsychology.com/sense-of-coherence-scale/

What Does it Mean to Have a Sense of Coherence? (+Scale)

•  Leslie Riopel, MSc.
•  01-09-2020

Vol. 15 No. 1 (2021): Issue # 28 | Spring/ Summer 2021 | All is in Formation: Architecture, Cybernetics, Ecology Footprint #28 examines the relation between cybernetics and architecture by focusing on a problem they both share: the production, consumption and flow of information, or, in other terms, of meaning. Therefore, cyberneticisation can set the foundations for a relational account that examines how signs are communicated and how meaning is produced and experienced within systems. This third-order cybernetics extends beyond the original scope of living organisms and their environments in order to include ecologies of ideas, power, institutions, media and so on. In this sense, cyberneticisation is radically environmental, positing the primacy of relations over fixed terms, binary oppositions and linear logics, making it high time for architectural and urban studies to take into consideration its ground-breaking potentials. Issue’s editors: Stavros Kousoulas and Dulmini Perera DOI: https://doi.org/10.7480/footprint.15.1 Published: 2021-06-29

Vol. 15 No. 1 (2021): Issue # 28 | Spring/ Summer 2021 | All is in Formation: Architecture, Cybernetics, Ecology | FOOTPRINT

Footprint 28 is out now. This issue, edited by Stavros Kousoulas and Dulmini Perera, is dedicated to the theme “All is in Formation: Architecture, Cybernetics, Ecology”.

This issue includes research articles by Christian Girard; Rachel Armstrong and Rolf Hughes; Tanja Herdt; Tim Gough; Contingent Collective; Zach Mellas; and Tewfik Hammoudi. It also includes review articles by Liz Gálvez; Iris Giannakopoulou Karamouzi; and Juliana Yat Shun Kei. The issue closes with a dialogue between Jon Goodbun and Ben Sweeting.

You can find the issue online in the following link to our platform:

https://journals.open.tudelft.nl/footprint/issue/view/880

JUL 27 Systemic praxis for water governance: Unnecessary or essential? by The Open University, Faculty of STEM

Systemic praxis for water governance: Unnecessary or essential? Tickets, Tue 27 Jul 2021 at 12:00 | Eventbrite