Systems ApproachWorkbook
Systems Thinking and Complexity in Substance Use Systems
NOVEMBER 2012
Who should read this brief?
• Leaders and decision makers in the substance abuse and mental health services
field, such as regional directors and program managers
• Anyone interested in learning more about working in a complex system
Why are systems thinking and complexity important to a Systems Approach?
• This brief is part of the Systems Approach Workbook, which is intended to
assist those using the Systems Approach report as a guiding framework for
improving the accessibility, quality and range of services and supports for
substance use in Canada.
• The workbook supports a change management approach to system
development, which should be informed by the level of complexity of the
system in which change is taking place.
• Services and supports for substance use in Canada are located within broader,
interconnected health and social systems.
• This brief will help you assess the level of complexity in your system, and
better understand its impact on change, project implementation and leadership.

Click to access nts-systems-approach-system-thinking-complexity-2012-en.pdf

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How to Apply System Thinking to Your Business – business.com

How You Can Apply System Thinking to Your Business

Chris PorteousCo-founder and CEO at Framestrbusiness.com MemberJan 11, 2021

What is system thinking, and how can it be applied to a wide range of businesses and industries without impacting their efficacy?

System thinking seems like a new buzzword in the world of business, but it’s actually complex. Companies can be considered from an abstract perspective. Each of its departments, inputs, outputs and processes can be compared, in analog, to systems. If you attempt to do this, we realize that the generalization can offer us deep insights.

System thinking is, at its core, a method of conceptualization. It’s not how we, as humans, typically see things. If we are involved in using it to aid our understanding of business processes, we must first grasp what it is and how it can be applied. This article delves into what system thinking is and how it can be used to benefit a wide range of businesses and industries.

How do you define system thinking?

Depending on whom you pose this question to, the answers will be distinctly different. Biologists view system thinking as to how colonies of organisms arrange themselves to perform tasks that are most beneficial to their ecological niche. Southern New Hampshire University defines system thinking as a way of exploring factors and events holistically that may lead to an outcome. From a business perspective, this seems vaguer than it has to be, but it can be briefly applied.

Businesses are involved in exploring behaviors. Whatever outcome you want from this behavior (a click, for a user to buy, etc.) comprises the outcomes. To fully access this outcome, we must first understand what the user goes through that leads them to that conclusion. These are the factors and events that lead to the click or closing of the sale. In this perspective, a business can figure out how to achieve a goal, given the inputs that make it up. However, these inputs are variable, and there’s no telling what they will be. The interaction of these factors and events is what gives rise to the system that we’re exploring. So, how does a company apply system thinking to its business?

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How to Apply System Thinking to Your Business – business.com

Cybernetics Society: CybSights Events

Enterprise fractals & hierarchical branching—CybSights: President’s Series

Wed,Feb10,2021,5:00PMRegister

Description

Hosted by our President, Dr. John Beckford FCybS, the CybSights President’s Series is a new programme that will bring interesting people together to explore the relevance and contribution of cybernetics to addressing important challenges.

Each event will consist of contributions by two different speakers. Each will be followed by individual Q&A. These are then brought together by the President in a lively and engaging plenary discussion. Each will seek areas of convergence and divergence between the ideas explored.

Events will be held via Zoom on the 2nd Wednesday of each month from 1700 to 1900.

Meetings are open to members of the Cybernetics Society and also the general public. Non-members are invited to join or give a donation. Booking is required.

The Cybernetics Society has been hosting conversations and lectures since the late 1960s.

#PS5 : February 10 2021: Fractal and branching designs & their relevance to business, society, and ecology

This event continues the exploration of the relevance of cybernetics to the contemporary world with contributions both theoretically practical and practically theoretical. The purpose of this series is not just to provide answers but to test whether the right questions are being asked.

FIRST SPEAKER: Patrick Hoverstadt

Cybernetics in Systems: A practitioner’s perspective

Patrick Hoverstadt will talk about how much easier it has become to use systemic cybernetic approaches with clients over the last 25 years. He’ll talk about some of the tricks and pitfalls of communicating and working with clients who don’t have a background in systems, where to use systems and cybernetics and why it matters now more than ever to make these approaches more accessible. The talk will cover some of the classical stances practitioners take, and the effects our positioning choices have.

Patrick Hoverstadt

Patrick Hoverstadt has been a consultant using systems and cybernetics for 26 years working with around 100 client organisations on over 250 systems projects. Clients range from micro businesses to multi-nationals and projects at whole sector and national levels. He is the chair of SCiO the professional body for systems practitioners and has developed a number of systemic approaches including a systemic/cybernetic approach to strategy development and execution.

Followed by brief Q & A

SECOND SPEAKER: David Dewhurst, FCybS, Vice-President of the Cybernetics Society

Strategies for being a tree and related branching systems (0th order cybernetics?) as more conservative!

David tackles some important questions on the notion of hierarchy, teasing us with these challenges:

• If each reader first ponders why trees are tree shaped for perhaps a day before reading further, we will generate more insights.
• How far will the simplest fractal + randomness get you?
• Why are branching structures ubiquitous – family trees, information processing and so on?
• As trees do not occupy the whole universe what are their downsides?

A concrete outcome of this discussion might be a greater respect and contempt for hierarchies.

David Dewhurst, FCybS

David has worked as a jobbing gardener and advocates his neoliberal gardening system in order to save the planet, and time. His (nuanced) support for Hayek when writing about Occupy’s economic policies in the FT was described by George Osborne as ‘surreal’. His 29 other occupations include teaching from University to Nursery, Headship, Ofsted Inspector, Management Consultant, Cleaner @ Tesco, Management Traineeship, Trainee Clinical Psychologist ten years on the Governing Body of Brunel University and doorstep salesman. In the film ’24 Davids’ released on line last year he comes in at number 13 (56 to 64 minutes) where he is characterised even less accurately than in this summary. He hopes to remain Vice President of the Cybernetics Society until 2022.

Plenary Discussion

The aim of this session, moderated by John Beckford, is to draw out the complementary and competing ideas emerging from the two sessions.

book at source:

Cybernetics Society: CybSights Events

source:

Systemspedia

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access. 

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics 2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access. About

Systemspedia

Training providers for Systems thinking practitioner (level 7)

Training providers for Systems thinking practitioner (level 7)

At time of writing, five providers are listed – two have live website listings:

https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/courses/taught/systems-thinking-practice

35-minute video from four of the moderators of the Ecology of Systems Thinking Group on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/ecologyofsystemsthinking)

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Metaphorum Webinar Series – metaphorum

Metaphorum Webinar Series

 WEBINAR SERIES

2020-2021

(Artwork from Vanilla Beer) – see source page

Dear Metaphorum members

As announced in our recent Newsletter, it is a pleasure for us to launch our new Metaphorum webinar series with the first confirmed program of speakers for the next few months. Our intention with this Webinar Series is to maintain an active community of learning, where members can share their most recent contributions to theory or practice, and get feedback and critical reviews from fellow cyberneticians and systems researchers or practitioners.

All sessions are on Wednesdays from 5 to 6 pm (UK time).  The speaker will present in the first 30 min and then there will be 30 minutes for the participants to engage with the speaker. If the speaker agrees, we will make all presentations available in the Metaphorum website.

If you want to participate in any of the webinars, follow this link confirming which webinars you’d like to participate.  

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1n9YyZlJf1Xe3R9smAGojiOKmSsIqjTw7YESnF2Ctsvw/prefill

You can include as many webinars as you’d like in the form -. There is no cost to attend the webinars for Metaphorum members.

Looking forward to have you with us in this webinars’ series.

Angela Espinosa, Allenna Leonard and Jon Walker

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Metaphorum Webinar Series – metaphorum

Viable Tribes: Jonathan Huxley

The Soul of the Viable System Model: Mike Jackson – 3 February 2021

The Neo-Cybernetic Synthesis: Ashby’s True Legacy: Manel Pretel-Wilson

Dr. Barry Clemson & Dr. Hans-Peter Plag:Monitoring the health of riverine systems

Dr. Steve Morlidge: ‘The VSM in 2020 – more relevant than ever?’

source:

Final Report – The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review – GOV.UK

Independent report

Final Report – The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review

Final Report of the Independent Review on the Economics of Biodiversity led by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta.Published 2 February 2021From:HM Treasury

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Final Report – The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review – GOV.UK

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Three complexity principles for convergence research – Integration and Implementation Insights

Three complexity principles for convergence research

February 4, 2021

By Gemma Jiang

How can principles adapted from complexity thinking be applied to convergence research? How can such principles help integrate knowledge, methods, and expertise from different disciplines to form novel frameworks that catalyze scientific discovery and innovation?

I present three principles from the complexity paradigm that are highly relevant to convergence research. I then describe three types of transformative containers that I have developed to create enabling conditions for applying complexity principles to convergence.

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Three complexity principles for convergence research – Integration and Implementation Insights

what do we think of this? Source:

Adrian Bejan – Constructal Law | Duke Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Adrian Bejan – Constructal Law

The constructal law was stated by Duke’s Adrian Bejan in 1996

The constructal law is the law of physics that accounts for the phenomenon of evolution (configuration, form, design) throughout nature, inanimate flow systems and animate systems together.

The constructal law was stated by Adrian Bejan, the J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University, in 1996 as follows ^1,2:

“For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it.”

THE CONSTRUCTAL LAW—ADRIAN BEJAN

The constructal law places the concepts of life, evolution, design and performance in physics, which is in the broadest scientific arena. The constructal law is the law of physics of life and evolution^3-5.

The constructal law accounts for the arrow of time⁶, which is the direction of the evolution of flow organization over time. It is receiving wide acceptance in the scientific literature.

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Adrian Bejan – Constructal Law | Duke Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

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Learning With Humility: Systems Thinking and Reordering Priorities (Global Change Days, 2020/10/22) – Coevolving Innovations

Learning With Humility: Systems Thinking and Reordering Priorities (Global Change Days, 2020/10/22)

 February 2, 2021  daviding 0 Comments

For the third of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, Kelly Okamura, Dan Eng and Joanne Dong led a Beacon Event for Global Change Days.

This session was one in a series for global changemakers.  Our expectation was that they would be hands-on practitioners, with relatively low familiarity with systems thinking methods and theory.

The workshop orientations were relatively short, with most of the time dedicated to two breakout periods.   In the web video, the plenary discussions and group readouts are included, with the parallel breakout conversations omitted.

The video file is accessible on the Internet Archive, should viewers want a downloadable version.

The digital audio is available as MP3 for those with mobile players.

Here is the original description for the session.

— begin paste —

This interactive beacon session will engage change makers to think differently, to explore their relationship to learning.

The breakout sessions will provide participants an opportunity to explore the Systems Thinking questions: the urgent vs the important, the local vs. the distant, problem solving vs history-making. Finally the audience will be invited to review their self-reflections and the potential re-ordering of their priorities, to make a difference.

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Workshop attendees were quite engaged with the challenge of making distinctions that we’ve been discussing within the Systems Changes Learning Circle.  Mentions of the systems thinking foundations were kept light.  Towards the close of the session, we pointed to the foundational work ahead, and invited the practitioners to contact us if they felt complementary interests.

Slides are available at systemschanges.com .

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Learning With Humility: Systems Thinking and Reordering Priorities (Global Change Days, 2020/10/22) – Coevolving Innovations

How To Choose Systems Methods | Barry A Clemson – Academia.edu

How To Choose Systems Methods

Barry A Clemson

This paper builds on David Alman’s (2012) Systems Thinking World LinkedIn discussion “How do I figure out which System thinking method or model is appropriate to the situation I’m trying to figure out how to deal with?” In this paper I restrict myself to social systems, e.g. organizations, tribes, grassroots movements and regions such as communities or nations. The problem is reformulated to reflect some fundamental constraints.

I then discuss five commonly used approaches to selecting methods:

1. Intuitive,

2. Action Research,

3. Heuristics,

4. Developing Viability, and

5. Rational Decision Framework.

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How To Choose Systems Methods | Barry A Clemson – Academia.edu

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A Great Event Foreshadowed: The Planetization of Mankind – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

A GREAT EVENT FORESHADOWED: THE PLANETIZATION OF MANKINDPierre Teilhard de ChardinDecember 25, 1945
   Click here to see all 15 quotes from this document.
Written in Peking in December 1945. Published in the August-September 1946 edition of Cahiers du Monde Nouveau with the title La planétisation humaine. PREVIOUS IN SERIES

ARGUMENT

Underlying all the surface-changes of present-day history, the reality and paramount importance of a single basic event is becoming daily more manifest: namely, the rise of the masses, with its natural corollary, the socialization of Mankind. The supreme interest and significance of this process lies in the fact that, scientifically analyzed, it may be seen to be irresistible in two ways: in the planetary sense, because it is associated with the closed shape of the earth, the mechanics of generation and the psychic properties of human matter; and in the cosmic sense because it is the expression and prolongation of the primordial process whereby, at the uttermost extreme from the disintegrating atom, psychic force is born into the Universe and continuously grows, fostered by the ever more complicated grouping of matter. Projected forwards, this law of recurrence makes it possible for us to envisage a future state of the Earth in which human consciousness, reaching the climax of its evolution, will have attained a maximum of complexity, and, as a result, of concentration by total ‘reflection’ (or planetization) of itself upon itself.

Although our individualistic instincts may rebel against this drive towards the collective, they do so in vain and wrongly. In vain, because no power in the world can enable us to escape from what is in itself the power of the world. And wrongly because the real nature of this impulse that is sweeping us towards a state of super-organization is such as to make us more completely personalized and human.

The very fact of our becoming aware of this profound ordering of things will enable human collectivization to pass beyond the enforced phase, where it now is, into the free phase: that in which (men having at last understood that they are inseparably joined elements of a converging Whole, and having learnt in consequence to love the preordained forces that unite them) a natural union of affinity and sympathy will supersede the forces of compulsion.

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A Great Event Foreshadowed: The Planetization of Mankind – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

c/o Ivo Velitchkov

full chapter in source:

Towards a Calculus of Redundancy | SpringerLink

The Evolutionary Dynamics of Discursive Knowledge pp 67-86| Cite as

Towards a Calculus of Redundancy

• Loet Leydesdorff

First Online: 01 January 2021

• Part of the Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Scientific and Scholarly Communication book series (QQASSC)

Abstract

In this chapter, I extend Shannon’s linear model of communication into a model in which communication is differentiated both vertically and horizontally (Simon, 1973). Following Weaver (1949), three layers are distinguished operating in relation to one another: (i) at level A, the events are sequenced historically along the arrow of time, generating Shannon-type information (that is, uncertainty); (ii) the incursion of meanings at level B is referential to (iii) horizons of meaning spanned by codes in the communication at level C. In other words, relations at level A are first distinguished from correlations among patterns of relations and non-relations at level B. The correlations span a vector space on top of the network of relations. Relations are positioned in this vector space and can then be provided with meaning. Different positions provide other perspectives and horizons of meaning. Perspectives can overlap, for example, in Triple-Helix relations. Overlapping perspectives can generate redundancies—that is, new options—as a result of synergies.

The chapter is partly based on: Leydesdorff, L., Johnson, M., & Ivanova, I. (2018). Toward a Calculus of Redundancy: Signification, Codification, and Anticipation in Cultural Evolution. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 69(10), 1181–1192. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24052

full chapter in source:

Towards a Calculus of Redundancy | SpringerLink