September 23, 2025  daviding

Hosted By Tiani J. and 2 others

Details

The Lounge loves to present different approaches and aspects of complexity science, and we are delighted to welcome Professor Christopher Mowles.

Chris will give a brief history of his research community, the Complexity and Management Centre at the University of Hertfordshire, which has been going for 25 years, working with a radical interpretation of the complexity sciences. He will briefly explain the key ideas of the perspective of perspectives called complex responsive processes of relating, which adopts a non-teleological view of change. That is to say that there may be things we aspire to, but even our aspirations will evolve and change in our interactions with each other and the world. To take the implications from the complexity sciences seriously means treating the future as radically open and impervious to our grids and frameworks. He will go on to explore what all of this might mean for practice in the increasingly dark times we face, a practice he has begun to think of as hopeful pessimism.

Bio
Professor Chris Mowles has been director of the Doctor of Management programme (DMan) at Hertfordshire Business School, UK, for the last 15 years. The program works psychodynamically with insights from the complexity sciences, process sociology and philosophy, and group analytic theory to inform practice.

Chris’ publications include: a four-volume Complexity and Management series published by Routledge, with titles addressing leadership, consultancy, the public sector and research methods. In addition he published Complexity: a key idea for business and Society (2021); Managing in Uncertainty: complexity and the paradoxes of everyday organizational life (2015) also published by Routledge and the 7th Edition of Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics: the challenge of complexity to managing organizations, written with Ralph Stacey.

He teaches regularly at the Copenhagen Business School and has taught in other Danish universities (Aalborg, SDU) and in the Netherlands and Switzerland, as well as UK universities.

Chris started out in international development, working in the Middle East with Oxfam. Thereafter, he worked as an organizational consultant in China for the British government, in the Middle East for the UN, in many countries in Asia and Africa on EU-funded projects, and in the UK in voluntary, public, and private sectors. He is an associate member of the Institute for Group Analysis.

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This event will be recorded. The event link will be published on meetup.com 1 hour prior.

Please note the time slot- this is an afternoon event for those of you on EST (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm).

Events inDecentralized Systems & Applications

Cognitive ScienceProduct ManagementAgile CoachingComplexity

The Complexity Lounge

Book by Tuesday, September 23, 2025 4:00 PM UK time

Tuesday, September 23, 2025, 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM London time

[Lots and lots of systems | complexity | cybernetics thinking in this, some very contemporary challenges – and even a slightly throwaway direct reference to cybernetics]

In this new, technological age, Alan Watts explains how seeing reality via only one perspective can lead to a fragmented view of the world; instead, he encourages listeners to adopt both the analytical and the organic.

https://beherenownetwork.com/alan-watts-being-in-the-way-ep-36-seeing-through-the-net/

Linh Bui — Mount Royal University

Posted: June 10, 2025

https://www.mtroyal.ca/nonprofit/InstituteforCommunityProsperity/Stories/2025/06/2025-Banff-Systems-Summit-Stories.htm

[The thing about socialists – or should I say communists? – is that they *really* think about things. This episode will provide ample ground for those who detest or love socialism and/or socialists, but is a great example and very systems and cybeneretics focused. And just *look* at those references!]

Jason W. Moore discusses the problematic history of the nature-society divide, his alternative world-ecology approach and the challenges of building socialism.

September 4, 2025 By Chris Corrigan Facilitation, Featured 2 Comments

Both podcasts excellent, this is a good survey of ‘Tiny Todd Conklin joins the No Way Out podcast to explore Human and Organizational Performance (HOP), high-reliability organizing, and how safety emerges from complex systems rather than individual mistakes.

‘They critique traditional investigations, surveys, and risk matrices, and discuss practical ideas for building capacity, worker agency, psychological safety, and resilient operations.’

PreAccident Investigation Podcast

PAPood -563 – Human Performance, Not Human Error — Todd Conklin on Reframing Safety

September 13, 2025

https://overcast.fm/+AAtF0D7aUGE

https://preaccidentpodcast.podbean.com/e/human-performance-not-human-error-%e2%80%94-todd-conklin-on-reframing-safety/

Edited from the Transcript of the Permaculture Design Course The Rural Education Center, Wilton, NH USA

[Introduced to me by Will Carey who manages the excellent PCA Permaculture Climate Action! group on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/2046655862094973/

[Here’s my reaction: I have now [read this], thanks! What an interesting piece. It starts off, to my mind, quite hyberbolic – assertion after assertion after assertion. I get the point, and I agree (though I think it’s not all *correct* – there is such a thing as primeval European forest, I think, from the UK to Bosnia?). And then a lot of lovely sensitive stuff – the ‘what’s killing the trees?’ point – some of it reminiscent, to me, of A Sand County Almanac. And then it gets really powerful, a lot of power packed into a small number of words. And then… it ends! Clearly a transcript, of course.]

https://www.permacultuurnederland.org/permacultuurtk/introduction.pdf

Rachel Donald

Aug 14, 2025

September 10, 2025

Laksh Raghavan
September 07, 2025

https://www.cyb3rsyn.com/p/do-systems-exist

urgent opportunity – two versions of the Level 7 (postgraduate level) Systems Thinking Practitioner Apprenticeship – levy-funded for those employed and working >50% of their time in England

I occasionally forget to promote my own systems | complexity | cybernetics relevant things here. I’ve been deeply involved – though as a second-team participant – in the development of the SCiO professional standard, Apprenticeship standard and trailblazer, apprenticeship delivery, end-point assessment etc.

The Systems Thinking Practitioner Apprenticeship provided by Cherith Simmons, with SCiO providing trainers as an agency service, is taking on what could be the final cohort VERY SOON – https://cherithsimmons.co.uk/apprenticeships/leadership-and-management/stp/

At the end of this year, the government is removing the specific funding for this apprenticeship (£18,000 per head) – though the qualification will remain, and you can access many of the modules here – https://www.systemspractice.org/courses

AND NOW, we have developed a specific variation – in collaboration with the Public Service Transformation Acadmey:

Leading and Commissioning for Outcomes in Complexity: Convening Systems Change

v v v v v v v v v v v v v
If you are employed and work >50% of your time in England, you can get Levy funding for this version of the Systems Thinking Practitioner Level 7 Apprenticeship, delivered by Cherith Simmons with expertise from the PSTA and SCiO, the professional body.
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We have now uploaded all the slides and content from our recent webinar at https://link.redquadrant.com/thebestapprenticeship and added Q&A.

We are targeting cohort start dates on Friday 10 October and Friday 5 December if there is sufficient demand. The briefing session will take place on Tuesday 30 September.
Contact us directly info@publicservicetransformation.org to have an informal one-to-one chat about content applicability etc, or email enquiries@cherithsimmons.co.uk to ask about levy funding or begin the registration process.

[With apologies for cross-posting]

I’d be grateful if you could spread the word on this – and of course if you might be interested, do sign up 😊
Link to my LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_2025-08-20-commissioning-and-leading-for-activity-7369118675318034433-qH87

What Cybernetics Is & Why It Matters

Trevor E Hilder

Aug 11, 2025

https://thethirdsystem.substack.com/p/about-cybernetics-prelude