Connection or Connector
Healthy systems are beautifully connected.Some are conscious like running or jumping, some are autonomic like breathing or heartbeats.
Tag: systems thinking
Fail fast or zero defects?
The North Atlantic Gannet is a seabird that mates for life. Each season they have one egg, one chick. The chick takes 4-5 years to reach maturity. It’s a zero defect policy. The energy involved
Learning from Covid-19 – leadership for the 21st Century
The perspective someone uses when viewing the pandemic has a major influence on what they are prepared to act on, and how they will act.
Accompanying the waves of change
The real work is not in describing either the current world or a new one. It is in accompanying those who are trying to change in this current one. This is the second horizon or
Characteristics of Systems Leadership
The reality is that leadership through large, complex and politically contested issues can be very tough on the people involved. It challenges our perception as to what is for the best, and how best to
Changing thinking changes doing
So what would happen if we changed the way we thought about this. What would happen if we stopped thinking about what we might better prescribe as the route to change? What if we thought
‘Last Winter’
To undertake such a journey is to soak into a world of deep awareness. Conscious thought and sub-conscious intuition interchanged with each other, uninterrupted by others interjections. Alone, in the arctic wilderness I exclaimed aloud
Defining Systems Thinking
Defining systems thinking is somewhat of an impossible task. There are arguably dozens of possible descriptions and definitions, often with wholly different intent and individual delicate nuance. However, they can be generalised into two schools
A binary issue
Whenever you try to reduce a complex dilemma to a binary issue you are wrong. The ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain’ question asked of the British people this week was therefore always incomplete. Politics in its most
Working with Systems
From John Atkinson. I get repeatedly asked about the difference between working with the ecosystem (or human system) and working with formal organisations. For me this is largely a perceptual difference and yet perception is
The ethics of systems leadership
When you consult to a system who is your client? How do you know if you are doing the right thing? What constitutes doing good here and who decides? You cannot please everyone all the
Embrace Complexity- Don’t Suppress it
By John Atkinson. If we genuinely believe the world to be a complex place, we need to consciously embrace that complexity, not suppress it. Once we do this, we realise we cannot resolve our activity
Linear to Complex
Here are some sound pieces of advice: the more you know about a system, the better you are at predicting its behavior. If you want a large outcome, then put a large amount of effort
Playing with time
From John Atkinson. Cause and effect analysis is quite hard. The connection between our actions and their impact can sometimes be quite obscure. Events will be explained away according to the version of history that
Family Systems Theory
A family systems approach argues that in order to understand a family system we must look at the family as a whole. Two families living across the street from each other may each be comprised