Edit Filters
312 Results
Manage Strategic Change
In the last decade, we have experienced unprecedented change. Our world has increased in ambiguity and uncertainty. Progress in such a world must be based in Inquiry. But in the face of such complexity, how can you even know the questions to ask? In today’s blog post, Royce offers suggestions for Inquiring directly into the complex nature of your world.
We all deal with conflict, whether we like it or not. There are many ways to work through a difficult conversation, or find a settlement in negotiation. Some outcomes are more sustainable and satisfactory than others. The difference is in how you approach each conversation, and how you present yourself and the situation to others involved.
Build Adaptive Capacity
Sim Phei Sunn (known to us as PS) is an HSD Associate, a member of the HSD Institute Board of Directors, an extreme athlete who has completed the Seven Summits and competes often in ultra-distance running. As an experienced officer in the Singapore government, she was recently asked to share her insights from mountain climbing and endurance running that have helped her keep going at work. She has graciously allowed us to re-print her post for our newsletter.
Note, please, that while this is written for up-and-coming members of her organization, the principles she shares can be powerful for others, regardless of their place in life.
What happened to the civil public discourse we knew in the last century? It has gone the way of the buggy whip, and I am glad. The conditions for that polite engagement were simple: Privileged people talked to other privileged people about things they held in common. The rules were clear, the membership was limited, and the conversation remained in the hands of those with power and money.
Last week the Human Systems Dynamics Institute hosted “Twenty-first Century Facilitation: Find Wisdom in Chaos.” As with all Adaptive Action Labs, we will meet to hold a more formal review. Today, however, I am sharing my more immediate reflections about this Lab. Using the Adaptive Action format makes this a simple, logical practice that keeps me focused on what’s important. I don’t get lost in the details or drama. Here’s how it works.
Build Adaptive Capacity
Usually I groan when yet another sports analogy is used to explain an insight about complex human systems. Don’t get me wrong. I love sports and spent the better part of my teenage years in a gym playing basketball. My dad was a football coach, and I love the game.
In HSD we use three characteristics to describe and understand complex adaptive systems: They are open to influence from internal and external forces that may be known or not, predictable or not, and controllable or not. They are highly diverse. They are nonlinear, and what you know from the past and experience today can influence the patterns of your future or not.