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From Unfreezing-Refreezing, to Systems Changes Learning | EQ Lab Dialogic Drinks | 2024-03-14/15

March 20, 2024
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EQ Lab runs Dialogic Drinks, “the kind of philosophical discussion you have in a coffee shop or bar”, twice per week.  Wtih this group interested loosely in questions on leadership, I was invited to host an online session on March 12 (evening in Hong Kong and Singapore, really early in Toronto) and on March 14-15 (evening in Toronto, morning in Hong Kong and Singapore).

The majority of the organizational change approaches presume the “unfreeze-move-refreeze” metaphor attributed to Kurt Lewin. Taking a different approach has resulted in the converging of a comprehensive alternative with Systems Changes Learning, after 5 years of development.

These Dialogic Drinks sessions are weighted less on presentation, and more on discussions and reflections.

A. Welcome Introduction :05
Ice-breaker :05
B. Rethinking Systems Presentation One :07
Dialogue One :20
Reflection One :10
C. Rethinking Systems Changes Presentation Two :07
Dialogue Two :20
Reflection Two :10
D.Rethinking Systems Changes Learning Presentation Three :07
Dialogue Three :20
Reflection Three :10
E. After Hours :30

With a condensed schedule for presentations, the imagery of short movies can express ideas more readily than the vector lineart that I usually use.  I recorded my voice (without the discussion of participants) and resynchonrized the slides and movies into a package.  The result was about 36 minutes of presentation, while the full Dialogic Drinks sessions each ran for more than 2.5 hours.

This recording of the presentation segments is available on Youtube , as well as on the Internet Archive .… Read more (in a new tab)

What Can Systems Thinkers Learn From an Evaluation Mindset? | Cameron D. Norman + Tara Campbell | Systems Thinking Ontario 2024-02-12

March 4, 2024
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At the 118th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario in February 2024, behavioral scientist Cameron D. Norman and design strategist Tara Campbell were invitied for a conversation guided by Zaid Khan.  The panelists are both alumni of the Strategic Foresight and Innovation program at OCADU.  Some time ago, they had conducted a research project on evaluation together, so this event was an opportunity for them to catch up at a relaxed pace.

As usual, participants had a round of self-introductions.   The panelists were guided through a conversation in three parts with focus questions, and participants were invited to offer their reflections and insights.  One linkage to modes of systems thinking was the distinction in approach by interest, e.g. Principles-Focused Evaluation, c.f. Developmental Evaluation.

This recording of the session is available on Youtube, as well as on the Internet Archive .

Video H.264 MP4
February 12
(1h53m)		 [20240212_ST-ON_EvaluationMindset CameronDNorman_TaraCampbell.m4v
(1920×1080 1333kbps 1.16GB)
[on the Internet Archive]

A standalone audio was also created during the meeting.

Audio
February 12
(1h53m)		 [20240212_ST-ON_EvaluationMindset CameronDNorman_TaraCampbell.m4a]
(126kbps, 103 MB)
[on the Internet Archive]

The gist of the description is below, with pre-readings linked on the original abstract.

— begin excerpt —

Systems thinkers often seek to affect systems through their ideas and actions, but how do we know we’ve made a difference? How might we measure what matters in ways that respect the various dynamics at play in often complicated and complex systems?… Read more (in a new tab)

Reframing Systems Thinking for Systems Changes: Sciencing and Philosophizing from Pragmatism towards Processes as Rhythms | JISSS

February 1, 2024
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An article on “sciencing and philosophizing”, coauthored by Gary S. Metcalf and myself, has been published in the Journal of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, following the ISSS 2023 Kruger Park conference in South Africa, last July.  There’s a version cacned on  the Coevolving Commons.

This article started in a series of conversations with Gary in early 2023, as he was listening to the history of Pragrmatism as an audiobook of The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas by Louis Menand, written in 2002.  Key figures in the development of this philosophy includes William James (1842—1910) and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839—1914).  My interests have taken me backwards in time, with C. West Churchman and Russell Ackoff both students of Edgar A. Singer, Jr., who was a student of William James.  A thread looking into Stephen C. Pepper, also a student of William James and Ralph Barton Perry, was encouraged by online comments from Michael C. Jackson, OBE.  This led to a tracing of philosophical influences from the 1890s to 2000.

Institutional lineages of key figures in systems sciences and pragmatism

With my current research into Classical Chinese philosophy, I was encouraged by an 1993 interview citing Churchman having a similar interest for in exploring alternatives to classical Western philosophy for sciencing on systems.

In conversations with Churchman on the historical sources of systems thinking, he often identified the Chinese I Ching as the oldest systems approach. As an effort to model dynamic processes of changing relationships between different kinds of elements, the I Ching might be seen as a systemic approach, in contrast with the more systematic approach of rationalist Western thought, rooted in the work of Plato and Aristotle.

… Read more (in a new tab)

What Can Systems Thinkers Learn from Educational Game Studies | Scott DeJong + Geoff Evamy-Hill | Systems Thinking Ontario 2024-01-15

January 22, 2024
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For the January 2024 Systems Thinking Ontario session, educational game designer Scott DeJong and innovation designer Geoff Evamy Hill joined a conversation moderated by Zaid Khan.  Mutual interests in the new field of educational design and games were at the core of the discussion.  This was an opportunity for systems thinkers to expand their knowledge on developments that were not in present in the 20th century.

After the usual round of self-introduction by web conference participants, Scott and Geoff described their experiences in the field, and ongoing research questions.  The conversation was segmented into three parts, so that participants had the opportunity to inject questions and comments.

This recording of the session is available on Youtube, as well as on the Internet Archive .

Video H.264 MP4
January 15
(1h48m)		 [20240115_ST-ON_EducationalGameStudies ScottDeJong_GeoffEvamyHill.m4v
(1920×1080 921kbps 814MB)
[on the Internet Archive]

A standalone audio was also created during the meeting.

Audio
January 14
(1h48m)		 [20240115_ST-ON_EducationalGameStudies ScottDeJong_GeoffEvamyHill.m4a]
(126kbps, 99 MB)
[on the Internet Archive]

Here is the core of original abstract sent in advance.

— begin excerpt —

‘Learning’ is a central focus for systems thinkers. Whether it’s an attitude, a feature of a system, or an outcome. ‘Learning’ runs through systems thinking. So what might systems thinkers learn from games that are designed for, well, learning?

Enter “Educational Game Studies”, an emerging field that focuses on how games and their systems can inform the public about various issues.… Read more (in a new tab)

What Systems Thinkers Can Learn From Historical Synthesis | Dr. Michael Bonner | Systems Thinking Ontario 2023-11-13

November 23, 2023
0 Comments

For the November 2023 Systems Thinking Ontario session, historian and policy advisor Dr. Michael Bonner was invited for an interview by Zaid Khan.  In organizing the sessions, we’re trying to avoid the trap of systems thinking becoming a discipline, through learning with a sweeping-in process.

The session opened on a map of The Sassanid Empire c. 620 CE, also known as Second Persian Empire, a high point for the Iranian civilizations before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries.

As the web conference participants introduced themselves, the number of responses with a strong background in history was low.  Zaid led the interview of Michael with some probing questions:

  • How did you come to the study of history and its overlap with your work?
  • Can you draw on the methods that help historians to ask the right questions when historians are dealing with multiple worldviews?
  • How do you relate between the two modes of analytical and synthetic thinking?
  • How do historians grapple with drawing boundaries around the areas/topics of study that they look at?
  • In historical synthesis, at what point does the author may form a narrative that captures their analysis and synthesis?
  • How did you approach the narratives – clarity, beauty, order – that you form in your latest book In Defense of Civilization?

Further into the meeting, others were invited to join in with their questions and comments.

This recording of the session is available on Youtube, as well as on the Internet Archive .… Read more (in a new tab)

The Sweep-In Process of Systems Science (Churchman)

November 23, 2023
2 Comments

It the systems sciences are an open system, then learning more and more about systems of interest are foundational.  This was called a sweep-in process by C. West Churchman, in the heritage of Edgar A. Singer. Jr.  A concise definition is found in the entry on “Experimentalism” in the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics:

EXPERIMENTALISM

A methodology of inquiry that assumes the indissoluble interconnection between facts and scientific laws.

Experimentalism has been proposed by E.A. SINGER Jr. and developed by C.W. CHURCHMAN and R.L. ACKOFF. [….]

According to C.W. CHURCHMAN, the “original question becomes more and more complicated, not simpler and simpler. This learning “more and more” is what, following SINGER, I call the “sweep-in process” of systems science” (1981, p.1-2).

  • CHURCHMAN, C. West.  “An Appreciation of E.A. Singer Jr: the first Singer lecture”. Soc. Syst. Science. Dpt, Univ. Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1981.

There’s a more detailed exposition on sweeping-in from the last chapter in the 1982 book, Thought and Wisdom.  This hard-to-find source is fortunately available on the Internet Archive.  An excerpt is provided here, for convenience.

CHAPTER 10: AN APPRECIATION OF EDGAR ARTHUR SINGER, JR.

* Given 12 September 1981 as the First Edgar Arthur Singer, Jr., Lecture of the Busch Center at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. This paper was completed in April 1982.

I have selected the title of this chapter rather carefully. An appreciation of someone’s lifetime work is not just an evaluation; it is also a process of adding to and adjusting the results of that lifetime of creation of ideas and a system of philosophy.… Read more (in a new tab)

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