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facilitating & hosting personal reflections

Opening Space for Systems

My last post was a harvest of my ah-has and notes from the Systems Thinking 101 Workshop. The day shifted into World Café and Open Space conversations as part of a Pegasus Communications Regional Event. As a quick harvest I did up a short prezi of the event’s flow.

And a few other notes…. some incredible videos that we enjoyed:

A few system stories I heard:

  • Grub – a grassroots non-profit organization dedicated to nourishing a strong community by empowering people and growing good food
  • E3 Washington – integrates three systems – education, environment, and economy – and asks, “How can education help achieve a healthy, prosperous, and sustainable future for all?”
  • John Oleson from Saybrook University LIOS Graduate College of Leadership Studies
  • Terry Leers from Boeing Organizational Transformation Services Group
  • Northwest Evaluation Association

And a few other tidbits:

And a great closing check-out question: because of this event I _____________________.

Here was my answer: Because of this event I have 12 pages of nuggets and insights on both conversation design and systems thinking, a community I didn’t know existed and courage in my heart.

Thank you to the design team of Claudia Eilers, Brian Mason, Julie Baker, Steve Byers, Nalani Linder, Terry Leers and Betsy Geist for hosting a terrific and inspiring learning experience, and to the talents of the graphic recorders who captured the event’s conversations!

3 replies on “Opening Space for Systems”

Greater pointers to resources on complexity and systems thinking. I buy in to the idea of understanding complexity; however, one sometimes feels you need sophisticated technology to analyse and unpack linkages.

I can appreciate that! I even find myself hesitating to describe “understanding complexity”; I’m just thrilled when I recognize it (instead of misclassifying something in the complicated, simple, chaotic or disorder domains! I wonder if it also depends on what your purpose is…. in most of my work my focus is more on helping people develop systems thinking habits rather than doing the incredible modeling etc.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.