What do ‘systems leadership’ and ‘systems change ‘ mean to you? What questions would you like me to answer?

I’m talking about them at the free SCiO — Systems and Complexity in Organisation evening session tonight (18:30–20:30 UK time), and I’m sharing the session with David Ing who is four years into a ten-year ‘systems changes’ journey.

Session info:

SCiO Virtual Open Meeting – July 2022
Virtual Open Meeting: A series of presentations of general interest to Systems and Complexity in Organisation’s members…www.scio.org.uk

You may also like our session with Carbon Capture folk as part of The Systems Change Alliance on July 20:

Systems thinking and systems convening for carbon capture

There are many approaches and a lot of words wasted about these topics. Some of it is really good, some of it is risible, and much has little to do with systems thinking or systems practice.

‘Systems Leadership’ can mean anything from systems thinking-informed traditional #leadership to better leadership of an organised set of institutions — like a ‘healthcare system’, to helping people to come up with new ways of organising.

‘Systems change’, similarly, can mean a huge range of things: deliberately shifting from current ways of operating in the round (e.g. what is branded ‘capitalism’ or ‘neoliberalism’) to a new approach (usually also vague); helping to connect people together so they recognise the ways they influence and shape each others’ lives, even though they don’t realise it; or even creatively supporting new ways of organising to emerge.

Very little of what we see in this space has real connection to systems | #complexity | cybernetics — and is much weaker because of that.

Underlying all of this is a strong need for *something better*, a realisation that we currently see too much fragmentation, power games, counterproductive behaviours, and a fundamental lack of sustainability that threatens our #future.