My weekly posts
Differentiation and integration – supporting growth and change over sterile stuckness.
Explore how balancing differentiation and integration can drive growth and transformation in your organisation. Learn to support these processes to avoid stagnation and enhance innovation, agility, and effective decision-making. Read the full discussion on leveraging these dynamic flows for organisational success.
things that flow into their opposite…
Discover the intriguing concept of how elements in organisations and life often transform into their opposites. This piece opens a conversation around metaphors, models, and dynamics, revealing the paradoxes that shape our actions and decisions.
Have you ever left a business meeting with a deep feeling of resentment?
It likely affected your productivity and the meeting’s outcomes. Key practices to improve: engage fully, balance advocacy with inquiry, understand your thought processes, and challenge your assumptions. Embrace learning virtues like support, respect, and team play to foster a culture of open, productive conversations and drive innovation. What step will you take today to enhance your conversations? Share your thoughts.
Courses and events
National Commissioning Academy
Join us on the national Commissioning Academy this autumn, hosted by Royal Borough of Greenwich
Contract management development
My selection of systems | cybernetics | complexity links from the weblog Systems Community of Inquiry
I’m not currently keeping www.syscoi.com up fully but I am still trying…
A Revolution in Biology – Kasra (2024) substack (but freely accessibly)
how developmental biology might contain the secrets to life, intelligence, and immortality
Understanding systems thinking – Andrew Curry, based on Gerald Midgley’s talk to the AgriFood Network, Australia
[Gerald Midgley has an excellent one-hour whistlestop intro to systems thinking and practice, which he’s been kind enough to deliver several times for Commissioning Academies – I think this is a version of that]
SCiO monthly events – UK and Nederland, Jun 2024
Follow SCiO – Systems and Complexity in Organisation
Navigating the Now: A Guide to Recognizing What Is Going On – A 3-Day In-Person General Semantics Seminar, July 25-27, 2024, London
[Some discounted tickets may be available – email benjamin.taylor@redquadrant.com if you are interested]
Coordination Dynamics: A Foundation for Understanding Social Behavior – Tognoli et al (including Kelso) (2020)
[In response to this week’s LinkedIn post, Liz Rykert https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7201116972317581312?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7201116972317581312%2C7201912539662749696%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287201912539662749696%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7201116972317581312%29 introduced the work of Scott Kelso (and collaborators) in the book The Complementary Nature. It appears this is another whole ‘chunk’ of stuff in the systems | complexity | cybernetics space – haven’t found one of them for quite a while! So this is by way of being a kind of promissory note for potentially more here – looks like lots of stuff with lots of overlaps]
Edgar Morin on Systems and Complexity – Van Wyk (2024)
Claudius van Wyk always worth reading
A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation – Noble (2012)
Systemic Practice channel on YouTube hosted by Everything is Connected Press
[I wish they would make it a podcast!]
Action theory (sociology) – Talcott Parson (wikipedia)
[I just realised when I posted this that Parsons was the first ‘systems thinker’ I read… if you discount the SciFi authors and Douglas Adams etc…]
Selectively advantageous instability in biotic and pre-biotic systems and implications for evolution and aging – Tower (2024)
TRACING THE ROOTS – Brief history of systems thinking (2024)
[As Dr Mike C Jackson OBE said in comments on LinkedIn, the article references Ramage and Shipp which is “a very reliable guide”]
Things I shared on socials
The UK needs an independent commission against corruption
LIBERATED PUBLIC SERVICES: A NEW VISION FOR CITIZENS, PROFESSIONALS AND POLICY MAKERS. DEMOS.
EMBEDDING SOCIAL VALUE IN PROCUREMENT. CARDIFF BUSINESS SCHOOL
WHY 2024 IS ALL ABOUT COLLABORATIVE COMMISSIONING. HELEN SHARP, IDEAS ALLIANCE.
Looking forward to Helen Sharp speaking about collaborative commissioning with communities at a Commissioning Academy event tomorrow
Retailers overestimate car use
https://www.rifs-potsdam.de/en/news/shoppers-mobility-habits-retailers-overestimate-car-use
Maps of Matter
https://futureofmatter.com/maps_of_matter.html
ADVANCING COLLABORATIVE SOCIAL OUTCOMES THROUGH PLACE-BASED SOLUTIONS—ALIGNING POLICY AND FUNDING SYSTEMS.
FUTURE FOCUS ESSAY COLLECTION
Great work by Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM)
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A SYSTEM?
Place-based ‘systems change’ by Renaisi. I got to attend the launch, and need to find the time to say more about it!
The Victims and Prisoners Bill
shared by Emma Harewood
ADASS on social care (not) in the election campaign
Timothy Leary’s psychedelic eugenics
Thinking Beyond the Brain: Why Neuroplasticity is Overhyped
Anne-Laure Le Cunff, like Teacher Tom, someone whose every written piece I would like to read
Teacher Tom
Moved his newsletter to a collection rather than sharing each blog item, so now I miss some 😦
https://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/
The Science of Self-Compassion
Don’t give advice. Especially when asked.
Brilliant from David Gurteen
How Nextdoor Put Neighbors In a Housing Policy ‘Cage Match’
https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ap98/nextdoor-housing-crisis-policy
Incoming ministers ‘will face UK public services on brink of collapse’
Probation failings: who’s to blame?
https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/probation-failings-whos-to-blame
Star Wars Can Teach Us About Org Structure?
Adam Thompson also unerringly good
Fritjof Capra, on “What Makes Humans Worth Saving?”
Eight in 10 primary teachers in England spending own money to help pupils
The collapse of the UK university system – by Glen O’Hara
Mark McKergow has a substack! And it’s as joyous as you would expect 🙂
Why the title ‘Steps To A Humanity Of Organisation’?
Reasons and excuses in planet-wrecking
You should subscribe to Aidan Ward
Applied Systems Thinking in Practice Resources | Open University
https://stream.syscoi.com/2023/01/20/applied-systems-thinking-in-practice-resources-open-university/
Analogies at the edge of reason
Always read Petter Holme
The Paradox of Goals
something I wanted to say, written far better than I would have done
eli5: Why are radiators in houses often situated under a window- surely this is the worst place and the easiest way to lose all the heat?
Objects of consciousness – Hoffman and Prakash (2014)
Freyja @autotranslucence on Twitter
Ok threadapalooza style, here are (maybe up to) 100 things I’ve learned in the past few months while trying to change a complex government system
Fitness Beats Truth in the Evolution of Perception – Prakash et al (2020)
Peter Drucker said he refused to work for Harvard or Stanford for ethical reasons
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7203097594040926209/
OK, that’s all I have time for and more than you have time for… that’s why I don’t read a newspaper 🙂
chosen path 