'Many are stubborn with regard to the once-chosen path, few with regard to the goal' -Nietzsche
My weekly posts No escape, no prison – on other perspectives on systems | cybernetics | complexity Cybernetics and complexity are best treated as useful ways of seeing rather than complete descriptions of reality. I reject a hard divide between cybernetics and complexity: both can address adaptation, emergence and uncertainty, though they often start from different … Continue reading Transduction – leading transformation – Issue #239
Join the discussion at LinkedIn: do you see stability, or change? https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_theres-no-escape-from-the-fly-bottle-there-share-7508071308329496576-vgPl/ There’s no escape from the fly-bottle. There are only more or less useful fly-bottles (and knowing that is, of course, an escape). I offered ‘A more useful fly-bottle – systems | cybernetics | complexity in six diagrams’. It was ‘a’ view, in the spirit … Continue reading No escape, no prison – on other perspectives on systems | cybernetics | complexity
Courses and events Commissioning and Innovation: playing on a bigger stage A practical three-day programme for commissioners working in complexity that helps commissioners, transformation leaders, and partners work more effectively across complex systems. It combines practical tools, public service examples, peer learning, facilitated exercises, and direct application to participants’ own challenges. Open for enquiries. https://link.redquadrant.com/CommissioningAndInnovation … Continue reading Transduction – leading transformation – Issue #238
My weekly posts A critique of Taylor’s ‘A more useful fly-bottle – systems | cybernetics | complexity in six diagrams’ – (also Taylor, 2026) I’m testing my own systems thinking against its strongest criticisms. Shared understanding, better conversations and elegant frameworks are not enough if structures, power, resources and incentives remain unchanged. Difference and conflict need not … Continue reading Transduction – leading transformation – Issue #237
My new article in the Municipal Journal. https://www.themj.co.uk/one-way-only-won-t-work Full text: Don’t rebuild Whitehall inside mayoral authorities; turn civil service secondments into a public service talent exchange The government’s plan to send civil servants into mayoral authorities should become a reciprocal Public Service Talent Exchange. The secondments aren’t the mistake, though they got my back up – … Continue reading Don’t rebuild Whitehall inside mayoral authorities; turn civil service secondments into a public service talent exchange
Some time ago, I was challenged to do this with the 'six diagrams' constraint... For me, it's all about purposeful engagement with context. We need enough shared understanding to act purposefully with others, while remaining able to question how we understand the situation. A ‘team’, a ‘service’, or a ‘problem’ is already a way of … Continue reading A more useful fly-bottle – systems | cybernetics | complexity in six diagrams
