Growing Wings on the Way

Rosalind Armson

Description

A comprehensive guide to using systems thinking in daily life

Sujets

• Informatique

Informations

• Publié par: Triarchy Press
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908009296
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Published by:
Triarchy Press
Station Offices
Axminster
Devon. EX13 5PF
United Kingdom
[phone]
[e-mail]
www.triarchypress.com
© Rosalind Armson 2011
The right of Rosalind Armson to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover design and image by Heather Fallows -
www.whitespacegallery.org.uk
Typeset in Palatino Linotype, Arial and Bookman Old Style
ISBN: 9781908009296
Contents
 
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1: Engaging with messy situations
1. Messy issues, messy situations
2. Framing the bigger picture
3. Drawing rich pictures
4. Identifying themes
5. Escaping mental traps
6. Managing my own complexity
Part 2: Understanding messy situations
7. Thinking about my thinking
8. Understanding systems
9. Diagramming
10. Making sense of messy situations
11. Diagnosing messy situations
12. Thinking about diagramming
Part 3: Exploring purposeful action in messy situations
13. What?, How? and Why?
14. How will it work?
15. How will we know it is working?
Part 4: Inquiring through action
16. An inquiring mind
17. An inquiring system
18. An inquiring approach
Appendix: The roots of systems thinking
Glossary
Index
About the author
About Triarchy Press
Other Systems Thinking titles from Triarchy Press
Acknowledgements

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Albert Einstein
In writing this book, I find myself indebted to very many people. First, to my friends and colleagues, past and present, in the Open University Systems Group, I offer my heartfelt thanks. They have supported me in learning and developing my skills in systems thinking and in learning how to teach the skills to others. They have, over many years, provided a community of conversation that has been critical and supportive. In particular, I treasure the care, stimulation and challenge I have received from John Hamwee and Ray Ison. Truly,

If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to Robert Hooke, 1676
I also acknowledge the important contribution of workshop participants and Open University students who, over the years, have participated energetically in summer schools and workshops. They have given me generous stimulus and feedback. Above all, together with consultancy clients, they have shown me that systems thinking is not only fun but almost magical in its ability to reveal opportunities in intractable situations.
This book would not have happened without Maria Smith who helped me recognise that writing it was the most important thing for me to do at this point in my life.
Writing a book can be a lonely business at times so I have greatly appreciated conversations with Ray Ison, Sue Holwell and Martin Reynolds. All, in their different ways and at different times, helped when I got stuck, gloomy or both. Ray helped me address the conundrums of writing from a particular epistemological position. Martin gently showed me the limits of what I could do and Sue challenged me to ‘say what I mean and mean what I say’. I also acknowledge the importance of Peter Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). SSM is a great gift to the world at large and a constant reference point for me.
Many people have participated in the book-writing process. Roger Packham, Tony Netherclift, Jitse van Ameijde and Matthew Fairtlough gave thoughtful and affirming feedback on the book proposal. Tony Netherclift has been ruthless in pursuing deficiencies in grammar and style. Patrik Germann, Sue Holwell, Nick Pandya and Karen Shipp gave critical feedback that enabled me to find my voice in the early chapters. Patrik Germann, Sue Holwell, Ray Ison, Steve Johnston and Glyn Martin read the whole draft to a tight deadline and gave affirming but challenging critical feedback. Patrik Germann helped me track down quotations.
I have drawn on a wide range of resources in preparing this book. In particular, I would like to thank my sister for permission to use our shared story from an uncomfortable time in our lives.

Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply.
Jane Austen in Mansfield Park, 1814
Jitse van Ameijde, Dana Cordell and Paul Carr gave permission to use their rich pictures. Jitse van Ameijde also initiated me into the mysteries of Adobe Illustrator. Francis Meynell let me use my photograph of him. Windrush Willow provided the lobster-pot photograph. Michael Leunig, whose drawings I have enjoyed for several years, gave permission to use his two drawings.
I am immensely grateful to my editor at Triarchy Press, Andrew Carey. I enjoyed every moment of our work together, pressured though it was. He was ruthless but gracious in pursuit of a well-put-together book.
I made life difficult for the other clever people at Triarchy with my many diagrams, generated with a non-standard font in diverse formats. They sorted them all out in next to no time. It was important to me to get the diagrams right, so I am thrilled they were able to find solutions that met the need. Thank you everybody.
I also acknowledge the Open University for allowing me a study-leave year during which to write the book.
Most of all, my beloved Tony Netherclift who, as well as providing critical support, put up with my self-absorbed lifestyle for eighteen months. I owe him more than I can say.
Rosalind Armson April 2011
Introduction

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.
Thomas Merton 1 (1915 – 1968)
I was at my wits’ end. My elderly mother was becoming ever frailer. I drove three hours there and three hours back twice a week to support her but it was not enough. Her friends and neighbours were becoming ever more reluctant to meet her growing needs and Mum was unwilling to face up to the situation. Every possible course of action seemed to entail some insuperable obstacle.
This book is about what to do when you don’t know what to do.
Some problems demand urgent attention but offer no starting point. Even the most competent people, the best-run organisations and the happiest families run into issues that need attention. The worst of these turn out to be much larger than anticipated, to have one problem leading to another, to be immensely uncertain (although everyone has a different opinion) and to have no obvious outcome. Even worse, when someone does tackle them, it either makes no difference or makes things worse.
Problems like these are genuinely different, I believe, from the kinds of problems we learn to solve at school – the ones with right answers, the ones where we know what the problem is and where we simply need to work through them to discover the solution. Problems like the one I had with my Mum are different and need a different approach. They are messy situations. No prescriptions or recipes can tell you what to do in a messy situation because each messy situation is unique.
So this is not a ‘how to’ book. It does not offer solutions. It does not even tell you what to do. It offers ways of finding out what to do.
The ways of finding out that it proposes all come under the heading of ‘systems thinking’. Whether you are new to the term or an old-hand, this book is an invitation to develop and extend your own unique thinking skills to become more adept at dealing with complex, uncertain and interconnected issues through the ideas and insights of systems thinking.
Thinking is a very personal business so, while I know what works for me, systems thinking will only work for you if you make it your own. Because thinking is so individual, I have imagined this book as a conversation between you, the reader, and me, the writer. We cannot literally share each other’s experience but observations that make sense of my experience may make sense to you in terms of your own experience of complex and perplexing issues. My image of how this book works leads to another feature that makes this book somewhat different. I use first person language, talking about my experience and how I make sense of it and how systems thinking has helped me manage complex situations. This is not because I think my experience is particularly special but because I want to avoid any sense that some ways of thinking are ‘right’ and others ‘wrong’. There is no right way to manage messy situations and no right way to think systemically. My only claim in this respect is that I, and many other people, have found systems-thinking insights to be useful and effective. So, my first invitation to you, the reader, is to use this book to find your own way to be a systems thinker.

The teacher, if indeed wise, does not bid you to enter the house of their wisdom, but leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
Kahlil Gibran 2 (1883 – 1931)

You and me with our mirrors
I imagine the book you are reading as a shared space where you and I stand, reflecting in our mirrors on our own experience. I tell you about my experience of dealing with messy situations using systems-thinking ideas, insights, tools and techniques. You make sense of what I say in terms of your own experience.
There are many diagrams in this book: diagramming is a useful systemsthinking skill. All the diagrams were original