Nothing is Intractable

Find your next wise action.
What is HSD? Field of study that explores how humans live, work, and pay together in families, organizations, and communities.
Practice of HSD Exploration of patterns of human inquiry, decision making, and action as they deal with their most intractable challenges and issues.
Opportunities Use HSD to explain your challenges in ways that lead you to informed, productive action so that nothing is intractable.

Nothing is intractable because . . .

Human systems dynamics (HSD) creates opportunities out of chaos. Our methods give you power to see patterns in complexity. You will understand your most wicked problems in new and useful ways. Most important, you will take innovative action to move past biggest challenges and toward future success.

Join us for our regular podcast, "HSD through the Eyes of Miss Handie." You can find Miss Handie on Amazon, Anchor, Apple, and Spotify.

About HSD

About Adaptive Action Labs

In Adaptive Action Labs, you will find new ways to cope with your most wicked problems. You provide the challenge, and we supply models to guide you toward your next wise actions. Adaptive Action Labs can:

  • Last one hour or many months
  • Be face-to-face or virtual
  • Engage one person, a team, or a diverse group
  • Work on a single challenge or many different ones at the same time

We have used Adaptive Action Labs on complex challenges in five sectors: Education, business and Industry, philanthropy, government, and health care. 

We can focus on your unique issues, whatever they are. We also offer Labs on issues of common concern. Lead in Complexity. Manage Complex Change. Plan in Uncertainty. Build Adaptive Capacity. Collaborate to Create Community. In every engagement, we help you find simple options for action in your volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world.

Join our community to see what it means when…

Nothing is intractable.

About Adaptive Action Labs

Upcoming Events

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The Dragons of Transformation: Taming the Mindsets that thwart our embrace of a VUCA worldOnline

April 22 – June 10
When people tell you to think outside the box, they don't tell you where the box ends and the future begins. That is why we find ourselves so often trapped in our own blind spots and assumptions, constrained by our ordinary (Newtonian) worldviews. The nonlinear sciences complexity and chaos, as well as Integral theory shine a light on those dark corners of reality, as well as the habits of mind that keep us stuck. In ancient times, maps of the world would show sea monsters and dragons on the edge of the known world. In this program, we call such mind-blowing and habitually intractable realities dragons. Hence, The Dragons of Transformation.

HSDP Certification - Virtual CourseOnline

May 16 – August 14
Are you interested in becoming a certified HSD Professional, but you cannot commit to the face-to-face portion of the program? If so, this program is for you.

Wicked Issues: Adaptive Action for Compassionate CommunitiesOnline

May 21 – July 2
Compassion is difficult and exhausting work at the best of times. In these times of turbulence and uncertainty, the challenges are magnified. We know it is hard enough for one person to take effective action in our complex world.  Bringing a group together in collective action often seems intractable. At the Charter for Compassion, in collaboration with Human Systems Dynamics Institute, we are convinced that “nothing is intractable,” and transforming our hope for compassion into effective action is no exception.

Featured Resources

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This extract from Eoyang's dissertation gives the foundation for the CDE Model of Conditions for Self-Organizing in Human Systems.
The CDE Model explains the three system conditions that influence the speed, path, and direction of self-organizing systems. The conditions shape the patterns that make up the reality of your world.