HSD Team

Dr. Glenda Eoyang works with public and private organizations to help them thrive in the face of overwhelming complexity and uncertainty. She is a pioneer in the field of human systems dynamics (HSD), which she founded. Through Human Systems Dynamic Institute, Glenda uses her Models and Methods to help others see patterns in the chaos that surrounds them, understand the patterns in simple and powerful ways, and take practical steps to shift chaos into order. Her clients include Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Oxfam International, Canada School of Public Service, Cargill, Fraser Health Authority (BC), and Roche/Genentech.

Glenda’s latest book, with co-author Royce Holladay, is Adaptive Action: Leveraging Uncertainty in Your Organization (Stanford University Press, April 2013).

Barbara Graham joined the Human Systems Dynamics Institute in January 2016 as the Executive Assistant to the HSD Executive staff. She brings a wealth of organizational skills and experience to provide adaptive support as the HSD Institute continues to expand its reach and the boundaries of the field. She's a strong team player, anticipating and responding to needs of HSD staff members, Associates, clients, or customers.

Royce Holladay has been working to support people as they navigate change for over 30 years. With a Masters degree in counseling, she began learning about the dynamics of personal change and has been using those skills in multiple areas of her work and personal life since that time. She has worked with individuals of all ages, supporting them to find their own path through the challenges of their complex lives. Over the past decade, Royce has co-authored five books based on Human Systems Dynamics. Her most recent books are a series of brief guides designed to help people apply HSD principles to specific areas of work in human systems. Examples include coaching, instructional design, and facilitation.

Bhav designs and facilitates learning and development for people, organisations, and networks. He believes that in an increasingly uncertain world, there are no off-the-shelf ideal pre-defined solutions. Instead organisations can find their evolutionary capacity through engaging the hearts and minds of their own people. This leads to work that could be about anything from strategic development, improving organisational processes, to community groups discovering their shared vision.

He also works as a trainer delivering workshops that explore skills in self-management, communication, coaching, designing and delivering training and facilitation.

His approach draws on an eclectic combination of complexity science, dialogic participatory practices, and cognitive science. He enjoys working with the natural and often messy ways that humans come together to experiment and innovate.

He has a Masters in Management Psychology, and accreditations in Coaching, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Technology of Participation, Human Systems Dynamics, and Cognitive Edge. His methods include Open Space Technology, World Café, Appreciative Inquiry, Theory U.

He has worked in Cambodia, South Africa, Australia, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, France, Switzerland, Vietnam, Thailand, Sweden, Holland, India, Norway, Germany, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, UK, and South Sudan.

His clients are a mix of social and corporate and include Shell, Motorola, Deutsche Bank, Malaysia TV3, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Aberdeen Asset Management, Singapore Institute of Management, Lafarge, Fraser & Neave, Zuellig Pharma, Averis, Bangkok Bank, Prudential, Endava, World Wide Fund for Nature, World Health Organisation, Initiatives of Change, Initiative Mittel Und Osteuropa, EcoVisio, Peace Corps, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, UNICEF, Expert-Grup, Mobiasbanca, MitOst, Wikimedia, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

Griff Griffiths first encountered complexity science at the age of nineteen, studying for a degree in Environmental Sciences. Much later, after a career in the IT industry - which was merely complicated - he picked up the complexity thread again, this time as a change-agent working with human systems inside organisations. His current activities include organisational change projects, coaching senior managers and leaders, and facilitating learning about complexity.

In addition to being a Consulting Associate at the HSD Institute, he is an Associate at the Roffey Park Institute, a graduate of the NTL Organisation Development programme, and an accredited coach. He won ODN Europe’s Community Development Award in 2014 for his experiments in creating a self-organising network of coaches.

Jennifer Jones-Patulli works with private and public organizations to facilitate constructive conflict and influence positive change. Jennifer helps organizations establish flexible conditions, within a solid framework, to confidently adapt to ongoing change.

As a skilled facilitator, mediator, and coach, Jennifer brings over a decade of practice in conflict resolution and application of conflict theory into her work with the Human Systems Dynamics Institute. Using human systems dynamics Models and Methods, Jennifer designs and delivers tailored approaches to support groups through complex challenges. Her work helps groups and individuals let go of non-productive ways of behaving, and brings them to a place of creativity.

Jennifer’s approach is innovative and creative. She believes that complex challenges require an adaptive, interdisciplinary approach to achieve lasting results.

Judy embarked on her Human Systems Dynamics (HSD) journey ten years ago. As an experienced evaluation consultant, she identified the synergies HSD offered to her research and practice across a wide range of organisations and sectors. While conducting research and evaluation in her own right, Judy helps others develop evaluation systems and frameworks, specialising in the use of evaluation rubrics.

For Judy, HSD bridges the art and science of looking into the self-organising of systems. She finds HSD particularly useful in helping her clients navigate complexity in their organisational situations, helping reach deep insights.

As a tangible outcome of using HSD tools and techniques, she finds people are able to take wise action and make progress in unpredictable environments.

Judy is Director of Pragmatica Limited – and a member of the Kinnect Group. She is based in Wellington, New Zealand. To continue her learning and sharing about HSD, Judy became a member of Thrival in 2018.

Laura Williams first encountered the early seeds of human systems dynamics when, as a young professional, she was given a wicked problem. Serendipitously, she met Dr. Eoyang early in her project and made quick and frequent use of her consulting and coaching to innovate a ground-breaking approach to improving systems' responses to sexual assault. Later, as a founder and former program manager of the Sexual Violence Justice Institute, Laura wove human systems dynamics into her coaching, writing, and teaching with multi-agency, multi-disciplinary response teams across the United States.

Today, Laura supports other leaders of local, state, and national initiatives with the concepts and methods they need to influence change within complex systems. Her consulting focuses in the areas of human systems dynamics, institutional change, sexual violence intervention and prevention, youth resiliency, adaptive action and social justice. In addition to this consulting, Laura is the Director of Strategy at the International Institute for Community and Adolescent Resilience (ICAR-US, LLC). This rapidly growing enterprise translates youth development research into a framework that provides both teens and adults pathways to enriching their developmental ecology. In addition to designing client initiatives and supporting the Institute’s growth and reach, she loves the time she spends in classrooms, church basements, conference rooms, and around campfires with youth and adults building webs of support.

Mary Nations helps organizations and the people in them become more adaptable and effective in changing environments. After beginning her career as a statistician, working within the massive upheaval of two mergers inspired her to become a lifelong student of change. Fifteen years later, she has studied and practiced organizational development, coaching, diversity leadership, and adult learning. Human Systems Dynamics has become foundational to her consulting and coaching work since she first met Dr. Eoyang in 2005. She has worked across sectors for a variety of organizations big and small. Within the Human Systems Dynamics Institute, Mary has served as teaching associate, content developer, praxis partner and Network Board member, and has edited several books in the field.

Nicki works with executives, senior leaders, front line and system leadership teams to improve the quality, safety and experience of health and care services. She is experienced in a wide range of improvement approaches to help teams learn together, solve problems and embed a culture of continuous improvement. Nicki is passionate about developing people to reach their full potential as exceptional leaders.

Nicki began her career as a nurse and has held several national improvement leadership roles in both England and Scotland. She has Board experience as a Director of Nursing and of leading service integration as for a Trust acquisition and merger.

Nicki holds the ILM Level 7 Certificate in Executive Coaching and Mentoring. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management and a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.

Nicki completed Human Systems Dynamics Professional Certification in 2016 to provide new perspectives and approaches to the increasingly complex challenges experienced by leaders of health and care services.

Randi Fiat ventured into the world of Human Systems Dynamics while working in the field of Innovation Design & Systems Change. In an effort to understand how to implement game changing vision & strategy within large scale organizations, she discovered the theory, practice, methods & models of HSD were a perfect compliment to the iterative design thinking processes that were being used when working with complex systems. After studying Human Systems Dynamics for four years, she became a consulting associate helping to develop the new HSD brand and communications materials.

Ms. Fiat is a certified executive coach and works as Director of Development and Strategic Partnerships for The Carbon Underground, a non-profit organization dedicated to reversing Climate Change through the acceleration of soil restoration and regenerative farming/ranching techniques that have the capacity to draw down legacy carbon from the atmosphere within a short time. She is a certified HSD practitioner and coach.

Dr. Stewart Mennin began his professional work doing research in reproductive neuroendocrinology and teaching human anatomy at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He later focused on medical education and became co-director of New Mexico's community-oriented, problem-based Primary Care Curriculum, an innovative parallel curriculum track at the School of Medicine. He was director of the office of Program Evaluation, Education and Research and the office of Teacher and Educational Development for the School of Medicine. He developed the Medical Education Scholars Program at the School of Medicine.

He serves as a member of the advisory board of Medical Science Educator, the Journal of the International Association of Medical Science Educators and the advisory board for post-graduate study in medical education at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD. He has been on the editorial boards of Medical Education, Medical Teacher, Advances in Health Science Education and the Clinical Anatomist. He was consultant to the Ministries of Health in Brazil and in the Republic of Kazakhstan and external advisor to the Plexus Institute's education grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He was the external evaluator, consultant, and teacher at the Foundation for the Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER) in the US, India, South Africa, and Brazil. He was co-director of the Masters in Health Professions Education with the School of Health Education (SHE) at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and at the Escola Superior de Ciencas da Saude in Brasilia, Brazil.

Professor Mennin has published widely, served as an invited consultant and teacher at more than 100 medical schools and health institutions worldwide. He is the developer and author of the Essential Skills in Medical Education and the Leadership in Medical Education Courses for the International Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE). In 2017, Dr. Mennin was given the AMEE Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in medical education.

He is a Consulting Associate at the Human Systems Dynamics Institute and adjunct professor in the Department of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Dr. Mennin is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology and former Assistant Dean for Educational Development and Research at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.

In his long career in Civil engineering in large Projects in Infrastructure and Energy, Toine discovered that the road to successful projects are those projects where the approach is not only rational thinking, process design and control. In successful project there is attention for the complexity of human dynamics. The reality is that Infrastructural projects are part of a bigger whole with lots of stakeholders, environmental issues, resistance from protest groups, inhabitants of the surrounding area and of course the collaboration within the many disciplines that are part of an infrastructural project team. This make large projects fit in what we call Complex Adaptive Systems. The part that we can control and predict is much smaller as we often think. We have to be resilient and adaptive to the influences that shapes the project context. Often our way of organizing large projects is based on the opposite: we can control and predict. Human Systems Dynamics helps Toine to look at problems as patterns that we can influence.

Toine facilitates project teams in their collaboration, internally and externally, he can be the team leader that unstucks your team with their sticky issues or take the role of stakeholder manager to interact with stakeholders outside the project team. Toine is a certified associate and praxis partner of the HSD Institute and he designs workshops around the interdependent pair of resilience/ adaption versus control and short term project results versus sustainability of the organization on the long term. Using roadmaps to learn project teams to take action in complex issues based on Human System Dynamics. His experience shaped the way he asks questions: basic, to the point, understandable for everyone. An opening to think differently to see options for action.

Main interests of Toine are lead and plan in uncertainty, using HSD in situations where responsibility and accountability influences decision-making for the short term not knowing the impact on the long term and using HSD in transitions to a sustainable use of energy. And above all, making people understand the world around them.

Ted Chen joined Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies in August 2012 as director of evaluation for the grantmaking organizations under the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies umbrella. He designs and implements evaluation strategies to track the progress and impact of the grants made by the Philanthropies. In 2017, Ted’s role was expanded to include leadership for organizational learning, which aims to bring together knowledge and insights that contribute to improving the Philanthropies’ grantmaking practice.

Ted previously was the director of learning and innovation at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where he led the foundation’s program evaluation and organizational learning efforts. He also served as program director for the youth and education department. Before joining the Kellogg Foundation, he was executive director of the Big Idea Foundation, the charitable arm of the media company that produced the VeggieTales video series and other programs for children and families. He previously was a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He also conducted research and evaluation at the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago.

Ted joined the HSD Board in 2018.

Jean King is a Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota where she has served as Director of the Minnesota Evaluation Studies Institute (MESI) for over 20 years. A long-time writer on participatory evaluation, she is the author of several books and numerous articles and chapters. Professor King has received several awards for her work, including the Myrdal Award for Evaluation Practice and the Ingle Award for Extraordinary Service from the American Evaluation Association, three teaching awards, and three community service awards. Her proudest achievement is having supervised over 100 U of M doctoral students to completion.

Jeremy is CEO and founder of Transparent Classroom, a Seattle-based tech startup that helps Montessori teachers with lesson planning, record keeping, and communicating with parents. As an established facilitator, Jeremy enjoys helping groups large and small to find purpose, meaning, and joy in shared work. As a certified mediator, he finds meaning in helping others to see and hear each other as they search for resolution. As a lean / agile coach, Jeremy spent 15 years working with software teams, helping them to discover which practices will best serve them. A polyglot, Jeremy routinely pulls tools from Lean, Agile, Design Thinking, Lean Startup, HSD, Liberating Structures, and more to help the teams he works with.

Jeremy is an HSD Associate who joined the Board in 2018.

John Murray is the Recruitment Coordinator for Mennonite Mission Network, serving as a networking agent and a resource to individuals and groups seeking to serve in a variety of domestic and international contexts. Working in the religious non-profit sector since 2010, John has been privileged in partnering a number of organizations to help learn and facilitate cross-cultural experiences for people of all ages.

John holds an Associate of Arts in Music from Hesston College (KS) and a Bachelor of Arts in Cross Cultural Communication and Ethics from Prescott College (AZ). He joined the HSD community in 2016 as an Associate and has enjoyed the continued exploration and learning with others.

In addition to serving on the HSD Institute’s Board, John is an officer on the Board of Directors of Menno-Clinic, India, a non-profit hospital providing general, optical, and dental services for a small community in Andhra Pradesh, India and Growing Hope, a startup organization in the Twin Cities promoting urban farming and providing organic produce to those without access.

Laurie provides leadership for all direct services to Catholic Charities’ primary customers: people experiencing homelessness, older adults and people with disabilities, vulnerable children and their families, and refugees resettling in Minnesota. Laurie also oversees the agency’s research and evaluation and volunteer services divisions.

Prior to joining Catholic Charities, Laurie spent 20 years working to transform how public organizations delivered value with her colleagues at The Public Strategies Group (PSG), which she co-owned and led as CEO from 2007-11. PSG’s engagements took many forms, and Laurie enjoyed working with a wide range of clients from the Amtrak Police Department and New York State’s Department of Transportation to the Minneapolis Public Schools and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, among many others. She transformed herself several times over in the course of this work, which made for never a dull moment.

Laurie’s experience also includes service as the Executive Director of the Minnesota Center for Crime Victim Services in Governor Ventura’s administration, and developing single-family housing in Minneapolis. She studied at the International Preparatory Institute in Budapest, Hungary before earning a Master of Planning degree from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs, where she occasionally serves as adjunct faculty. In addition to serving on the HSD Institute board, Laurie is a board member for National Day One, a non-profit committed to victims of domestic abuse.

Gary studied Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting and Financial Management at the University of St. Thomas. Prior to joining United Way he worked in the for-profit sector holding various Underwriting and Finance positions at Travelers Insurance Company as well as doing financial consulting for non-profits and small business start-ups.

Having worked in the corporate and non-profit sectors, Gary has developed a passion for making “A measurable difference in real people’s lives” especially those living with mental illness and homeless LGBTQ youth through The ARISE Project, a program of United Way.

In addition to being a Board member of Human Systems Dynamics Institute, Gary sits on the Board of Directors of Sounds of Hope, a performing arts organization serving kids age 10 and older from around the world and is a former Board member of Wild Yam Cabaret, a local performing arts organization focused on supporting developing artists.

Lynne Penke is an Organizational Change Manager and Strategist in Hennepin County’s Center of Innovation and Excellence. With 20 years of experience in local government, she has managed transformational efforts in and across the human services, health, public works, criminal justice, and technology sectors. She is a passionate civil servant and change-maker.

Lynne is also a member of Community Faculty at Metropolitan State University where she teaches Organizational Behavior and Fundamentals of IT.

Lynne has a Bachelor’s Degree in Latin American Studies from the University of MN and a Master’s Degree (Information Systems) from Metropolitan State University, where she was selected the 2010 College of Management Outstanding Graduate Student. In her free time, she loves to travel, host book club, and enjoy time at the lake with her husband and two young daughters.