Adaptive Action Labs

Around the world, turbulence and uncertainty create barriers to productivity and wellbeing.  Whoever you are, wherever you live, and whatever you do, you confront the complex patterns of unpredictable change. The theory and practice of human systems dynamics can help you thrive at work and at home.

As a literacy leader in K-12 schools, you navigate overwhelming challenges that only intensify in the face of multiple crises—the global pandemic, racism, inequitable access to resources, economic instability, natural catastrophes, and more. You need tools to navigate whatever comes and resources to build resilience. Human Systems Dynamics (HSD) offers practical insights and tools to build and sustain resilient teaching and learning systems. We invite you to join K-12 literacy leaders across the country in a series of five Adaptive Action Labs that can do just that.

What happens in schools and across school systems is highly unpredictable. Literacy leaders constantly respond to turbulence and surprise. This Adaptive Action Lab explores sources of that unpredictability, offering tools to help you take action to build resilience. Use Inquiry to act with courage and agility when the future cannot be predicted. HSD Concept: Inquiry

The greatest challenge of the 21st century emerges from uncertainty and turbulence. This decade began with a year that brought global pandemic, widespread forest and grass fires, unprecedented weather events, and socio-political upheaval around the world. What does it mean to live, work, and play in such a world? What does it take to navigate change that emerges at the speed of thought, creating turbulence that shakes your world and uncertainty that limits your vision into the future?

Literacy leaders face complex problems everywhere. In this Adaptive Action Lab, see complex problems as persistent patterns. Describe those patterns, interpret their meanings, and ultimately, take informed action to support learning. Name and understand what is not working. Take action to shift that pattern. Use Pattern Logic to shape patterns of teaching and learning.

Many challenges facing literacy leaders come from perceived barriers and differences—inside their schools and out in the community. In this Adaptive Action Lab, leverage the energy in these differences to enhance communication and collaborative inquiry. Use Generative Engagement to set conditions for individual and group learning.

The face and function of facilitation have changed in today’s complex landscape. In the uncertain and ambiguous situations of the 21st century, teams, committees, and communities are asked to take creative action together. They have to respond to multiple forces that influence their work. They navigate differences from a variety of sources on multiple scales. They deal with issues, challenges and activities that are massively interdependent and unpredictable. As a facilitator, your job is to help them deal with challenges they face  when they deal with overwhelming urgency and doubt, low trust in high stakes settings, long-term tension and division in an unpredictable and uncertain futures.

Literacy Leaders respond to challenges, knowing they cannot just “put a band aid on it.” They must address underlying stressors that create those challenges. In this Adaptive Action Lab learn to formulate your most effective responses. Use Adaptive Action to see, understand, and influence patterns in your literacy communities.

Literacy leaders know resilient individuals and communities sustain their work because they have capacity to adapt to changing conditions as they focus on literacy learning. This Adaptive Action Lab offers tools to build resilience, which HSD calls Adaptive Capacity. With these tools, build and sustain Adaptive Capacity throughout your classroom or school.

In a world where you deal with forces you can’t see or control, you have to navigate differences that are overwhelming and frightening. In this world you can neither predict nor control your future. In such a turbulent and exciting time, you need to prepare for a future you just cannot see. You must learn to move forward, responding to change and turbulence, even when you develop a plan that can reliably move you into that future. And in the face of all that, you need the anchor or touch point that having a plan gives you.

Life today is complex! You deal with many forces that impact your life. When you take action, you consider social expectations and connections; financial challenges and opportunities; political questions and competitions; and personal and professional relationships. In any moment, you are forced to make choices about what’s true, what you need to do, and how you can engage with others. In such a complex world, your old stories are not robust enough to represent your day-to-day experience. You need a new narrative to capture the realities you face and to frame your expectations and assumptions.

In simpler times change came slowly, if at all. Consultants could learn models and methods in graduate school and use them throughout a career. They could take a solution that worked with one client and confidently transfer it to another. Those days are gone. Today, consultants must be master learners and experts at inquiry. HSD-informed consultants bring adaptive capacity to help clients tame the wicked issues that emerge from their complex environments.

Systemic racism tears at the fiber of organizations, communities, and families. The insidious impact of historical decisions effect almost every aspect of your life regardless of your race or ethnicity. You may be aware of this fact but feel overwhelmed by the challenge of bringing about change. You recognize that change is needed at all scales and across diverse settings and situations, but you do not know how you can make a difference.