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Build Adaptive Capacity
Any new paradigm challenges fundamental assumptions and beliefs. Old habits make it difficult to step across the line into new ways to think and act. For 20 years, the HSD community has built bridges from the closed-system paradigms of the past to the open-system opportunities of the future. We have tried our best to be gentle, patient, and subtle in our invitations, but time is running out! The challenges are urgent, and we are impatient! So, we are engaging in two initiatives to break through into the future: Dragons of Complexity and Adaptive Action for Sustainability!
April 6, 2023
In General Systems Theory, Von Bertalanffy laid the foundation for the field of systems science. He focused on closed systems. They were bounded, complex, sometimes unpredictable, but ultimately knowable. Under some circumstances, such closed system models give us insight into human systems from the individual to the global scales, but not always. Sometimes, humans—alone or in groups—transcend their boundaries. When they do, their natures and their futures can become unknowable. Human Systems Dynamics was developed to inform understanding and action in human systems that work outside the bounds of Bertalanffy’s traditional systems logic.
Watch this webinar and explore how HSD gives options for insight and intentional action, even when the system and its future are essentially unknowable.
Build Adaptive Capacity
This is the third in a series of blog posts that follows up on Margaret Mead’s famous statement, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
In Week 1, we talked about ways people come together in an emergent process to work toward a shared goal. (HSD tool: Complex Adaptive Systems)
In Week 2, we talked about competing forces that decision makers must balance as they move toward shared action. (HSD tool: Interdependent Pairs)
Build Adaptive Capacity
This week, let’s talk about what can help people take the next step beyond where they get stuck trying to change the world. How can HSD help you start a movement, respond to an affront, or leverage difference to bring about change.
Build Adaptive Capacity
Margaret Mead said it first, and we see it play out all around us in today’s landscape. Small groups of committed people who are willing and empowered to step up are changing patterns of interaction, decision making, and action around the world. In HSD In HSD we think of these as daily shifts in patterns of economy, society, and politics.
March 2, 2023
The world isn’t black or white. It isn’t even shades of gray. The world of complexity invites you beyond expectations for simple either/or answers. It stretches you beyond naïve both/and solutions. Emergent uncertainty of complex adaptive environments demands more. You will thrive in the turbulence and instability when you see, understand, and navigate the tensions of irreconcilable paradox.
Join this dialogue to master Interdependent Pairs and find the power in “Which? To what degree? When?”
March 1, 2023
Happy Anniversary! We marked the 20th anniversary of HSD Institute with a meeting in the HSD Community Commons. The earliest members of our community connected with the most recent, as we shared stories and impacts! We closed the celebration with a musical and visual walk down memory lane. We hope you enjoy it, too.
This was the first in a series of quarterly HSD Community Commons sessions where Associates share their questions and discoveries. Join us for the next one on June 22.
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