Human Systems Dynamics in Action: Shifting Patterns for Peace

Monday, May 30 – Friday, June 3, 2016
Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA US

Peace and conflict are complex, systemic patterns that emerge over time and at individual, team, community, and global scales.

Peace and conflict are complex, systemic patterns that emerge over time and at individual, team, community, and global scales. People who thrive in social systems have deep intuitions about how change happens and how they can support it, but until recently, this wisdom lived more in art as instinct than in science.

The emerging sciencesof chaos and complexityprovide a new path for understanding complex systems. Based in systems theory and complexity science, human systems dynamics (HSD) builds adaptive capacity through:

  • Adaptive Action taking action in ways that respond creatively to changing contexts and unpredictable circumstances with no specific, linear prescribed sequence of steps
  • Pattern Logic seeing patterns that are emerging in a changing context and making logical decisions based on the pattern

Participants in this course will engage with others to adapt to unpredictable change, see simplicity in chaos, understand the underlying dynamics that generate patterns of peace or conflict, observe the consequences of your actions, and begin again in a new cycle of discovery and action. Through short lectures, group discussions, Adaptive Action experiments, and case studies, you will practice what you learn and prepare yourself to be an active, adaptive agent in complex situations.

Faculty & Coaches

Glenda Eoyang, PhD, HSDP
Founding Executive Director
Circle Pines, MN US
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