Volume 11, Number 4

Reflections
The SoL Journal

on Knowledge, Learning, and Change
SPECIAL ISSUE

Highlights from The Systems
Thinker® Newsletter
Engaging Emergence:
Turning Upheaval into
Opportunity
Peggy Holman

The Promise of Systems
Thinking for Shifting
Fundamental Dynamics
Scott Spann and Jim Ritchie-Dunham

The World Café Goes Local:
A Town Plans for the FuturePeter Hechenbleikner, Deborah
Gilburg, and Kerry Dunnell

We Can’t Keep Meeting Like
This: Developing the Capacity
for Cross-Sector Collaboration
Mille Bojer

Confronting the Tension
Between Learning and
Performance
Amy C. Edmondson andSara J. Singer

Systems Thinking asa Team-Building Approach© Thinkstockphotos.com

Published by The Society for Organizational Learningreflections.solonline.org
ISSN 1524-1734

Cynthia Way and Jon Walter
McKeebyThinking in Circles
About Obesity
Tarek K.A. Hamid

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE 11.4

W

riting and publishinghave been a part of mylife since I learned how
to string words together. I was
lucky to grow up in a housewith a nightly bedtime bookritual, and where my father“disabled” the TV one summer
C. Sherry Immediato
by removing a tube to insure
we found other ways to spend our time. Inevitably, myattention turned to writing, and the creation of letters,
plays, books, and later school yearbooks and newspapers,
followed by political and corporate newsletters andindustry magazines.
For me, one of the significant differences between an
editor and a publisher is this – the editor works to findand refine great content. The publisher’s job is to get itout and have it make a difference. It has been a great
joy to combine a number of my interests and to serve
as publisher of Reflections since 2001.
This particular issue of Reflections is in part a personal“I wish I’d published that” tribute to The Systems Thinker.
I still remember the day Daniel Kim called in 1988 totalk about the idea he had for a newsletter (before The
Fifth Discipline was published and organizational learning was well known). I passed on what I’d learned frompublishing one in the field of sustainability and lent
him a book that outlined the craft. Not too long after,
The Systems Thinker was born. Launched by Daniel Kim
and Colleen Lannon, it is now in its 23rd volume andhas been in the capable hands of Janice Molloy as
managing editor for the past 15 years.
As SoL and Pegasus Communications (the publisherof The Systems Thinker) have considered ways to partner
in recent years, we discovered that there was very little
overlap between readers of Reflections and subscribers
to The Systems Thinker. It was with this in mind that
Janice, Frank Schneider, and I looked for a samplerof articles you probably missed. In many cases, they
feature the work of SoL members. As a set, they help

us appreciate something about the state of systems
thinking and how we can boldly apply these evolving
practices in the messy world of complex systems.
As you may know, a criticism of traditional systems
thinking is that it does not adequately speak to complex adaptive systems. In the opening article, Peggy
Holman provides some principles and practices for“engaging emergence.” Holman’s approach is to address
this messiness in both philosophical and practical ways,
and to recontextualize the intent of systems thinking
as one of inquiry and possibility.
The next three articles all speak to what systems thinking looks like in this context and beyond traditionalorganizational boundaries. At one level, you could argue
this is nothing new – Jay Forrester’s early work on industrial, urban, and world dynamics took a broad systems
view. One significant development I see is a shift froma largely technical, expert process with model buildingin the foreground to one of dialogue in which a systemdevelops the capacity to see itself. Modeling becomes aconsequence of the conversation among diverse stakeholders and a tool to support further deliberations. A
feature common to these three cases is the critical roleof host or convener to create a container for engaging
emergence in the way Holman describes.
In “The Promise of Systems Thinking for Shifting Fundamental Dynamics,” Scott Spann and Jim Ritchie-Dunham
document and reflect on their work in support of CARE’shosting role in bringing together diverse stakeholders
to address the issue of persistent poverty in Guatemala.
It’s a great case, and they offer an elegant model ofcreating capacity for authentic stakeholder collaboration from the individual to the ecosystem (summarized
in a table on p. 16), with an ultimate focus on sustaining the capacity of the stakeholders to think and act
systemically.
Peter Hechenbleikner, Deborah Gilburg, and Kerry Dunnell share how they applied the World Café methodology
to convene conversation in Reading, Massachusetts.

P U B L I S H E R ’ S N O T E | I M M E D I AT O

The novel and well-crafted approach they and others
designed engaged community members and elected
officials in identifying shared priorities and revitalizing
the democratic process.
Mille Bojer reports on her work with the Leadership andInnovation Network for Collaboration in the Children’s
Sector in South Africa, in which she and her colleagues
used “Innovation Labs” as a focus for addressing specificcommunity issues. The hope is that such intense efforts
create new patterns of interaction that shift the qualityof conversation and relationship so that collaboration is
the new norm for stakeholders from different sectors.
To the extent that institutions or organizations are theparties in these large-scale efforts, we thought it helpful
to look at examples of practice within organizationalboundaries as well.
In “Confronting the Tension Between Learning and
Performance,” Amy Edmondson and Sara Singer takea fresh perspective on how to productively balanceaction and reflection. This tension can reveal itself at alllevels – from day-to-day operations to the boardroom.
See p. 37 for a succinct and useful summary on mindsets for learning at the individual, group, and organizational levels.
Cynthia Way and Jon Walter McKeeby describe a specificuse of systems thinking to increase team capability ina major research hospital. By tracking the initiative’s
impact over time and making adjustments as needed,
team members improved immediate outcomes andlearned how to learn together for future endeavors.
Finally, highlights from The Systems Thinker wouldn’t becomplete without a more technical illustration. Throughthe lens of system dynamics, Tarek K.A. Hamid provides
an accessible analysis of the challenges of addressing
obesity. By the way, if you are interested in participating
in an experiment Hamid is conducting about increasing
your understanding of health dynamics, you should
contact him at tkabdelh@nps.edu.

With this issue, I end my tenure as the publisher ofReflections. I am very grateful to all of you as readersand disseminators of material that gets people thinking
and talking, and ultimately acting more effectively inservice of their aspirations. I would also like to acknowledge Ed Schein for the vision (and tenacity) he had ininitiating this journal. Ed imagined a forum that would
engage all parts of ourselves in service of collective
intelligence and wisdom – an intention I hope willcontinue to guide Reflections as it evolves.
Finally, there are only actual issues because of thegenerosity and dedication of hundreds of contributors,
and the tireless efforts of editors Karen Ayas, Jane
Gebhart, Nina Kruschwitz, Deborah Wallace, and now,
Janice Molloy, and designer/photo editor David Gerratt.
I have appreciated their partnership in advancing thetheory and practice of organizational learning by finetuning and synthesizing content, and presenting it inengaging ways.
I begin my next “volume” persuaded more than ever ofthe value of rhythm and structure for shared reflection
to complement our natural proclivity for action andintrigued by the new possibilities for the form it cantake. And of course while I end this role, I continue asa member of the SoL community and look forward to
future meditations, conversations, collaborations, andadventures. O
With deep gratitude,

C. Sherry Immediato, Publisher
P.S. A special thanks to Pegasus Communications and Mark
Alpert for granting SoL permission to reprint the articles
featured in this issue and to Nancy Daugherty for technicalillustrations and original graphics. For more information
about The Systems Thinker, or to subscribe, please visit www.
thesystemsthinker.com. Janice Molloy also edits a free monthly
newsletter also published by Pegasus Communications called
Leverage Points. You can subscribe to Leverage Points on thePegasus homepage: www.pegasuscom.com.

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EXECUTIVE DIGEST 11.4

Engaging Emergence:
Turning Upheaval into Opportunity

The World Café Goes Local:
A Town Plans for the Future

Peggy HolmanPeter Hechenbleikner, Deborah Gilburg, and Kerry Dunnell

Many of our systems – from the economic sphere to
the political realm – seem to be in decline. Yet if we lookclosely, we can see signs of new beginnings all aroundus. In this article, Peggy Holman describes what she haslearned from the science of emergence – nature’s wayof changing in which increasingly complex order arises
from disorder. We don’t control emergence, nor can
we fully predict how it arises. Yet we can engage it, confident that unexpected and valuable breakthroughs canoccur. Peggy offers questions, principles, and practices
for equipping ourselves to work through this time of
upheaval and change.

“How can we as a community align ourselves todefine our collective future?” That’s the question that
prompted residents of the town of Reading, Massachusetts, to hold the community’s first World Café conversation. This article summarizes how the Reading
World Café came together and the resulting outcomes.
Whereas previous efforts to engage community members in broader thinking had met with limited success,the café drew more than 200 people at a time when, in
general, public participation has dwindled and public
discourse has become contentious. The process gave
town officials data that was of higher quality thanwhat might have resulted from focus groups or surveys,
because it emerged from an exploratory conversation
among people interested in the community.

The Promise of Systems Thinking
for Shifting Fundamental Dynamics
Scott Spann and Jim Ritchie-Dunham
All too often, despite people’s best efforts and intentions, the problems they seek to eliminate get worse.
This article looks at what happened when a diverse
group of leaders in Guatemala set out to understandthe fundamental dynamics underlying poverty in theircountry. By integrating principles and practices fromsystems thinking and system dynamics with thoserooted in group dynamics and collaboration building,they created an integrated systems map that they all
agreed represented their world. The representatives
then came to shared agreement about the overall
goal of their collective work and identified criticalresources that would enable them to move in the
direction they all want to go.

We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This:
Developing the Capacity for Cross-Sector
Collaboration
Mille Bojer
We are faced with complex, global problems withmany manifestations, numerous causes, and multiple
players exerting different kinds of influence over them.
This complexity requires us to work out creative andsystemic solutions by not only communicating but also
learning and collaborating across sectors, levels, andcultures. In this article, Mille Bojer uses the example of
the Leadership and Innovation Network for Collaboration in the Children’s Sector (LINC) in South Africa to
explore how we can build cross-sector collaboration
aimed at creating systemic change. LINC brings together stakeholders from different sectors in Innovation
Labs, where they develop collaborative leadership skills
and design groundbreaking, systemic responses tohelp at-risk children.

EXECUTIVE DIGEST

Confronting the Tension Between
Learning and Performance
Amy C. Edmondson and Sara J. Singer
Although we may prefer to believe differently, not alllearning leads to improved performance. Learning andperformance can be at odds in several ways. Notably,
when organizations engage in a new learning challenge,
performance often suffers, or appears to suffer, in the
short term. Moreover, by revealing and analyzing theirfailures and mistakes – a critical aspect of learning –work groups may appear to be performing less wellthan they would otherwise. Organizations can at least
partly address these challenges through leaders whocreate a climate of psychological safety and promoteinquiry. Leadership is thus essential to foster the mindset, group behaviors, and organizational investments
needed to promote today’s learning and invest in
tomorrow’s performance.

Systems Thinking as a Team-Building
Approach
Cynthia Way and Jon Walter McKeeby
The chief information officer of a research hospital
faced a formidable challenge: Over the last five years,
his department had expanded from a staff of 65 to 94.
Because of the complexity of the hospital’s computer
infrastructure, the CIO determined that a team approach
was essential to managing the system. To improve
communication, the leadership group participated in ateam-building retreat with a focus on systems thinking.
The approach was not to teach the entire systems
thinking methodology. Instead, after a brief introduction to key concepts to set the stage, the group learned
to look for examples of the systems archetypes in theirorganization. They later used these tools to improve
teamwork, problem solving, and communicationin the office.

Thinking in Circles About Obesity
Tarek K.A. Hamid
The strength of the systems approach lies in its capacity
to integrate variables that otherwise would be isolated
from each other. As shown in this article, in the case ofhuman weight and energy regulation, systems thinking
allows us to better understand the feedback interactions
between the physiological and the behavioral. Psychologists have found that most people intuitively view
causality in linear terms, expecting effect to always be
proportional to cause. But the effort needed to accomplish a task often increases exponentially, not linearly,
as the difficulty of the task increases. This is one ofthe perspectives that a systems approach to weight
management – and other cognitive and physicaltasks – can offer.

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F E AT U R E 11.4

Engaging Emergence:
Turning Upheaval into Opportunity
PEGGY HOLMAN
Many of our systems – from the economic sphere to the political realm – seem to be in decline. Yet if we lookclosely, we can see signs of new beginnings all around us. In this article, Peggy Holman describes what she
has learned from the science of emergence – nature’s way of changing in which increasingly complex orderarises from disorder. We don’t control emergence, nor can we fully predict how it arises. Yet we can engage it,
confident that unexpected and valuable breakthroughs can occur. Peggy offers questions, principles, andpractices for equipping ourselves to work through this time of upheaval and change.

What would it mean if we knew
how to successfully engage withthe unknown, the uncomfortable,
the unprecedented so that ourorganizations and communities
could thrive?

New beginnings are all aroundus. The more we look for stories
of innovations launched andchallenges overcome, the more
visible they become.

Many of our current cultural
stories seem to reinforce a belief
that challenge and conflict lead to collapsing systems. Stories of breakdown are everywhere – a struggling economy, political polarization, declining high school graduation rates. Yet even as these systems
falter, new beginnings are all around us. The more we look for stories of innovations launched andchallenges overcome, the more visible they become.
Peggy Holman

When we allow ourselves to look through this lens, we see that a renewal is under way, a modern
renaissance fueled by the passion and commitment of many who have dared to pursue a dream. In
communities, organizations, industries, and other social systems, new ways of living and working areflourishing. For example, many consider journalism to be an industry in decline. But even as traditional
forms of journalism are dying – because they aren’t serving us well – I see signs of rebirth every day.
Bold experiments are under way. Spot.us uses “crowdfunding,” in which community members poolmoney to support investigative reporting. NewsTrust, which rates the news for accuracy, fairness, andother criteria, is drawing increasing readership and participation to its site. Similar innovations are
arising in other areas, ranging from healthcare to politics.
Given these parallel dynamics of collapse and rebirth, what can we do to help the systems of which weare part move toward productivity and resilience?

This article was originally published in The Systems Thinker® V21N10, Dec. 2010/Jan. 2011.

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For more than 50 years, experiments in organizations and communities and across social systems
have shaped practices for “whole systems change”– methods for engaging the diverse people of asystem in ways that lead to unexpected breakthroughs. In 1992, Margaret Wheatley’s groundbreaking Leadership and the New Science contributed to theory by connecting our changing understanding of science to human systems. As the

As the current generation of wholesystems change practitioners
mix and match methods, manyof us have been seeking a deeper
understanding of the patterns
that make these practices work.
current generation of whole systems change practitioners mix and match methods such as OpenSpace Technology, The World Café, Future Search,
and Appreciative Inquiry, many of us have been
seeking a deeper understanding of the patterns
that make these practices work.
My quest to unlock the mystery of what is involvedin changing whole systems began in the late 1980s.
I thought that understanding how change works
was key to creating a world that works for all. I still
do. I started noticing shifts in how change occurs
when using whole systems change practices. See“Traditional and Emerging Ideas About Change”
for examples.

Born from my own practice, my interactions withfriends and colleagues, and my immersion in what
science has taught us about chaos, complexity,
and networks, I noticed a pattern of change throughthe lens of emergence – increasingly complex
order self-organizing out of disorder. What follows
describes that pattern, along with questions, principles, and practices for successfully engaging
with upheaval.

The Nature of Emergence
Emergence is nature’s way of changing. We seeit all the time in its cousin, emergencies. What
happens?
A disturbance interrupts ordinary life. In addition
to natural responses, like grief or fear or anger,
people differentiate – take on different tasks. For
example, in an earthquake, while many are immobilized, some care for the injured, others look forfood and water, a few care for the animals. Someone creates a “find your loved ones” site on theInternet. A few blaze the trails and others follow.
They see what’s needed and bring their uniquegifts to the situation. A new order begins to arise.
This pattern of change flows as follows:t Disruption breaks apart the status quo.
t 5IFTZTUFNdifferentiates, surfacing innovations
and distinctions among its parts.
t "TEJGGFSFOUQBSUTJOUFSBDU BOFX NPSF 
complex coherence arises. (See “A Patternof Change.”)
In journalism, cracks began to appear in the 1990s
as newspaper readership declined. This disruption

A Pattern of Change
Disruption

Coherence

Coherence

Differentiationlllustration by Steven Wright, steven@wrightmarks.com

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3© Thinkstockphotos.com

was generally correlated with the rise of the Internet.
Worse, advertisers, who provide a principal sourceof revenue for journalism, started to leave. When theeconomy came to the precipice in 2008, the decline
became an avalanche (Johnny Ryan, Newspaper
circulation decline).
With the ability for anyone to publish made possible
through increasingly sophisticated online tools, theassumptions about what journalism is and how it isdone are in flux. A myriad of experiments are testing
those assumptions – the relationship between journalist and audience, the economic model, even the
purpose of journalism itself. These experiments shedlight on what to conserve from traditional journalism that still serves us well and what to embrace thatwasn’t possible before. Journalism is differentiating

into its elemental nature, helping us understandnew ways in which news and information is created,distributed, and digested.
While a new coherence has not yet arisen and likely
won’t for a while, we do have clues. We know it ismore of a conversation than a lecture. It still is about
making sense of our complex world so that we canmake wise individual and collective decisions. And
it calls for a broad-based digital literacy movement,
similar to the literacy movement sparked by the coming of age of newspapers that served the formationof democracy in the U.S.
People often speak of a magical quality toemergence, in part because we can’t predetermine specific outcomes. Emergence can’t be

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manufactured. It often arises by drawing from individual and collective intuition – instinctive andunconscious knowing or sensing without deduction, reasoning, or using rational processes. It canbe fueled by strong emotions – excitement, longing, anger, fear, grief. And it rarely follows a logical,
orderly path. It feels much more like a leap of faith.
Emergence is always happening. If we don’t workwith it, it will work us over. In human systems,
it often shows itself when strong emotions are
ignored or suppressed for too long. While emergence is natural, we don’t always experience it aspositive. Erupting volcanoes, crashing meteorites,

Order is accessible when diverse
people facing intractable challenges uncover and implement
ideas that none could havepredicted or accomplished on theirown. Emergence can’t be forced.
It can, however, be fostered.
and wars have brought emergent change. Yet
even wars can leave exciting offspring of novel,
higher-order systems. The League of Nations andUnited Nations were unprecedented social innovations from their respective world wars. New
species or cultures fill the void left by thosemade extinct.
Emergence seems disorderly because we can’t
discern meaningful patterns, just unpredictableinteractions that make no sense. But order isaccessible when diverse people facing intractablechallenges uncover and implement ideas thatnone could have predicted or accomplished on
their own. Emergence can’t be forced. It can,however, be fostered.

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diversity, connectivity, interdependence, or interactions become part of a system. The disruptive
shifts occurring in our current systems are signs
that these characteristics are on the rise.
Today’s unprecedented conditions could lead tochaos and collapse, but they also contain the seedsof renewal. We can choose to face our seemingly
intractable challenges by coalescing into a vibrant,
inclusive society characterized by creative interactions among diverse people. In many ways, thispath is counterintuitive. It breaks with traditional
thinking about change, including the ideas that it
occurs top-down and that it follows an orderlyplan, one step at a time.
We don’t control emergence. Nor can we fully predict how it arises. It can be violent, overwhelming.
Yet we can engage it, confident that unexpected
and valuable breakthroughs can occur.

Benefits of Engaging Emergence
Although specific outcomes from emergence areunpredictable, by engaging with it some benefits
are foreseeable. To illustrate these benefits, I draw
from Journalism That Matters, an initiative thatconvenes conversations among the diverse
people who are shaping the emerging news
and information ecosystem.

Individually, we are stretched and refreshed.
We feel more courageous and inspired to pursue
what matters to us. With a myriad of new ideas
and confident of the support of mentors, collaborators, and fans, we act.
At an early Journalism That Matters gathering,a recent college graduate arrived with the seed of
an idea: putting a human face on international reporting for U.S. audiences. At the meeting, she foundsupport for the idea. Deeply experienced people
coached her and gave her entrée to their contacts.
Today, the Common Language Project is thriving,
having received multiple awards.

Why Does Engaging Emergence Matter?
Emergence isn’t just a metaphor for what weare experiencing. Complexity increases as more

New and unlikely partnerships form.
When we connect with people whom we don’t

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normally meet, sparks may fly. Creative conditions
make room for our differences, fostering lively
and productive interactions.
A reluctant veteran investigative reporter wasteamed with a young digital journalist. They createda multimedia website for a story based on a twoyear investigation. Not only did the community
embrace the story, but the veteran is pursuing
additional interactive projects. And the digital journalist is learning how to do investigative reporting.

Breakthrough projects surface.
Experiments are inspired by interactions among
diverse people.
The Poynter Institute, an educational institution
serving the mainstream media, was seeking new
directions because its traditional constituency wasshrinking. Because Poynter served as a cohost for a
JTM gathering, a number of staff members partici-

pated in the event. They listened broadly and deeply
to the diverse people present. An idea emergedthat builds on who they are and takes them into
new territory: supporting the training needs ofentrepreneurial journalists.

Community is strengthened.
We discover kindred spirits among a diverse mixof strangers. Lasting connections form, and asense of relationship grows. We realize that weshare an intention – a purpose or calling guided
by some deeper source of wisdom. Knowing that
our work serves not just ourselves but a larger
whole increases our confidence to act.
As a community blogger who attended a JTM
conference put it, “I’m no longer alone. I’ve discovered people asking similar questions, aspiring toa similar future for journalism. Now I have friends
I can bounce ideas off of, knowing we share acommon cause.”

The culture begins to change.

5© Thinkstockphotos.com

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Principles for Engaging Emergence
No one in charge

WelcomedisturbanceEncourage random
encounters

Simplify
Pioneer!

Feedback

Seek
meaning

Simple rules(principles)

Clusterlllustration by Steven Wright, steven@wrightmarks.com

With time and continued interaction, a new
narrative of who we are takes shape.
When Journalism That Matters began, we hoped
to discover new possibilities for a struggling field sothat it could better serve democracy. As mainstream
media, particularly newspapers, began failing, thework became more vital. We see an old story of journalism dying and provide a place for it to bemourned. We also see the glimmers of a new andvital story being born. In it, journalism is a conversation rather than a lecture. Stories inspire rather than
discourage their audience. Journalism That Mattershas become a vibrant and open conversational
space where innovations emerge. New language,
such as news ecosystem– the information exchange
among the public, government, and institutions that
can inform, inspire, engage, and activate – makes it
easier to understand what’s changing. People say, “I
didn’t know I could be effective without a big organization behind me. Now I do.”
These experiences show that working with emergence can create great initiatives, the energy toact, a sense of community, and a greater view of thewhole – a collectively intelligent system at work.
As more people engage emergence, something
fundamental changes about who we are, what weare doing, how we are with each other, and perhaps what it all means. In the process, we tearapart familiar and comfortable notions about howchange works. We bring together unlikely bedfellows and re-imagine and re-create the organizations, communities, and social systems that serve
us well.

Three Questions for Engaging EmergenceThree questions can help us think about how towork with change:t )PXEPXFEJTSVQUDPIFSFODF
compassionately?
t )PXEPXFFOHBHFEJTSVQUJPODSFBUJWFMZt )PXEPXFSFOFXDPIFSFODFXJTFMZ
Like all appreciative questions, these direct our attention toward possibilities and open us to exploration. They are posed as questions rather than statements to remind us that when the terrain is uncertain, focus and fluidity both support us to be
nimble in our response.
You can use them as you might an affirmation. Just
as affirmations help us attend to what we wish to
create, these questions help us adapt to the specifics of our situation. We can connect our circumstances with the flow of change by prefacing eachquestion with, “In this situation…”

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These questions create temporary shelter for us toconsider the challenges of a changing system. They
help us experience and offer compassion in disruption, engage creatively with difference, and support
both personal and collective renewal while potentially wise responses coalesce.
If you are familiar with Zen Buddhism, think of
the questions as koans – paradoxical riddles or
anecdotes that have no solution. They may – if you
seek to understand them in an intuitive way andwork with them in your life – provide flashes of
insight into what’s going on and how to engage it.

Principles for Engaging Emergence
A principle is a fundamental assumption thatguides further understanding or action. Principles
help us make order out of chaos. They describe
the landscape, enabling us to discern useful characteristics so that we can make useful choices.
Principles support us in designing our initiatives,
organizing our work and ourselves, determining
what to do and how best to do it. For example, acommonly cited medical principle is “first, do noharm.” This fundamental understanding guides
life-and-death decisions without prescribing a
specific approach.
I derived the principles for engaging emergencelisted below by connecting my understanding ofwhole systems change processes with what sciencetells us about the dynamics of emergence (see“Principles for Engaging Emergence”). In short,scientists frequently cite four dynamics of
emergence:t No one is in charge. No conductor is orchestrating orderly activity (ecosystems, economic
systems, activity in a city).
t Simple rules engender complex behavior.
Randomness becomes coherent as individuals,
each following a few basic principles or assumptions, interact with their neighbors (birds flock;traffic flows).
t Feedback. Systems grow and self-regulate as
the output from one interaction influences thenext interaction. (We talk to a neighbor, whotalks to a neighbor, and suddenly everyone intown knows a story.)t Clustering. As we interact, feeding back toeach other, like attracts like, bonding around ashared characteristic. (Small groups of women
meeting in living rooms grow into the women’s
movement.)

As more people engage emergence, something fundamental
changes about who we are, what
we are doing, how we are witheach other, and perhaps what
it all means.
So if emergence occurs through these dynamics,
what are the implications for how we engage with it?
These five principles are my answer to thisquestion:t Welcome disturbance. Disruption indicatesthat the normal behavior of a system has beeninterrupted. If we ignore the disturbance,chances are conditions will get worse. If we getcurious about it, the disruption could lead tobreakthroughs.
t Pioneer! Break habits by doing something
different. Prepare and jump into the mystery,working with the feedback that comes.
t Encourage random encounters. Remember,no one is in charge. More accurately, we neverknow which interactions will catalyze innovation. Maximize interactions among diverse
agents, knowing unexpected encounterswill likely trigger a shift.
t Seek meaning. Meaning energizes us. As we
discover mutuality in what is personally meaningful, we come together. Like clusters with like.
Shared meaning draws us to common awareness and action. When shared meaning is central, we organize resilient, synergistic networks
that serve our individual and collective needs.
t Simplify. Principles – simple rules – equip us towork with complexity. When principles break
down and the situation grows chaotic, whatis essential? What serves now? As answers

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Practices for Engaging Emergencelllustration by Steven Wright, steven@wrightmarks.com

coalesce, we become a more diverse, complex
system around re-formed principles at theheart of the matter.
These principles help us work with the flow of
emergence. Welcoming disturbance encourages
us to begin, knowing all change starts with disruption. To support differentiation, pioneering guides
us in thinking about what to do. Encouraging
random encounters reminds us to consider who
to involve. Seeking meaning provides a threadof coherence by helping us clarify why. And simplifying helps coherence emerge by guiding
us to the how.

Practices for Engaging Emergence
If principles help us sort through what to do, practices guide us in how to do something. A practice
is a skill honed through study and experimentation.

The practices for engaging emergence are rooted
in the skills of everyday conversation (see “Practices
for Engaging Emergence”). As such, we all know
something about them. They are our birthright.
When issues are complex, stakes are high, andemotions are right below the surface, thesepractices help us engage with each other.
Because working with emergence has nothing
A-to-B-to-C about it, no one right way exists to use
these practices. They help us identify what to notice, what to explore, what to try. They are helpful
hints for flying by the seat of our pants.
Just as scales prepare a musician and drills train
an athlete, these practices equip us for the challenging conversations, the ones that involve disruption, difference, and the unknown. They are
the conversational backbone for improvisation,

F E AT U R E | H O L M A Nt Embrace mystery, choose possibility, andfollow life-energy to cultivate a composed
state of mind, alert to aliveness and potential.
This enables us to face whatever shows up
with equanimity or even delight.

we ask determine the answers we uncover,shaping our experience, actions, and outcomes.
Typically, the more positive the inquiry, themore life-affirming the outcome.
t Open yourself to the unknown. This practiceis an act of faith. Once open, we can’t go back.
It may be the most counter-cultural practice ofthem all, requiring the courage to be vulnerable.
t Reflect, name, and harvest – these can be sacred acts. They call forth that which previously
didn’t exist. The arts – music, movement, visual
arts, poetry, film – often enhance the effectiveness and reach of these practices.

Host Emergence

Iterate: Do It Again . . . and Againt Clarify intentions and welcome people.
These are skills of being a good host. In exercising them, you create a “container” – a hospitable space for working with whatever arises.
These practices are the yin and yang of hosting.
One provides focus – clear direction and purpose.
The other ensures fertile ground for relationships and connection.
t Invite diversity to encourage people to lookbeyond our habitual definitions of who andwhat makes up a system. Doing so prepares
us for innovation by increasing the likelihoodof productive connections among people withdifferent beliefs and operating assumptions.
Inviting diversity is one of the most time consuming, challenging, and critical activities ofengaging emergence.

This practice reminds us of the never-ending
nature of change. It takes time and perseverance
to make its mark. Because our attention tends to
get caught in our routines, iteration is the mostelusive of the practices.

enabling us to stay in the flow even if we don’tknow the specific path we’re taking. Honing theseconversational skills is a great way to engage
emergence.
I organize the practices into four groups:

Prepare to Engage Emergence

Engaget Take responsibility for what you love as anact of service. This practice is a game-changing
skill. It liberates our hearts, minds, and spirits. It
calls us to notice what deeply matters to us andto put our unique gifts to use for ourselves, others, and the systems in which we live and work.
The more this practice becomes our operating
norm, the more innovation, joy, solidarity,
generosity, and other qualities of well-being
appear. The capacities for listening and connecting grow through this practice.
t 4UFQQJOHJOUPinquire appreciatively is asecond game-changing skill. The questions

Together, these practices form a system for acting,providing insight into what our role is, how wesupport others, and what we can do together.

What’s Possible Now?
Whenever we work with this pattern of emergent
change, a turning point occurs as coherence arises.
We experience ourselves as part of somethinglarger. Perhaps our voice rises in harmony, a sweet
blend of each and all. Or we overcome an obstacle
because we used our different skills and abilities
to accomplish something together that none of us
could have done alone. We change through such
experiences. The principles and practices I’ve described help us break through habits of separationthat keep us fragmented. Our personal stories
become a doorway into the universal.
Joel de Rosnay, author of The Symbiotic Man: A
New Understanding of the Organization of Life and a
Vision of the Future (McGraw-Hill, 2000), introduced
a notion I find promising called the macroscope.
Just as microscopes help us to see the infinitely
small and telescopes help us to see the infinitely far,macroscopes help us to see the infinitely complex.
Rather than a single instrument, they are a class of9

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Next Steps
Here are some simple ways to engage emergence:
Ask Possibility-Oriented Questions. Be a champion for theappreciative. Especially in unlikely places, inquire into what
is working, what is possible given what is happening.
Interact with People Outside Your Comfort Zone. Discover
how stimulating it is to experience difference. In the process,you may develop some unexpected partnerships for bringing
together diverse groups who care about the same issues.
Seek More Nuanced Perspectives That Help Us to See
Ourselves in Context. If you are faced with A-versus-B
choices, open up the exploration. Seek out other points ofview. Discover the deeper meaning that connects deeply
felt needs.
Tell Stories of Upheaval Turned to Opportunity. Help taketo scale what is possible when you engage emergence. Shareyour experiences of working with disruption. Explore using
tools that offer a macroscopic view to expand your reach.

tools for sensing complex interconnections among
information, ideas, people, and experiences. Maps,stories, art, media, or some combination could be
used as macroscopic tools that would help us
to see ourselves in a larger context. For example,
consider the brilliant use of technology in a sports
stadium. We are able to experience the game frommany angles. At a glance, the scoreboard tells us

reflections.solonline.org

the state of play. Cameras zoom in so that we cansee the action not just on the field but also in theaudience. Television dramatically extends the reachof the event. And a history of statistics available
online lets both professional commentators andordinary people put the activities in perspective.
We can immerse ourselves in the experience andunderstand it from many perspectives. Imagine
applying such thoughtfulness to making the stateof the economy, education, or a war visible tous all.
Both microscopes and telescopes sparked tremendous innovation. Macroscopes have such potential today. As we appreciate our interconnectedness, our sense of who is our community expands.
The conditions for greater trust and courage
emerge. We act, knowing something about thecollective assumptions and intentions we share.
We become better equipped to work withupheaval and change.
Let us put these notions to work so that wefully engage with the nascent renaissance thatis underway. Begin simply, wherever you are.
I offer three suggestions:t #FDPNQBTTJPOBUFEJTSVQUFST BTLJOHQPTTJCJMJUZ
oriented questions.
t $SFBUJWFMZFOHBHF JOUFSBDUJOHXJUIQFPQMF
outside our comfort zone.
t 4VQQPSUXJTFSFOFXBM UFMMJOHTUPSJFTPG 
upheaval turned to opportunity. O

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peggy Holman is a consultant and the author of Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into
Opportunity. In 2001, she cofounded Journalism That Matters, a national coalition of journalists,
educators, reformers, and others who are reshaping the emerging news and information ecosystem.
In the second edition of The Change Handbook, Peggy and her coauthors profile 61 change
processes. peggy@peggyholman.com

F E AT U R E | S PA N N A N D R I T C H I E  D U N H A M

F E AT U R E 11.4

The Promise of Systems Thinking for
Shifting Fundamental Dynamics
S COT T S PA N N A N D J A M E S R I TC H I E  D U N H A M
All too often, despite people’s best efforts and intentions, the problems they seek to eliminate get worse.
This article looks at what happened when a diverse group of leaders in Guatemala set out to understandthe fundamental dynamics underlying poverty in their country. By integrating principles and practices fromsystems thinking and system dynamics with those rooted in group dynamics and collaboration building, theycreated an integrated systems map that they all agreed represented their world. The representatives thencame to shared agreement about the overall goal of their collective work and identified critical resourcesthat would enable them to move in the direction they all want to go.

People in Guatemala – smart people – were working harder, hiring
brighter people, raising more money, doing better projects, and getting
improved results. And yet, what they sought to eliminate – poverty –was getting worse. So, we asked what we thought was a relatively
straightforward question: “Do you understand the fundamental dynamics ofpoverty?” As it turned out, no one had an answer – not the government, NGOs,
local communities, or business leaders.

Scott SpannWe set out with CARE Latin America to understand this complex problem. We
engaged leaders of the national intelligence service and the military policy andleadership institutes, on the one hand, and members of the former guerrilla
movement, on the other; leaders of the Catholic church and the leading Mayan
philosophers; the head of the president’s commission on local economic development and leaders in local villages – in total, 30 diverse, sometimes historicallyconflicted, perspectives.

Many thought it would be impossible forthese diverse actors to come together inthe same room; for them to reach sharedunderstanding about the impact they each had on their world; andfor them to agree about how to act together to change their world
for the better. Yet, in a surprisingly short time, by integrating principles and practices from systems thinking and system dynamics withthose rooted in group dynamics and collaboration building, representatives from these stakeholder groups were able to create a simple,
James
Ritchie-DunhamThis article was originally published in The Systems Thinker® V19N7, September 2008.

Team Tip
When people are working harder and yet aproblem symptom fails to improve, ask, “Do
we understand the fundamental dynamics
of [the problem]?” Use some of the tools inthis article to improve your knowledge ofthe system.

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one-page representation – an integrated systems
map – that they all agreed represented their world.
This map included all of the system’s parts, theirinteractions, and their goals. It clearly showed why
the groups were experiencing conflict and what
they needed to do about it. Representatives thencame to shared agreement about the overall goalof their collective work. And they identified a handful of critical resources that would enable them tomove it in the direction they all want it to go.
Naturally, several questions come to mind. How
did they make such a major shift in such a shorttime? Can this success be replicated? Can it bescaled? In the spirit of Peter Block, the answer
to all these questions is “yes” (see The Answer
to How is Yes, Berrett-Koehler, 2001).

We applied principles from systems
thinking and system dynamics to
help them flesh out their thinking,get clearer about their leadershiprole, and consider how they reallycan and will cause the change they
believe is needed.
Broadly speaking, the group achieved success byfocusing on building relationships and developing
clarity, first as individuals, then as partners, teams,
and organizations, and finally extending to theirconstituents and society. As a result of this process,they developed six abilities at each of those levels– leadership, trust, innovation, execution, scalability,
and sustainability.
The group used tools you’re likely familiar with: individual interviews and causal maps of diverse stakeholder worldviews; conversation around key themes
using dyads, triads, and small groups; mission building (insisting on positive, measurable, time-specificgoals) to ensure alignment; behavior over time
graphs to assess anticipated performance of thatmission over time; causal mapping and validationof the fully integrated system as a whole; systems

reflections.solonline.org

analyses (including archetype analyses, trends analyses, cross-impact matrix analyses, and stakeholder
assessment matrices); group-as-whole meetings forinclusion, engagement, deliberation, and decision
making; and, finally, organizational and community
dialogue and networking about the process andresults.

A Deeper DiveNow for a deeper dive into how the group accomplished its goals, here’s a more or less chronological flow with a bit of detail to give you a feel forwhat we did to build capacity at the individual,
partner, group, organizational, constituent, andsocietal levels. (For more on this process, you
can download the article “Impossible” at www.
innatestrategies.com.)Individual Leadership
The first thing we needed to know was what theleaders in this system really cared about as humanbeings, regardless of the stated goal of their organizations. What caused them to devote themselves to their work? What did they envision forwhom – their children, students, grandparents,
indigenous peoples – or for what – the forests,
rivers, lakes, fields, wildlife? We set aside the statedgoal of “eliminating poverty” and in one-on-one
interviews asked participants what they werecommitted to in measurable, time-specific terms.
From these kinds of questions came rich, compassionate, human stories at every level and in every
sector of Guatemala. Then we asked the leaders totell us their success stories about how they had
done something similar in the past, had seen it
done, or planned to do it, that is, to give us theirmental models of how the process would unfold.
We applied principles from systems thinking andsystem dynamics to help them flesh out theirthinking, get clearer about their leadership role,and consider how they really can and will cause
the change they believe is needed.
We reflected this information back to participantsin the form of simple causal diagrams that captured
their stories, their goals, and all of the parts andF E AT U R E | S PA N N A N D R I T C H I E  D U N H A M

Fito’s Map
EconomicResources
Profits

Taxes

Productive Capacity
Efficient Processes
Unique Offer to the Marketplace

Consumers
Government

Access toMarketplace
BudgetInvestors

Sufficient Demand for
the Product and Service

Infrastructure

Understanding ofand Responsibility
for the Use of Funds

Local
Decision
Making

The facilitators created simple causal diagrams that
captured participants’ stories, their goals, and all of theparts and interactions.

interactions. The diagrams clarified their thinking
at a higher level and added value to their ability
to perceive, think, and act as leaders. As a result of
the process, we came to know them, care about
them, and even add value to them. And throughthe work, they came to trust us and the process
in which they were about to engage. For an
example, see “Fito’s Map.”

One-to-One Trust
Then, we shared the participants’ stories with thegroup, either in words or through the maps. People
emerged with a new level of understanding, respect, and even appreciation for their perceived“adversaries” in the system. When one set of leaders
could see and understand what other leaders caredabout and were committed to, how thoughtful andrigorous they were about achieving their goals, andhow competent they had been in other situations,
their unquestioned assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes shifted almost immediately. A new level oftrust emerged and, with it, a new level of conversa-

Decentralization ofGovernment’s Process
Local Legitimacyof the Process
Community
Solidarity

Clarity of
Shared Values

Civil
Societytion. These changes stuck over the long run. Today,
the leaders are attending one another’s meetings,
engaged in one another’s networks, and sharing
information, ideas, and solutions.

Group Innovation
Unfortunately, we still had a problem. We had entered the system through the portal of “eliminating
poverty.” That’s a negative goal, and negative goals
don’t work very well, because they don’t clarify
what people truly want or are trying to create (seeRobert Fritz’s Path of Least Resistance, Ballantine,1989). It’s hard to visualize a negative goal (try it!).
So, working from the foundation of trust andclarified understanding that had been created, we
identified a small subset of themes and createdsubgroups (we adapted this practice from Yvonne
Agazarian’s work on the interplay between individual, subgroup, and group-as-a-whole dynamics;
see Systems-Centered Group Therapy, Guilford, 1997).
Subgroups are critical for building collaborative
capacity because they bridge the gap between

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reflections.solonline.org© iStockphoto.com

individual conversations and full-group conversations, enabling those who think they are alreadyaligned to first discover, as Agazarian would say,“the differences among the apparently similar” and,then and only then, “the similarities among theapparently different.”
For example, when we brought together the subgroup focused on the elimination of poverty, themembers all assumed that it would be the “sameold” conversation – but it wasn’t. We quickly discovered that we couldn’t even agree on what poverty
was (for example, some people without shoes andliving on the land were quite happy and didn’t consider themselves poor even when others did). As
differences within their apparently similar views
emerged, the participants debated vigorously, trying to resolve their diverse points of view. It wasn’t
until they began to offer up positive goals, however,that their conversations began to converge. Subgroup members quickly came to the realization thatwhat they really cared about was “economic selfdetermination”; that is, they couldn’t guarantee thatan individual wouldn’t deliberately choose to be“poor,” but they could build a society that would

enable the individual to have a choice. This conversation was incredibly deep, surfacing and integrating universal concepts of liberty, equality,
and solidarity.
Once this goal had been identified, the groupassessed past trends using a behavior over time
graph. As a result of the meaningful conversations
that led up to the goal setting, what emerged next
was a rich, rigorous exchange of information. Individuals with responsibilities and expertise fromvarious parts of the system swapped data backand forth, reshaping their perspectives about
the behavior of Guatemalan society relative tothis issue over time.
The group came to a sobering conclusion (see“Ability to Self-Determine”): That if the downward
trend of economic self-determination did not correct itself, Guatemalan society risked a resurgenceof the violence that had swept the country prior tothe civil war in the early 1960s. This was a somber
moment for the group, one that renewed theirsense of urgency. They all knew that they couldn’t
let that worst-case scenario happen. So, theyF E AT U R E | S PA N N A N D R I T C H I E  D U N H A M

debated what had to happen by when in order toensure that the goal of improving economic selfdetermination could be achieved. The conversation was short and direct: We must immediately
reverse the trend, progressing steadily to a reasonably high level of democracy and real justice overthe next 10 years.

agree on why and how economic self-determination was continuing to fall, despite their best efforts. To make the roots of these trends visible, we
had to take the individual perspectives (the causalmaps) of each of the diverse stakeholders and integrate them into a single, inclusive worldview –their own systems map of Guatemalan society.

The emotional and intellectual energy from thisconversation was palpable in the room. Even
today, whenever we sense that the process is lagging, all we have to do is flash the group’s graphon the wall again, reawakening their original realization. We anchored and expanded participants’ability to innovate by having them pair up anddevelop practices to ensure that they actively
internalized both possibilities – the pessimist’s
downward trend and the idealist’s upward one– as the dynamic from which creative energy
will emerge.

This expanded perspective made it clear why
and how poverty endured, conflict continued, andadversaries couldn’t come to agreement via traditional means. Their system – this “blind, amoral
beast” with a lot of momentum – simply reacted“unthinkingly” to inputs to its structure. The conflict wasn’t personal (though it felt that way), but
structural. This was a significant breakthrough,enabling the leaders to see and understandhow they and people they had come to respect
through this process somehow generated resultsthat caused harm to others.

Organizational Execution

What was most significant about this new, more
inclusive, and more rigorous perspective was thatthe participants began to see how to act in thesystem and how to effect the changes they all
believed were necessary. Aided by the analyses

The compelling nature of the situation became
clearly visible as an unambiguous, uncompromised collective understanding and agreement.
But the leaders couldn’t yet see, understand, or

15

Ability to Self-Determine
Authentic Self- 10
Determination(Real Democracy
and Justice)8

6

DesiredState

Peace Accords
1996

FRG Elected
in 2000
Gap

4
Lack of SelfDetermination 2(Slavery/
Authoritarianism)
0

Return to
Democracy
1985-20 years(1 generation)

ActualState
Today

20 years(1 generation)

Using a behavior overtime graph, the group cameto a sobering conclusion:
That if the downward trendof economic self-determination did not correct itself,
Guatemalan society risked
a resurgence of the violence
that had swept the country
prior to the civil war in theearly 1960s.

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Authentic Stakeholder Collaboration
Creating,
at the level of:Relationship

Clarity

Ability

Self

Grounding in your context, experiencing
your system, and choosing your role

Internalizing a systemic pointof view and taking a personal stand

Leadership

AnotherEngaging with others in their passion,
their work goal, and a success story, andadding value to them

Creating an individual causal mapof their goal, their top 3–5 corecompetencies, and their story

Trust

Team

Gathering around shared passions,discovering a positive goal, anddescribing your shared reality

Discovering and assessing your global
goal by understanding that goal’s
behavior over time; mapping thesystem as a whole

Innovation

Organization

Sharing the work and worldview withthe organization and exploring its
implications

Analyzing your map to discover
your solution set; assessing theorganization’s fit with reality

Execution

ConstituentsEngaging constituents, helping themto shape their identity and define what
they seek

Formulating a viral strategy
for execution at the constituent level

Scalability

Ecosystem

Giving critical stakeholders a voice,demonstrating your understanding andadding value

Integrating stakeholder goals, needs,
and value exchange via a thoughtful,balanced stakeholder assessment

Sustainability

we mentioned before (archetypes, trends, matrices,and so on), they extracted a handful of variablesfrom the model that, if they rigorously and systematically changed, could begin to shift thesystem. When coupled with group members’learnings from the larger map, this understanding
and agreement about the need to source each of
their projects in the identity of their constituents– those they were most seeking to support –became the basis for robust organizational action.

passionate energies were bounded and channeledby the rigor of the societal systems map. Throughthese discussions, the participants experienced
one another as thoughtful, committed, caring, andcreative individuals struggling to resolve complex
problems. Through the larger map and analysis,
they found clarity about how to shift their sharedsystem, not with another symptomatic solution,
but at the root-cause level.

Scalability

The final hurdle/opportunity to overcome was toensure the sustainability of the process. Sustainability is a function of the “ecosystem,” whether
a biological, social, or environmental ecosystem.
In Guatemala, the ecosystem of most immediateconcern was the socio-political one. Avoiding“extinction” in such an ecosystem meant understanding the commitments, concerns, and circumstances of the major actors. While much of thisknowledge emerged naturally along the way,

Next came the process of deciding where to start
this “movement,” how to spread it, and how to
enable it to self-direct and then self-sustain. For
CARE Guatemala, it started with the group’s appreciation of the system as a whole and the actors in
it. The organization hosted a series of presentationsof their systemic map, inviting other stakeholders
to critique their insights. What resulted, even withformer foes, were profound conversations whose

Sustainability

F E AT U R E | S PA N N A N D R I T C H I E  D U N H A M

the group took the time to document and thenvalidate it. Doing so enabled members to (1) enter
into relationship with critical stakeholders in thelarger system and (2) anticipate, adapt, and avoid
solutions that would not survive in the ecosystemover time.
This whole process – from individual relationships to ecosystem sustainability – is reflected in“Authentic Stakeholder Collaboration.”

From Insights to Practice
In addition to their newly established, ongoing
dialogue and work with members of the Guatemalan government, other NGOs, and local constituencies, CARE International is working with 12 partnering NGOs to put these insights into practice.
This collaboration is working with 28,000 peoplein 47 communities in the Cuilco Coatan watershed
in western Guatemala, helping them rebuild theirlives in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane
Stan. Others in CARE Central America are seeking
to introduce the process into their work as well.
Something meaningful and useful became possible when these leaders in Guatemala successfully
integrated the best of what it means to be humanwithin their work, their relationships, and themselves. They internalized both the intellectual rigor

of systems thinking and system dynamics alongwith the emotional rigor that comes from truly
engaging, understanding, and empathizing with
one another. In the process, they collectively
shifted their perspectives, bringing themselves

Something meaningful and useful
became possible when theseleaders in Guatemala successfully
integrated the best of what itmeans to be human within theirwork, their relationships, andthemselves.
into greater alignment with their shared reality,and began to act in ways that benefited thewhole. What began as something none of thembelieved was possible has become a new way ofperceiving, thinking, and acting in their efforts tocause deep, lasting impact for those they mostcare about. O
For other papers, books, and presentations on thiswork and process, go to the Institute for Strategic
Clarity (www.instituteforstrategicclarity.org).

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
R. Scott Spann, MPA, is founder of Innate Strategies, where he works to create deep, lasting
impact in business and in society. He integrates leading-edge learnings from business, psychology,
system dynamics, and life sciences to solve seemingly intractable business and social problems.
scott@innatestrategies.com
James L. Ritchie-Dunham is president of the Institute for Strategic Clarity and an associate at
Harvard University. His work focuses on the emergence of ecosynomics as a new form of humanagreements, integrating previous forms of socio-psycho-economic frameworks.
jimrd@instituteforstrategicclarity.org

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F E AT U R E 11.4

The World Café Goes Local:
A Town Plans for the Future
PETER HECHENBLEIKNER, DEBORAH GILBURG, AND KERRY DUNNELL“How can we as a community align ourselves to define our collective future?” That’s the question that
prompted residents of the town of Reading, Massachusetts, to hold the community’s first World Café conversation. This article summarizes how the Reading World Café came together and the resulting outcomes.
Whereas previous efforts to engage community members in broader thinking had met with limited success,the café drew more than 200 people at a time when, in general, public participation has dwindled andpublic discourse has become contentious. The process gave town officials data that was of higher quality
than what might have resulted from focus groups or surveys, because it emerged from an exploratory
conversation among people interested in the community.

Peter Hechenbleikner

Deborah Gilburg

Kerry DunnellIn the evening of February 27, 2008, the town of Reading, Massachusetts (population 23,708) held its
first World Café conversation. The event, open to anyone who lived or worked in Reading, attracted
about 220 participants, including high school students, senior citizens, businesspeople, representatives from cultural, religious, and other nonprofit institutions, volunteers, activists, and residents
who had never been involved in local activities before. People new to Reading and life-long octogenarian
residents alike were all present to talk about what they wanted for the future of their community.
At that time, no other Massachusetts municipality had hosted
a World Café or similar process. We believe, however, that thiskind of community-wide conversation offers valuable benefits to cities and towns that wish to increase civic engagement
and qualitative community input in planning for the future,
particularly during a time of stagnant budgets, escalatingThis article was originally published in The Systems Thinker® V19N5,
June/July 2008.

Team Tip
Following the lead of the Reading
World Café organizers, pay carefulattention to gaining buy-in fromstakeholder groups for any new
initiative.

F E AT U R E | H E C H E N B L E I K N E R , G I L B U R G , A N D D U N N E L L

costs, competing special interests, contentious
public discourse, and dwindling public participation. We offer the story of our process – how theReading World Café came together and the outcomes that resulted – to illuminate the practicalrole of inclusive conversation as a means of identifying priorities and building systemic support incommunity governance.

Why a World Café
It started in June 2007 in a kitchen, where a handful of people met to talk about the possibility of
hosting a community-wide conversation about
the future of Reading. The group was drawn tothis idea for a number of reasons.
Reading has a strong history of community involvement. In addition to local governance boards,
committees, and representative town meeting,Reading boasts dozens of volunteer organizations
dedicated to schools, environmental activism,
social services, charity, arts and culture, religious
pursuits, and neighborly networking. However,these groups generally operate independent of
one another, focusing only on their perceived
sphere of influence. The folks around the kitchen
table were attracted to the potential in all thatdivergent volunteer energy, asking “How can
we as a community align ourselves to define
the collective future of Reading?”
The idea greatly interested Pat Schettini, superintendent of Reading Public Schools, who had cometo this initial meeting excited to consider thatquestion. “Given the strong community involvement we’ve seen in the past, hosting an open,
expansive community dialogue about the futuresounded doable,” commented Schettini. “Yet I
have seen many public discussions deteriorate
and polarize in the face of controversy andstrong opinions – to the point where folks wereno longer listening to or learning from eachother. I am interested in encouraging more inclusive and courteous discussions to determine
what is important to this town.”

Over the past several years, the Reading community had experienced its share of conflict over anumber of local issues, including commercial development proposals, interstate highway projects,
redistricting for elementary and middle schools,
budget allocations, tax overrides, and the town’swater supply. Passions over these issues tended to
run high, and the discussions often led to debatesand even shouting matches; dialogue was scarce.
A recent rezoning controversy concerning a retaildevelopment had become heated. “I think the debate became so volatile because as a community
we hadn’t really explored what our future couldbe,” observed Priscilla Hollenbeck, one of the original conversation organizers. “We had to take a
step back and consider, if not this, then what do
we want as a community? We needed to heal thedivisiveness and focus on a common vision.” Thepeople gathered around the kitchen table thought
the World Café might be a way to do so.
Previous efforts to engage community membersin broader thinking had met with limited success.
For example, Reading had recently finalized its
10-year master plan, a document that identified
more than 150 projects and actions for the town
to undertake. Despite the best efforts of the master plan committee to draw citizens to any number of public meetings, this process drew little
community input. As a result, the town manager
and board of selectmen had only limited data on
community interests to consider when developing
priorities. In addition, the school district had completed its District Improvement Plan, which also
contained many recommendations and objectives
that reflected the best efforts of a relatively small
number of dedicated residents.
It became clear to those who met that morning in
June that hosting a World Café conversation could
have tremendous benefit to the community, notonly because of the potential for collecting qualitative data about what people cared about, butalso because of the positive, collaborative experience the community could have by talking about
their future together. “The hope was that we would
get a sense of what the community valued most

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as part of the World Café conversation process,”reflected school committee member Elaine Webb.
“The data generated will be valuable in helping
those of us charged with implementing theseplans prioritize our next steps.”
As with all things new, the approach was not without risk. Whether real or perceived, the possibility
that the event could fail and make matters evenworse was an underlying concern. Luckily, one of
the initial organizers was an experienced facilitator
who utilized similar processes in her consulting
work, and she was able to bring her experienceto the group of eager enthusiasts.

How It All Came Together
While the idea to host this event began with justreflections.solonline.org

a few people, over the course of the eight months
it took to implement the World Café, the concept
captured the interest and curiosity of many others.
The first step for the organizers was to attract“Supporters” to draw participants to the Café.
Once engaged, these individuals and organizations
would help promote the event and ensure adiverse representation of perspectives.
Armed with a date, a venue, and a list of resources
needed, the planning team organized an informational meeting in October 2007. They invited representatives from every group and organization
they could think of. The team chose to use the introductory meeting to run a mini-version of theWorld Café so those in attendance could experience
the conversation process for themselves. During

Questions to Consider

Because the World Café process was new and unusual, many were unsure and even suspicious
about its capabilities. The planning committee had to reckon with the following questions toensure a high-quality event.
t What if people have a difficult time understanding what the World Café is? How do you

get them to participate? We found it important to distinguish the World Café process from thekinds of public forums that people had attended in the past, and make the information about
the process transparent and accessible. The planning team created a website, drafted an FAQ,
spoke at dozens of meetings, ran a panel discussion on community access TV, sent out press
releases, made personal calls, and used the connections and networks of the event Supporters
to disseminate information.
t How does this differ from formal decision-making processes? This was perhaps the mostdifficult question to answer and required active support from the board of selectmen, schoolcommittee, town manager, and superintendent of schools. The message that this process was
not in lieu of official decisions, but rather a complement to them, had to be reinforced on aregular basis.
t Who needs to be involved? The planning team sought as many local organizations, community leaders, and businesses as possible to support the event. The goal was to attract folks
across a broad spectrum in interests, values, and perspectives. The team created categories
of support with different levels of commitment to make it easier for groups to sign on.
t How difficult is it to organize a World Café conversation? The World Café organization isa great resource for groups that would like to host a community conversation (www.theworld
cafe.com). Their website offers instructions, supplies, and case studies. We found it helpful tohave the aid of a person experienced in this style of communication to lead the effort.

F E AT U R E | H E C H E N B L E I K N E R , G I L B U R G , A N D D U N N E L L

this recruitment workshop, the participants wereasked to share their perspectives on the questions:“What do I value about this community? Whatwould make this community stronger and moreconnected?”“I was pleasantly surprised,” remarked Selectman
James Bonazoli of the conversation experience. “I
had anticipated there being some kind of hidden
agenda or ulterior motive involved, but the conversations were authentic and energizing. I reallyenjoyed hearing what people had to say.”
Curiosity among a broader group for what mightcome of a Reading World Café had been sparked.
Over the course of the next several months, theplanning team worked to build the list of Supporters, meeting with many different organizations to gain formal and informal sponsorshipfor the event.
Early on, the team discovered it was important
to list the essential questions and trajectory for
the Café conversation on all marketing materials
in order to clarify intentions and keep the processtransparent. Accordingly, they developed a logo,
an FAQ, press releases, and promotional flyers.
With the help of early Supporters, the Reading
World Café developed a website and an online
RSVP process. They enlisted volunteers to manage
communications, set up and break down thevenue, and supply refreshments and entertainment
during the reception hour. They recruited a visual
recorder willing to capture the event graphically,
and contacted the local newspapers and community television network (see “Questions toConsider”).
“Many people are asking, what will happen at theWorld Café? What will come of it?” noted schoolcommittee member David Michaud, during aninterview on Reading Community Television. “Thefact is no one really knows – it is all part of themystique and excitement of expansive, collaborative conversation. In the end, however, I believe
it will be the experience we have together thatmatters most.”

The Reading World Café Event
The evening of February 27, 2008 began with ahalf hour reception in the entrance hall to the highschool field house. It didn’t snow until 11:00 thatevening – a blessing in New England! Inside thefield house itself, 45 round tables, each with fivechairs, were covered with large sheets of plain
paper and cups of colored markers. A projection
screen was positioned so that people seated at
the tables could see the questions on slides (see“The World Café in Action,” p. 23). Participants
arrived curious about what exactly they had
signed up for.

The questions used that night
allowed participants to explore
what they valued most about
Reading and what possibilities
they hoped would be a partof the town’s future.
Over the course of two and a half hours, the crowd
participated in four rounds of conversation. Participants were invited to be “courteous and curious”
during their conversations, and a “recorder” foreach table was asked to keep records of what was
discussed on the sheets of paper. The questions
used that night allowed participants to explore
what they valued most about Reading and what
possibilities they hoped would be a part of thetown’s future. Between rounds, all participants
except the recorders were asked to move independently to other tables. The movement encouraged divergence and infused each table withnew perspectives at each round.
At the end of the evening, the participants wereasked to capture on large sticky notes (one idea
per note) their ideas about Dreams, Opportunities,
Dilemmas, and Next Steps. Notes were collected
and posted on large templates located in the frontof the room for all to see. The notes were latertranscribed and published on the Reading World
Café website. The templates and graphic recording

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remained on display at the Reading Public Libraryfor the following month (see “The Future and What
We Want,” p. 24).
Closing comments shared in the plenary revealed
that people felt energized, connected, and inspired.
“I loved being included in this process,” offered ateenaged girl. “It felt really good to have the adults
in this town listen to what we kids have to say.”“I felt so respected by the people here,” added ayoung parent. “I am proud to be a member ofthis community.”

The World Café process gave town
officials data that was of a higher
quality than what might havecome from focus groups or surveys,
because it was the result of an
explorative conversation between
people interested in the community.
The energy level of individuals that night was
positive and uplifting. The town administrators
collected an armload of forms with names, contact
information, and stated interest in following up on
outcomes. When people reluctantly left the venue
at the end of the evening, they were eager toknow when the results would be available andwhen another World Café could be scheduled.

Outcomes
Members of the planning team organized andsummarized the results of the World Café conversation. Overall, the sticky notes indicated that residents and business people wanted a richer community experience. There was a strong interest in:t *ODSFBTFEDPNNVOJUZEJWFSTJUZ
t .VMUJHFOFSBUJPOBMTQBDFTt 8BZTBOEQMBDFTUPDPNFUPHFUIFSUPMFBSO
and celebratet "EPXOUPXOBSFBBTBGPDBMQPJOUGPSDPNNVOJUZ
connection through social gathering spots, acommunity or cultural arts center, and morerestaurants

reflections.solonline.orgt "DDFTTJCMFPVUEPPSTQBDFSBOHJOHGSPNTJEFwalks and walking paths to more usable open
spaces and parkst 1VCMJDFGGPSUTUPHPiHSFFOwBOECFDPNF
more environmentally friendlyt *ODSFBTFEDPNNVOJDBUJPOBOECFUUFSVTFPGUIF
town website, including a community calendar
These thoughts and suggestions were sprinkled
throughout the four templates, taking the formof broad hopes, concrete suggestions to capitalize
on community strengths, practical challenges
such as funding and low public participation,
and actual steps that could be taken to increase
communication and idea implementation.
“It is clear to me that people want more information about what is happening in the community,”
acknowledged school committee member Lisa
Gibbs. “And they definitely want the results ofthis conversation acknowledged and used by
the governing bodies. Those of us who are local
officials also need to make it clear how valuable
this kind of feedback is.”The World Café process gave town officials datathat was of a higher quality than what might havecome from focus groups or surveys, because it was
the result of an explorative conversation between
people interested in the community. People hadtime to listen to each other as well as express theirideas before converging on concrete suggestions.
As a result, the suggestions spoke to a deeper
need for strong community and a quality of lifethat might not be as evident in results fromanonymous surveys or small focus groups.
Much of the data collected that evening was nota surprise to local decision makers; they had heard
these perspectives before. Nonetheless, the Café
event helped to reinforce and validate those issues, and provided great assistance in prioritizingthem. Town officials responsible for setting community goals and program initiatives can establish
priorities confident of the support from a broadcross-section of the community. The ability toproceed with the “wind at one’s back” versus

F E AT U R E | H E C H E N B L E I K N E R , G I L B U R G , A N D D U N N E L L

23The World Cafe in Action

The Reading
high school
field house was
the setting for
the World Café.

anticipating public inertia or resistance can behighly motivating for the volunteers who holdthese important positions.
Town officials are not the only ones who benefit
from the data; other community organizations arealso privy to the collective perspectives, desires,and concerns of the participants. This information
can inform direction, mission, and collaborative
efforts. For example, the event spurred discussions
between a local bank with excess property in the
downtown area and an umbrella cultural groupthat has been seeking space for a performing
arts center.
In addition, participants connected with othersin their community who share an interest in Reading’s future, and they were able to influence theshape of that future. Perspectives were altered;
new insights gleaned. “I have always felt I neededto advocate passionately for the environment,”
commented one participant after the conversation event. “I was really struck at how easily theidea of ‘going green’ took hold without my expending all that energy; and I was able to listen toothers in a new way.”
Finally, participants and the community organizations learned a new way of communicating,or perhaps, discovered the lost art of communication. In Reading, the World Café has become
a lexicon for inclusive, respectful dialogue thathas spread throughout the town, cropping up inchurch gatherings, official committee meetings,
and the Substance Abuse Prevention program;it has become the methodology of choice forcommunity conversation.

A Valuable Step
The World Café process can be a valuable step
between community involvement and formal decision making. When held in a productive mannerthat expands creative thinking, increases interaction, and affords a safe, inquisitive environment,
conversations about important questions in which
everyone has a stake can provide qualitative datafor decision makers as well as invite a more collaborative and inclusive form of civic engagement.
Taking time to discover collective perspectives
and desires – without the pressure of an imminent
decision – permits the emergence of new possibilities, reduces resistance, and creates a shared experience that can fuel the courage needed to facean uncertain future.
In the words of 10-year-old Madeline Hollenbeck,
who observed the event, “I liked Reading World
Café because it was important. It was a chance
for all of Reading to get together and speak out
about what was on their mind. It was helpful tothe community because it made people think
about things that they may have never thought
about before. If more people work together onsomething they agree needs work, it will get donequicker. And afterward everybody can admire
what they’ve accomplished together.” O

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reflections.solonline.org

The Future and What We Want

A visual recorder captured the event graphically.

UpdateS

ince we wrote this article, the Town of Reading has met its share of ups and downs; however,the World Café experience remains a touchstone for community leaders. In the fall of 2011,
Reading hosted three community conversations in response to outcries over two drug-related
homicides. The victims were young men who were graduates from Reading Memorial High, andtheir deaths raised concerns about substance abuse among Reading youth.
The first conversation was held in World Café fashion and attracted almost 200 people on short
notice. Several participants had been to the first World Café four years earlier. The two followup meetings were held in a different format, but attracted equal numbers and involved someconversation among the audience members. When Town Manager Peter Hechenbleikner (whofacilitated the third meeting) asked whether people would come to more town-hosted conversations, the audience overwhelmingly said yes. The seed we planted four years ago has taken
root, and we look forward to watching it bloom.

ABOUT THE AUTHORSPeter Hechenbleikner has been town manager in Reading, Massachusetts, since 1987. He serveson the boards of a number of Massachusetts professional organizations and chairs the Massachusetts
Open Meeting Law Advisory Commission. townmanager@ci.reading.ma.us
Deborah Gilburg has been a resident of Reading since 1996. A member of the Reading World
Café planning team and facilitator of the event, Deborah is also a principal of Gilburg Leadership
Incorporated, a Massachusetts-based consulting firm. deborah@gilburgleadership.com
Kerry Dunnell has been a resident of Reading since 2001. Professionally, she serves as program
manager of a healthcare emergency preparedness coalition focused on information sharing
and response planning. kdunnell@bu.edu

F E AT U R E | B O J E R

F E AT U R E 11.4

We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This:
Developing the Capacity for
Cross-Sector Collaboration
MILLE BOJER
We are faced with complex, global problems with many manifestations, numerous causes, and multiple
players exerting different kinds of influence over them. This complexity requires us to work out creativeand systemic solutions by not only communicating but also learning and collaborating across sectors,
levels, and cultures. In this article, Mille Bojer uses the example of the Leadership and Innovation Network
for Collaboration in the Children’s Sector (LINC) in South Africa to explore how we can build cross-sector
collaboration aimed at creating systemic change. LINC brings together stakeholders from different sectors
in Innovation Labs, where they develop collaborative leadership skills and design groundbreaking,systemic responses to help at-risk children.

Not long ago, I participated in a climate change event in Johannesburg,
South Africa. In the room were one of the lead negotiators for theSouth African government on climate change, key activists, a representative from a major energy company, a few scientists, and about 40
others. The facilitator opened the event by reminding the group of Albert Einstein’s
famous statement, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” The session then continued with a series of PowerPoint
presentations from the different constituencies, with no time for questions orMille Bojer
dialogue. Several of the presentations were excellent, but
my overriding feeling as I listened to speaker after speaker was “these people don’t
speak each other’s language.”

Team Tip

At the end of the session, I commented with some emotion that “we can’t solve
this problem with the same level of communication that created it.” By that I meant
not only the conference setup. I meant the scientific language, the graphs, theacronyms, the detached analysis, the corporate image-orientation, as well as
the dismissive activist style and the very localized and disconnected community
perspective.
I felt that what I had witnessed during the session was not the solution, but rather
the climate change problem coming into being. I left feeling discouraged about
our ability to address this monumental challenge.
This article was originally published in The Systems Thinker® V19N9, November 2008.

Discuss the following statement
as it applies to your organizational
context: “We can’t solve thisproblem with the same level ofcommunication that created it.”How might you change the ways
in which you communicate inorder to tackle problems in a
profoundly new way?

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Why We Must Change
From climate change to AIDS, from culture clashes
to poverty, we are faced with complex, global
problems. These problems have many causes andmany manifestations, and multiple different players have different kinds of influence over them.
Cause and effect are distant in time and space andnot easily discernible. The causes themselves have

[These problems] require us towork out creative and systemic
solutions by not only communicating but also learning andcollaborating across sectors,
levels, and cultures.
many causes of their own and are often interlinked
and reinforce each other: Poverty causes AIDS,AIDS causes poverty, and both poverty and AIDS are
causes of the rise in the number of vulnerable children.
Because of this complexity, solutions directed at
one part of the system, without a view of thewhole, can compound problems in another part:
The prospect of climate change increases use of
biofuels which leads to food shortages which leadto increased deforestation which in turn compounds
carbon emissions and increases climate change(see “Interlinked Problems” on p. 27).
This is the reality of the messes we are copingwith in the globalized world of the 21st century.
There is no one button or leverage point that wecan press to make these problems go away. They
require us to work out creative and systemic solutions by not only communicating but also learning and collaborating across sectors, levels, andcultures. We just can’t get out of these situations
separately.
For the past couple of years, I have had the privilege
to work intensively on a cross-sector collaboration
project called LINC (Leadership and Innovation
Network for Collaboration in the Children’s Sector),
which addresses the difficult situation currently

reflections.solonline.org

faced by South Africa’s children. Primarily as a resultof the HIV/AIDS pandemic and compounded byother factors, over one million orphans under theage of 18 currently live in the country. Many morechildren subsist in difficult circumstances. This unprecedented, heartbreaking situation is straining
people, communities, and institutions. The LINC
project brings together senior officials from four
government departments, CEOs of NGOs andfaith-based organizations, leaders of major business foundations and other business representatives, as well as community members, academics,
and international donors. These people participate in a series of “Innovation Labs” combinedwith leadership coaching, project coaching,and networking support in order to develop
collaborative leadership and innovative, systemic
responses to the crisis.
Through this work and many other recent experiences, I have been paying attention to what I canlearn about cross-sector collaboration aimed ataddressing complex problems and creating systemic solutions. What are the qualities of the typesof solutions we need? What mindsets and capacities
do we need in order to be effective? How do weovercome the blockages we face? What processes
and resources can support this work? My intention
with this article is to share some of these ideas toF E AT U R E | B O J E R

contribute to strengthening a wider dialogue
and practice, and to build our capacity to copein these times.

Interlinked Problemss

ClimateChangeSystemic Solutionss

There are many different understandings of what
it means to think or act “systemically.” For years,
I used the word “systemic” because it soundedright, without having a clear picture in my mindof what it meant. I knew that it had to do with seeing connections and relationships, addressing root
causes, and shifting our way of thinking. I didn’t
really know how to recognize a “systemic solution”
when I saw one.

CarbonEmissions

As my colleagues and I in South Africa started
to work on high-stakes projects with multistakeholder groups, challenging them to come up with“systemic solutions,” we had to get specific about
what that meant. On that journey, we encounteredElisabeth Dostal, co-author of Biomatrix: A Systems
Approach to Organisational and Societal Change(African Sun Press, 2003), whose life has been
about applying systems thinking to complex
social problems like poverty and unemployment.
As we engaged with Elisabeth and with eachother around the deeper meaning of our work,
we started to see the following:internal). These approaches embrace paradoxes
and look for both/and instead of either/or. As an
example, it is futile to discuss whether AIDS is ahealth problem or a poverty problem; it is bothand requires solutions working on both these
dimensions (and many others).

Systemic Solutions Shift Logic
They change some of the underlying thinking
that is producing the problem situation, thus goingto the source of the problem. As a result, systemic
solutions aim at problem-dissolving, as opposed
to problem-solving (which tries to “fix” a problem
within a current logic). This is, I suppose, what
Einstein was also trying to communicate: that thelogic of the solution is not the same as the logicof the problem.

Systemic Solutions Work on Multiple
Dimensions and Levels
Because complex problems are produced bymany causes, systemic solutions have to work on
multiple dimensions (for example, technological,
economic, and cultural) and levels (for example,
global, societal, organizational, individual, and27

Use ofBiofuelss

R

Deforestation

Food
ShortagesssSystemic Solutions Harness Synergies
One of the core ideas of systems thinking is that“the whole is more than the sum of the parts.”
Systems display emergent properties that are unpredictable outcomes of the interplay between
their parts, the relationships between their parts,
their context, and what could be called their identity. Emergent properties can be either synergistic(more than the sum of the parts, with the parts
reinforcing each other positively) or dissynergistic(less than the sum of the parts, with the parts
undermining each other, leading to a dysfunctional whole). Ideally, a systemic solution shifts
some of the “vicious” cycles among causal
factors to “virtuous” cycles.

Systemic Solutions Are Iterative
Because cause and effect are so complex in these
big messy problem situations, we can’t predict all
the outcomes of an intervention with certainty(Russell Ackoff coined the term “mess” as it relates
to major complex societal problems). This meansthat we can’t completely separate planning from
implementation. Rather, there has to be a constantcommunication and iteration between our

The prospectof climate change
increases use of
biofuels which leads
to food shortages
which lead toincreased deforestation which in turn
compounds carbon
emissions andincreases climatechange.

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reflections.solonline.org© Thinkstockphotos.com

conceptual reality and physical reality. We need towork on reperceiving and rethinking the situation
at the level of the whole (shifting conceptual reality), and then act on this basis in physical reality
at the local level. Then we need to attentively
observe what is happening, or emerging, in thephysical reality and consider whether it has
implications for changing our thinking.

Talking Across Sectors
To act more on the level of “whole” problems
and “whole” systems, we must get together withpeople who are based in a different part of thatwhole. We need to get better at talking to eachother across sectors and at working in partnershipwhere necessary. How we do so effectively is avast topic. For the purposes of this article, I’ve
chosen to focus on four important principles thatstand out in reflecting on our recent practice inSouth Africa:t #FDPNJOHTFMGBXBSFBTTFDUPSTt 6OEFSTUBOEJOHDPNQMFNFOUBSJUJFTt *UFSBUJOHXJUIJONJDSPDPTNT BOEt 4FFJOHUIFTZTUFNJOUIFSPPN

Becoming Self-Aware as Sectors
One of the biggest reasons cross-sector collaboration is difficult is because sectors have different
logics, values, priorities, and comfort zones, inshort, different cultures. People seldom invest inunderstanding these different identities, eventhough it is an integral part of cross-sector partnership efforts. They fail to give attention to theneed for the cross-sector system to self-reflect andcreate a healthy foundation for its work together.
My favorite university course was an interdisciplinary one on international development. For a year,
I worked in a team composed of a biologist, ageographer, an engineer, a humanities student,
and myself – a political science student. Our jointtask was to study development and to write apaper about shrimp farming in Bangladesh. The
real genius of the course was that half the assignment – half the time, half the paper, and half ofour shared mark in the end – was based on ourability to become aware of the differences inlogic across our disciplines and to create a crossdisciplinary, shared scientific methodology as ateam. Though I didn’t have the language for it

F E AT U R E | B O J E R

at the time, I think we were creating a systemic
way of looking at the problem and its solutions
because we had to find a place for each of ourdisciplines, and in doing so, we had to look at theissue from the multiple dimensions represented
by our disciplines.
Until I participated in this course, I never realized
how disciplines are like cultures. Our team startedout by trying to describe the assumptions andnorms of each of our disciplines, which most of
us had never thought about. We drew on crosscultural literature in designing our group process
and philosophy of science. The course offered usa unique opportunity to self-reflect on our differences as a team, while still having a clear collective
goal of something we all had a stake in producing.
How often are we given a chance to give equal
attention to our collective process and culture
as we do to our product?
As with disciplines, professions and sectors arealso like cultures. But while a lot of attention goes
into cross-cultural education, little seems to go
into interdisciplinary or cross-sectoral understanding. As part of our education, we generally don’t
learn how to become aware of the assumptionsof our disciplines and how they differ from thoseof other fields.
At the first “Innovation Lab” of the LINC project,
we had nearly 50 leaders from across sectors in theroom. One of the tasks on the opening day was forthem to spend time with people from their own
sector in a dialogue around the things that they
were proud of and the things that they were sorry
about in relation to their sector’s response to thesituation of the country’s children. Each sector
presented back to the larger group while theothers listened and reflected.
This session proved to be one of the most powerful
moments of the event. Why? Because participants
benefited from time for self-reflection to acknowledge the differences between the sectors and tonotice the varied ways the sectors tackled the task
and shared their stories. Also, the process disarmed

some of the negative dynamics across sectors,
because each sector had a chance to name foritself its own weaknesses and challenges.

Understanding Complementarities
Surfacing the differences across sectoral cultures
is only a first step. The path to creating synergy liesin understanding that there are complementarities
across these differences, seeing what these complementarities are, and then finding ways ofharnessing them.

To act more on the level of“whole” problems and “whole”
systems, we must get together
with people who are based ina different part of that whole.
One of the major challenges in developing true
cross-sector collaboration is that the sectors haveperceptions and judgments of each other. At therisk of being simplistic, I would even dare to venture that sometimes people in a sector just want
the others to “go away.” Government and corporations at times want civil society to go away sothey can get on with their jobs. NGOs want corporations and government to go away, and corporations want NGOs and government to go away.
Or, they wish that the other sectors could be more
like themselves, think like they do, and operatefrom the same logic.
I experienced a powerful moment of shifting such
perceptions and discovering complementarity inthe LINC project. In the first phase of the initiative,
we interviewed 40 stakeholders, and we werestruck that many of them were struggling withthe same burning question: Given that millionsof children in South Africa are in need of care, should
we be going for a “Woolworths” solution or a “Checkers” solution? In South Africa, Woolworths is a highend supermarket that provides expensive but
healthy, high-quality products to a small portionof the population, while Checkers is a low-end

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supermarket that provides cheap products to themasses. So the question was: Do we provide a basic
package of services to the largest number of children
possible, or do we focus on a smaller number ofchildren that we can give personal attention to andprovide with everything they need? One of the interviewees told us, “I always think of the five kids we
fed today, I don’t think about the 5,000 we couldn’t
feed. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

The idea of convening a microcosm
is that you create a group thattogether has the power to see thewhole situation and to act on or
influence it.
At the time of doing and analyzing the interviews,
I didn’t even notice that this question of quantity
versus quality, which seemed valid, was coming
only from the NGOs and business stakeholders.
When I raised it at the workshop with an academic
participant who works with government, she became frustrated and said she was tired of hearing
this question because “It’s a false choice. It’s a basic
rights issue.” From her perspective, you can’t takea few kids, give them everything, and provide
nothing to the rest. It’s simply unjust.
In that moment, I realized that the problem theSouth African government faces every day is insome ways completely different from the problem
the NGOs deal with. The government struggles
with how to provide for millions of children
equally, to deliver on their rights, and to deliveron justice. They don’t have the luxury to choose
not to think of the 5,000, or 50,000, that weren’t
fed that day. The NGOs and community workers,
on the other hand, look into the eyes of specificchildren, children who need much more than thelevel of care and support that is possible if you
spread your resources evenly and thinly.
In his book, Shaping Globalization: Civil Society,
Cultural Power and Threefolding (New Society

reflections.solonline.org

Publishers, 2003), Nicanor Perlas posits that ina healthy society,
The three key institutions [government, business, and civil society] are aware that they haveconsciously entered into a social process thatmobilizes the unique perspectives, strengths,
resources, and capacities of the cultural, political, and economic realms of society. The three
key institutions . . . place their respective talents
towards the pursuit of comprehensive sustainable development, balancing economic, political, and cultural, social, ecological, human, andspiritual imperatives of development. (p. 13)
Each of these powerful institutions has thepotential to “represent,” in its own way, therealm of society from which each is active –civil society represents culture; government
represents polity; and business, the economy…. business, government, and civil society
will naturally emphasize different aspects ofsociety as a whole. (p.4)
In the Woolworths versus Checkers question, theshift happens when government and NGOs start
to see that they each represent different imperatives. Part of the reason government struggles
with bureaucracy is because it has to cope withthe reality of millions of children every day. Partof the reason NGOs seem sentimental or struggle
to prioritize is because they look into the eyes of
the individual child every day.
With that realization, we can start to ask thequestions, “What is the value that each of these
positions in the system can offer to the collective
work of improving quality and quantity of care forchildren? What are the different dimensions andlevels that they can bring to the systemic solutions?” Some decisions can only be taken at a distance by the government, which has to prioritize
justice, and at the same time, some insights canonly be had at the local level. The two need eachother. The original question dissolves and changes
from either/or to both/and. The logic shifts.

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31Iterating Within “Microcosms”

For systemic solutions, instead of getting everyone to agree on what the problem is and on one
frame of mind, we need to think “both/and.” Building on the deeper sense of complementarity
described above – respecting that different institutions represent diverse dimensions and levelsof society – we can seek out systemic solutions
that make sense in multiple frames of mind.
A powerful way to create such solutions is to bringdiverse stakeholders together to generate andtest ideas for intervention. This is what is meantby convening a “microcosm” of the system. The
idea of convening a microcosm is that you createa group that together has the power to see thewhole situation and to act on or influence it. The
primary requirement in forming the microcosm
when addressing societal issues is to have balance
between government, business, civil society, and/or the other major groupings related to a problem.
It is of course impossible to literally get the “wholesystem” in the room. There will always be voices
missing, but it is possible to get a group of people
together who reflect the major parts of the system.
In the case of the LINC project, it took us over a
year just to convene the players, through a processof dialogue interviewing and ongoing advocacy© Thinkstockphotos.com

We use the term “social complexity” to describe
a problem situation in which the players involved
have contrasting logics or frames of mind, andtherefore sometimes conflicting perceptions andexplanations of what the problem is and how it
should be addressed. This is usually the case withthe kinds of complex problems that require crosssector intervention. One of the most eye-opening
things I have learned about intervening in social
complexity is that all the players do not have toshare the same perspectives and imperatives. If
you insist that they must, then you may spend a
lot of time creating a plan that no one is excitedabout implementing. Furthermore, by getting agroup of people in a room to agree to the lowest
common denominator, you lose important details
that are crucial to successful implementation.

work and consultation. In the end, we had 50
high-level participants representing most of the
key groupings from government, civil society(NGOs, faith-based groups, and community-basedorganizations), business, academics, and donors.
The convening process had to pay attention bothto who the individuals were and to the composition of the group as a whole. Still, it was not acomplete microcosm in that the children themselves and the grannies who take care of themwere not present in the room, though people
close to them were.
As the participants started to form cross-sector
teams to generate initiatives to work on, they were
explicitly encouraged to provide constructive
perspective across teams from their place in thesystem. What can you see from where you standthat the larger group might not?

Seeing the System in the Room
When you bring together a microcosm, youessentially get the “system in the room.” Over time,the dynamics of the problem situation manifest in
the group, which leads to extremely powerful

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There is nothing radical about creating a situation of diversity of
power by inviting some young people or poor people to a conference.
It is extremely radical, on the other hand, to create the kind of set-up
where the more powerful and the less powerful can participate on
an equal footing or to shift the power dynamics as an integral partof the process.
learning. The problem shifts from being “out there”
to being “in here.” Of course, when convening microcosms, we look for different kinds of diversity– not only sectoral diversity, but also gender diversity, cultural diversity, social diversity, and so on.
What always results from including these othertypes is diversity of power.
There is nothing radical about creating a situationof diversity of power by inviting some young people or poor people to a conference. It is extremely
radical, on the other hand, to create the kind of setup where the more powerful and the less powerful
can participate on an equal footing or to shift thepower dynamics as an integral part of the process.
In my experience, doing so requires pointing out
the power differences in the room, which are reflective of the power differences in the larger society,and not pretending they don’t exist.
In the LINC project, as one of the first activities
we introduced a brief power dynamics game thatbrought the issue to light and set the intention
among participants of “changing the rules of thegame.” This, along with the dialogue-based designof all the activities, helped to level the playing
field and allow community members to participate on a relatively equal footing. The interesting
thing is that because we have now introduced
power as a legitimate area of work, participants
have started to request more direct work on the
power and race dynamics in the room.
Myrna Lewis is a psychotherapist and facilitatorof group processes using a methodology called“Deep Democracy” (see www.deep-democracy.

net). One of her main beliefs is that a system ishealthy when there is “role fluidity” and unhealthy
when “roles are stuck.” Roles in this sense are notsimply positions, but can also include opinions,emotions, attitudes, and so on. A role is stuckwhen someone feels they are the only one ina certain situation or with a certain opinion or
emotion (“I am doing all the work, and I am sooverwhelmed”), or when a certain characteristic
is being projected onto someone and disownedby those projecting it (“The government is so
inefficient and out of touch”).
Role fluidity can develop in many ways. What
struck me in our LINC Innovation Lab was the realization of shared overwhelm. In one group, oneof the government representatives shed a tearand said how overwhelmed she was when she
thought about the children. Government had
been perceived as distant, cold, and out of touch,but with that display of emotion, others realizedthat government workers are in the same situationthat they are. In that moment, roles became more
fluid, and some of the kind of trust needed forcollaboration was established.
This idea raises a paradox. You need role clarity forthe sectors, in terms of understanding the different
positions they are in, the different demands on them,and the different imperatives they represent. Thistransparency is what enables us to harness what
each grouping brings to the task. At the same time,
you need role fluidity when it comes to the judgments, the “they are like this, and we are like that”
statements, in order to overcome the stucknessof the situation and release true collaboration.

F E AT U R E | B O J E R

The Journey Ahead
My intention with this article is to stress the importance of systemic solutions to complex problems and of attentive cross-sector collaboration
for systemic solutions. I have not tried to outline
all the tools, practices, and capacities related
to cross-sector partnerships, as I know this has
been done well elsewhere (for example, see thePrince of Wales International Business Leaders
Forum at www.iblf.org). Rather, my intention is tocontribute to deepening this field, specifically in
relation to addressing complex social problems.
I have focused on four principles that I think arecentral to this deepening.
The LINC project is ongoing. The stakeholders
periodically meet in Innovation Labs, where theywork on seeing and designing together, and outsideof the Labs, where they test their ideas against reality, work in project teams, participate in leadershipcoaching, and do what they can to contribute intheir daily jobs to serving the children. Meanwhile,the search for insights on how to create systemicchange continues. O

Next Steps
Although Mille Bojer focuses on the social sector in thisarticle, the principles can apply to any complex systems
or organizational challenge.
Become Self-Aware as Sectors or Functions. Have people
spend time with others from their own function area in a
dialogue around the things that they have done well and thethings that they can improve in relation to their function’s
response to the challenge. Each function then presentsback to the larger group while the others listen and reflect.
Understand Complementarities. Ask the questions, “Whatis the value that each of these positions in the system canoffer to the collective work? What are the different dimensions
and levels that they can bring to the systemic solutions?”
Iterate Within Microcosms. Seek out systemic solutions
that make sense in multiple frames of mind. Bring diverse
stakeholders together to generate and test ideas forintervention.
See the System in the Room. When convening microcosms,
look for different kinds of diversity – not only sectoral/functional diversity, but also gender diversity, cultural diversity,
social diversity, and so on. What always results from includingthese other types is diversity of power. Over time, the dynamics of the problem situation manifest in the group, whichleads to extremely powerful learning.

ABOUT THE AUTHORMarianne “Mille” Bojer is an experienced facilitator and designer of group dialogue and change
processes. She is a cofounder of Reos Partners. In 2008, she moved from Johannesburg to São Pauloto set up Reos in Brazil. She is a cofounder of Pioneers of Change. Mille is the coauthor of Mapping
Dialogue: Essential Tools for Social Change (Taos Institute Publications, 2008). bojer@reospartners.com

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F E AT U R E 11.4

Confronting the Tension Between
Learning and PerformanceA M Y C . E D M O N D S O N A N D S A R A J. S I N G E R
Although we may prefer to believe differently, not all learning leads to improved performance. Learningand performance can be at odds in several ways. Notably, when organizations engage in a new learning
challenge, performance often suffers, or appears to suffer, in the short term. Moreover, by revealing
and analyzing their failures and mistakes – a critical aspect of learning – work groups may appear to be
performing less well than they would otherwise. Organizations can at least partly address these challenges
through leaders who create a climate of psychological safety and promote inquiry. Leadership is thus
essential to foster the mindset, group behaviors, and organizational investments needed to promote
today’s learning and invest in tomorrow’s performance.

F

ew readers would disagree with the suggestion that those who develop
and exercise a greater capacity to learn are likely to outperform thoseless engaged in learning. Indeed, we might make the same unsurprisingprediction about individuals, teams, or organizations. Nonetheless, therelationship between learning and performance is not as straightforward as it
first appears.
Why is this relationship problematic? First, although learning is clearly essential for sustained individual and organizational performance in a changing
environment, at times the costs may be more visible than performance benefits.
Learning can be messy, uncertain, interpersonally risky, and without guaranteed
results. Moreover, not all learning leads to improved performance; it depends
on what is being learned and how important it is for particular dimensions of
performance. Although some learning is straightforward (the knowledge is codified and readily used by newcomers), other forms rely on experimentation andexploration for which outcomes are
unknown in advance. Lastly, timedelays between learning and perforSara J. Singer
Team Tip
mance may obscure or even underUse the information in this article
mine evidence of a clear causal relationship.
to identify and overcome thebarriers to learning in your group
As described in this article, organizations can at least partly
and organization.
address these challenges through leadership that creates a
Amy C. Edmondson

This article was originally published in The Systems Thinker® V19N1, February 2008.

F E AT U R E | E D M O N D S O N A N D S I N G E R

climate of psychological safety and that promotes
inquiry. But first, let’s go into more detail aboutsome of the ways in which a focus on learning canactually appear to undermine performance.

Impediments to Learning
Where catastrophic failure is possible, mistakes
are inevitable, or innovation is necessary, learningfrom failure is highly desirable. Yet research suggests that few organizations dig deeply enoughto understand and capture the potential learningfrom failures. Why this resistance to learning?

Psychological and Organizational
Barriers
A multitude of barriers can preclude learning inteams and organizations. These include limitations
in human skills or cognition that lead people todraw false conclusions, and complex and crossdisciplinary work designs that can make failuresdifficult to identify. Additional barriers include lackof policies and procedures to encourage experimentation or forums for employees to analyze
and discuss the results.
Learning about complex, interconnected problems
also suffers from ineffective discussion among
parties with conflicting perspectives. Status differences, lack of psychological safety, and lack ofinquiry into others’ information and experiences
related to substantive issues can combine toensure that a group as a whole learns little.
Powerful individuals or respected experts can stifle
dissent simply by expressing their opinions. Socialpressures for conformity exacerbate the impact ofleaders’ actions, particularly when large status andpower differences exist among leaders and subordinates. In addition, people in disagreement rarely
ask the kind of sincere questions that are necessary
for them to learn from each other. We tend to try
to force our views on others rather than educatingthem by providing the underlying reasoning behind
our perspectives, as Chris Argyris and Donald Schön
showed long ago (see Argyris, C. and Schön, D.
Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action
Perspectives, Addison-Wesley, 1978).

More generally, the human desire to “get it right”
rather than to treat both success and failure as useful data greatly impedes learning. Individuals prevent learning when they ignore their own mistakes
in order to protect themselves from the unpleasantness and loss of self-esteem associated withacknowledging failure. People may also deny, distort, or cover up their mistakes in order to avoid
the public embarrassment or private derision thatfrequently accompanies such confessions, despite
the potential of learning from them. In addition,
people derive comfort from evidence that enables
them to believe what they want to believe, todeny responsibility for failures, and to attributea problem to others or the system.
Similarly, groups and organizations tend to
suppress awareness of failures. Organizational
incentives typically reward success and punish
failure, creating an incentive to hide mistakes.
Teams and organizations are also predisposed tounderreact to the threat of failure when stakes
are high, different views and interests are present,
and the situation is ambiguous. Such groups canfail to learn and hence make poor decisions.
Multiple mechanisms can combine to inhibit
responsiveness and preclude learning in groupsettings. First, people tend to filter out subtle
threats, blocking potentially valuable data fromcareful consideration. They also remain stubbornly
attached to initial views and seek informationand experts to confirm initial conclusions. Groups
silence dissenting views, especially when power
differences are present. They spend more time
confirming shared views than envisioning alternative possibilities. Organizational structuresoften serve to block new information fromreaching the top of the organization. Rather,
they tend to reinforce existing wisdom.

Inability to Learn from Failure
Most organizations’ inability to learn from failure
stems from a lack of attention to small, everyday
problems and mistakes. Organizations that embracesmall failures as part of a learning process are more
likely to innovate successfully. Likewise, organizations

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Impact of Psychological and Organizational Barriers to Learning

AcquireIndividual
Knowledge

Face
PsychologicalandOrganizational
Barriers-

Short-Term
Performance+

Collective
Learning

Engagein Learning
Behaviors

Avoid
Learning
Behaviors+

Long-Term
Performance-

While proactively seeking to acquire new capabilities often takes a toll on short-term performance, overtime, it benefits both the individual and the organization. Avoiding learning behaviors, on the other hand,
can undermine long-term performance.

that pay more attention to small problems are more
likely to avert big ones, especially where tasks areinterconnected. Despite the increased rate of failurethat accompanies deliberate experimentation,organizations that experiment effectively are likely
to be more innovative, productive, and successful
than those that do not take such risks (see especially Sitkin, S. B. “Learning Through Failure: The Strategy of Small Losses,” in L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw
(Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 14:
231–266, JAI Press, 1992, and Cannon and Edmondson (2005), cited below).
Small failures arise not only in the course of purposeful experimentation, but also in daily workthat is complex and interdependent. When problems inevitably arise during the course of businessin these situations, workers can either simply compensate for or work around problems, or they canseek to resolve the underlying cause by notifying
those who can help to correct them. The former
would likely go unnoticed, while the latter would
expose poor performance. Nevertheless, compensating for problems can be counterproductive if
doing so isolates information about problems
such that no learning occurs.
In hazardous situations, small failures not identified
as problems worth examination often precede
catastrophic failures. Small failures are often the
key early warning sign that could provide a wake-up

call needed to avert disaster down the road. Yet,in recognizing small failures in order to learn fromthem, individuals and groups must acknowledge
the performance gaps.
Collective learning requires valuing failure andbeing willing to incur small failures in front of colleagues. It requires being willing to enhance rather
than reduce variance. Learning groups must proactively identify, discuss, and analyze what may
appear to be insignificant mistakes or problems
in addition to large failures. When organizations
ignore small problems, preventing larger failures
becomes more difficult (see “Impact of Psychological and Organizational Barriers to Learning”).

The Learning Mindset
Given the above challenges, this section describes
some of the theoretical alternatives for promoting
organizational learning that enhances future performance. It ties together different but related
ideas from research at several levels of analysis(see “Learning Mindsets at Multiple Levels ofAnalysis”).

Advocacy and Inquiry Orientations
As discussed above, organizational structures andprocesses can severely inhibit the ability of a groupto effectively incorporate the unique knowledge
and concerns of different members. Key features ofgroup process failures include antagonism; a lackF E AT U R E | E D M O N D S O N A N D S I N G E R

of listening, learning, and inquiring; and limited
psychological safety for challenging authority. These
kinds of individual and interpersonal behaviors havebeen collectively referred to as an advocacy orientation (Garvin and Roberto introduced this termin “What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions,”
Harvard Business Review, Vol. 79, No. 8, September2001).
For example, simple but genuine inquiry into thethinking of other team members could have generated critical new insights about the threat posedby the foam strike to the Columbia space shuttle.
Instead, NASA managers spent 16 days downplaying the problem and so did not view the events
as a trigger for conducting detailed analyses of thesituation. A recent analysis by Roberto, Bohmer,
and Edmondson concluded that NASA’s responseto the foam strike threat was characterized by
active discounting of risk, fragmented, disciplinebased analyses, and a wait-and-see orientation toaction. When engineers became concerned about
the foam strike, the impact of their questions and37

analyses was dampened by poor team design,
coordination, and support. In contrast to the flatand flexible organizational structures that enable
research and development, NASA exhibited arigid hierarchy with strict rules and guidelines forbehavior, structures conducive to aims of routine
production and efficiency. The cultural relianceon data-driven problem solving and quantitative
analysis discouraged novel lines of inquiry basedon intuitive judgments and interpretations ofincomplete, yet troubling information. In short,the shuttle team faced a significant learning
opportunity but was not able to take advantage
of it due to counterproductive organizationaland group dynamics.
In contrast, effectively conducting an analysis ofa failure requires a spirit of inquiry and openness,patience, and a tolerance for ambiguity. Such an
inquiry orientation is characterized by the perception among group members that multiple alternatives exist, frequent dissent, deepening understanding of issues and development of new

Learning Mindsets at Multiple Levels of Analysis
Individual &GroupOrganization

Dimension

Performance Orientation

Learning and Innovation Orientation

Behavioral characteristics
of individuals and groupmembers

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data

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interpretation

Leader response to
problems

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assumptions

Exploratory responset &YQFSJNFOUUPUFTUBTTVNQUJPOTLeader approach toenvironment

Copingt 7JFXBTUISFBUt 5FDIOJDBMMZPSJFOUFE

Learningt 7JFXBTFYDJUJOHPQQPSUVOJUZt 5FBNPSJFOUFE

Behavioral characteristicsof organizations

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marketst 'PDVTPOFYFDVUJPOExplorationt "QQSPQSJBUFJOVODFSUBJOFOWJSPONFOUTt 'PDVTPOMFBSOJOHBOEFYQFSJNFOUBUJPOLeader mindset andorganizational design

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possibilities, filling gaps in knowledge throughcombining information sources, and awareness ofeach others’ reasoning and its implications. Suchan orientation can counteract common groupprocess failures. Learning about the perspectives,
ideas, experiences, and concerns of others whenfacing uncertainty and high-stakes decisions is
critical to making appropriate choices.

Organizing to learn and organizing
to execute are two distinct
management practices, one suited
to exploration and the other toexploitation respectively.
Confirmatory and Exploratory Responses
Leaders play an important role in determining
group orientation to an observed or suspected
failure. Analyzing the Columbia Shuttle tragedy,
Edmondson and colleagues suggested that whensmall problems occur, leaders can respond in
one of two basic ways. A confirmatory response –appropriate in routine production settings, but
harmful in more volatile or uncertain environments– reinforces accepted assumptions, naturally promoting an advocacy orientation on the part ofleaders and others. When individuals seek information, they naturally look for data that confirms
existing beliefs. Confirmatory leaders act in ways
consistent with established frames and beliefs,
passive and reactionary rather than active andforward-looking.
In uncertain or risky situations or where innovation is required, an exploratory response may be
more appropriate than seeking to confirm existing
views. An exploratory response involves challenging and testing existing assumptions and experimenting with new behaviors and possibilities, thegoal of which is to learn and to learn quickly. By
deliberately exaggerating ambiguous threats,
actively directing and coordinating team analysis
and problem solving, and encouraging an overallorientation toward action, exploratory leadersreflections.solonline.org

encourage inquiry and experimentation. Leaders
seeking to encourage exploration also actively foster constructive conflict and dissent and generate
psychological safety by creating an environment
in which people have an incentive, or at least do
not have a disincentive, to identify and reveal failures, questions, and concerns. This form of leader
response helps to accelerate learning throughdeliberate information gathering, creative mental
simulations, and simple, rapid experimentation.
Rather than supporting existing assumptions, an
exploratory response requires a deliberate shift in themindset of a leader – and of others – that alters theway they interpret, make sense of, and diagnose situations. When leaders follow an exploratory approach,they embrace ambiguity and openly acknowledge
gaps in knowledge. They recognize that their current
understanding may require revision, and they actively seek evidence in support of alternative hypotheses. Rather than seeking to prove what they alreadybelieve, exploratory leaders seek discovery throughcreative and iterative experimentation.

Learning-Oriented and
Coping-Oriented Approaches
When implementing an innovation such as a newtechnology or practice, leaders can orient those
who will be responsible for implementation by
responding in one of two ways. They may viewthe innovation challenge as something with which
they need to cope or as an exciting learning andimprovement opportunity. A coping-oriented
approach is characterized by protective or defensive aims and technically oriented leadership. In
contrast, learning-oriented leaders share with teammembers a sense of purpose related to accomplishing compelling goals and view projectsuccess as dependent on all team members.
In a study of 16 cardiac surgery departments implementing a minimally invasive cardiovascularsurgery technique, successful surgical team leadersdemonstrated a learning-oriented approach rather
than a coping approach. Learning-oriented leaders
explicitly communicated their interdependencewith others, emphasizing their own fallibility andF E AT U R E | E D M O N D S O N A N D S I N G E R

39need for others’ input for the new technology towork. Without conveying any loss of expertise or
status, these leaders simply recognized and communicated that in doing the new procedure they
were dependent on others. In learning-oriented
teams, members felt a profound sense of ownership of the project’s goals and processes, and they
believed their roles to be crucial. Elsewhere, thesurgeon’s position as expert precluded othersfrom seeing a way to make genuine contributions
beyond enacting their own narrow tasks, and it
put them in a position of not seeing themselves
as affecting whether the project succeeded ornot. Learning-oriented teams had a palpable
sense of teamwork and collegiality, aided byearly practice sessions.

Organizational Exploitation and Exploration
Inquiry and advocacy orientations describe individuals and groups; exploration and exploitation
are terms that have been used to describe parallel
characteristics of organizations. In mature markets,
where solutions for getting a job done exist and are
well understood, organizations tend to be designed
and oriented toward a focus on execution of tasks
and exploitation of current products or services. In
more uncertain environments, knowledge about
how to achieve performance is limited, requiringcollective learning – or exploration in which openended experimentation is an integral part. In sum,
exploration in search of new or better processes or© Thinkstockphotos.com

In addition, team members felt completely comfortable speaking about their observations andconcerns in the operating room, and they also were
included in meaningful reflection sessions to discuss how the technology implementation was going. In teams that framed the innovation as a learning opportunity, leaders enrolled carefully selected
team members, conducted pre-trial team preparation, and engaged in multiple iterations of trial andreflection. Dramatic differences in the success oflearning-oriented versus coping-oriented leaderssuggest that project leaders have substantial power
to influence how team members see a project,
especially its purpose and their own role inachieving that purpose.
products is conceptually and managerially distinct
from execution, which is characterized by planningand structured implementation and amenable toformal tools such as statistical control.

Organizing to Learn and Organizing
to Execute
In the same way that leader response drives groupmember orientation, the mindset of organizational leaders as well as the structures and systems
they initiate play a large role in determining firm
behavior and capabilities. Organizing to learn andorganizing to execute are two distinct management practices, one suited to exploration and theother to exploitation respectively.

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Where problems and processes are well understood and where solutions are known, leaders areadvised to organize to execute. Organizing to execute relies on traditional management tools that
motivate people and resources to carry out welldefined tasks. When reflecting on the work, leaders who organize to execute are well advised toask, “Did we do it right?” In general, this approachis systematic, involves first-order learning in which
feedback is used to modify or redirect activities,
and eschews diversion from prescribed processes
without good cause.

Organizing a team to experimentand learn about an unknown
process requires a management
approach that embraces failure
rather than seeking perfectexecution.
In contrast, facing a situation in which processsolutions are not yet well developed, leaders must
organize to learn: generating variance, learningfrom failure, sharing results, and experimenting
continuously until workable processes are discovered, developed, and refined. Motivating organizational exploration requires a different mindset
than motivating accurate and efficient execution.
Leaders must ask not “Did we succeed?” butrather “Did we learn?”
In this way, organizing to learn considers thelessons of failure to be at least as valuable as thelessons of success. Such a managerial approachorganizes people and resources for second-orderlearning that challenges, reframes, and expands
possible alternatives. Practices involved in organizing to learn include promoting rather than
reducing variance, conducting experiments rather
than executing prescribed tasks, and rewarding
learning rather than accuracy.
Creating systems to expose failures can helporganizations create and sustain competitivereflections.solonline.org

advantage. For example, General Electric, UPS, andIntuit proactively seek data to help them identify
failures. GE places an 800 number directly on eachof its products. UPS allocates protected time foreach of its drivers to express concerns or makesuggestions. Intuit staffs its customer service linewith technical designers, who directly translate
feedback from customers into product improvements. At IDEO, brainstorming about problems
on a particular project often enables engineers to
discover ideas that benefit other design initiatives.
At Toyota, the Andon cord, which permits any
employee to halt production, enables continuous
improvement through frequent investigation ofpotential concerns.

Leading Organizational Learning
Edmondson’s research has identified several
success factors for leaders seeking to incorporate
learning into their efforts to manage their organizations effectively. These include recognizing andresponding to the need for learning versus execution, embracing the small failures from which organizations can learn, and maintaining the ability
to shift nimbly between learning and execution
as needed.

Diagnose the Situation andRespond Accordingly
Rather than vary their style as appropriate for thesituation, in practice leaders tend to employ a consistent approach. They frequently gravitate toward
organizing to execute, particularly when associated practices are consistent with the organization’s culture. However, being good at organizing
to execute can hamper efforts that require learning. When leaders facing a novel challenge organize to execute rather than employing a learning
approach, their organizations miss opportunities
to innovate successfully.
Several years ago, the new chief operating officer
at Children’s Hospital and Clinics in Minnesota, Julie
Morath, exemplified a mindset of organizing to learn.
Emphasizing that she did not have the answers, she
invited people throughout the organization to join
in a learning journey, aimed at discovering how toensure 100 percent patient safety.

F E AT U R E | E D M O N D S O N A N D S I N G E R

Embrace Failure

Maintain Flexibility and Shift as Needed
Some business situations require innovation andexecution simultaneously, or in rapid sequence.
However, shifting from organizing to learn to organizing to execute can be difficult. Participants inthe Electric Maze exercise come to appreciate thischallenge as well. To find the correct path throughthe maze requires organizing to learn.
Once the path is discovered, teams are required tohave participants walk through the path as quickly
as possible with minimal error. In practical terms,
this means the teams must shift their behavior
from learning to execution, something that mostteams find difficult. The Maze exercise illustrates
that managing a team for superb execution of aknown process calls for a different approach thanmanaging a team to experiment and discover a

sto
nk
Th
i
©

To optimize the learning process, the team should“embrace failure” (symbolized in the Electric Maze
exercise as “beeps going forward”) and systematically collect as many “failures” as quickly as possible. More typically, however, the need to learn ishampered by the perceived interpersonal risk of“failing” in front of colleagues by stepping on a
beeping square. In reality, only by stepping on
beeping squares can the team learn quickly anddiscover the true path forward. The exercise offersa palpable experience to show managers thatthe desire to look as if one never makes mistakes
hinders team and organizational learning.

ck

ph

ot
os
.co

m

Organizing a team to experiment and learn about
an unknown process requires a management
approach that embraces failure rather than seeking
perfect execution. Discovery and expeditious trial
and error are the keys to successful learning. In
the Electric Maze®, an interactive learning exercise
created by Interel, participants recognize how unnatural collective learning is for most managers.
Teams of students must get each member fromone end of the maze to the other without speaking.
Individuals step on the maze until a square beeps,
at which point the individual must retrace his or
her steps back to the start.

new process. The ability to recognize situations
that require learning and the flexibility to shift
from execution to learning requires awarenessas well as skillful management, posing significant
challenge to many leaders and competitive
advantage to leaders with such ability.

Implications for Performance
Measurement
The implication of the complex relationship between learning and performance for performancemeasurement is worth a brief discussion. Performance is easier to measure in execution contexts
than in exploratory learning contexts. In the latter,
performance can be challenging to measure in the
short term, even if it contributes to clear performance criteria in the long term.
Consider the Electric Maze exercise again. In thesecond phase, excellent performance is error-free,
rapid completion of the task – every member
traversing the discovered path. In the first phase,
success requires encountering and learning fromfailures, but how many is the right number? How
fast should experiments be run? As in this example, the success of experimentation is far moredifficult to assess than the success of execution.

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innovation. Truly supporting innovation requires
recognition that trying out innovative ideas willproduce failures on the path to improvement.

Next Stepst &WBMVBUFZPVSPSHBOJ[BUJPOTBCJMJUZoBOEXJMMJOHOFTTo
to learn from both success and failure. Do workers compensate for or work around problems, or do they seek to resolve
the underlying causes? If it’s the former, you may need torevamp incentive systems to reward improvement rather
than success or to make it safe for people to acknowledge
mistakes.
t 3FMZPOJORVJSZSBUIFSUIBOBEWPDBDZ FTQFDJBMMZSFHBSEJOH
failures. Likewise, in uncertain situations or ones in which
innovation is required, choose an exploratory rather thana confirmatory approach. These shifts require practice andcommitment, but they are critical to overcoming counterproductive group dynamics.
t *OMBVODIJOHBOFXJOJUJBUJWFPSNPWJOHBOFYJTUJOHJOJUJBUJWF
forward, determine whether you need to organize to execute or organize to learn. Depending where you are in theprocess, you may need to first organize to learn and thenlater organize to execute.
t 'PSJOOPWBUJWFQSPKFDUT EFTJHOQFSGPSNBODFNFBTVSFNFOU
systems that reward experimentation, even when it resultsin failure. Also, implement ways to measure learning, notjust performance, including direct observation, surveys,
and interviews.

Clearly, there are situations in which it is appropriate to measure performance against quality
and efficiency standards. This is true when tasks
are routine. However, employee rewards based
primarily on indices measuring routine performance, such as accuracy and speed, can thwart
efforts to innovate. Stated goals of increasing innovation are more effective when rewards promote experimentation rather than penalize failure.
At Bank of America, for example, innovation wasan espoused value. Leaders targeted a projected
failure rate of 30 percent as suggestive of sufficient experimentation. However, few employees
experimented with new ideas until managementchanged its reward system from traditional performance measures to those that rewarded

Leaders need to align incentives and to offer
resources to promote and facilitate effective learning. Supporting improvement requires understanding that mistakes are inevitable in uncertain
and risky situations. Organizations must reward
improvement rather than success, reward experimentation even when it results in failure, and publicize and reward speaking up about concerns andmistakes, so others can learn. Policies that reward
compliance with specific targets or procedures
encourage effort toward those measures but
may thwart efforts toward innovation andexperimentation.
Given the problematic nature of the relationshipbetween learning and performance, to provide
incentives for learning, performance measurement must examine learning, not just performance.
Useful tools include surveys, questionnaires, andinterviews to examine attitudes toward and depthof understanding regarding new ideas, knowledge,
and ways of thinking. Process measures are also
helpful. Direct observation is useful for assessing
behavioral change due to new insights. Finally,
performance measurement must consider improvement by measuring results over time. Groups
that improve more over a fixed time frame or thattake less time to improve must be learning fasterthan their peers.

Conclusions
This brief article calls attention to some of thechallenges and tensions that exist when trying
to improve team or organizational performancethrough proactive learning. We note several ways
in which learning and performance in organizations can be at odds. Notably, when organizations
engage in a new learning challenge, performance
often suffers, or appears to suffer, in the shortterm. Struggling to acquire new skills or capabilities
often takes a real, not just apparent, toll on shortterm performance. Moreover, by revealing andanalyzing their failures and mistakes – a critical

F E AT U R E | E D M O N D S O N A N D S I N G E R

aspect of learning – work groups may appear
to be performing less well than they would
otherwise.
The work reviewed here has elucidated the challenges of learning from failure in organizations,
including the challenges of admitting errors andfailures and production pressure that make it

difficult to invest time in learning. These challenges
are at least partially addressed by managerial
efforts to create a climate of psychological safety
and to promote inquiry. Leadership is thus essential to foster the mindset, group behaviors, andorganizational investments needed to promote
today’s learning and invest in tomorrow’s
performance. O

REFERENCES
This article summarizes a paper by Sara J. Singer and Amy C. Edmondson entitled, “When Learning and Performance
Are at Odds: Confronting the Tension” (in Performance and Learning Matter, P. Kumar and P. Ramsey (Eds.), World
Scientific Publishing, 2008) and discusses research published in the following sources:
Cannon, M. D. and Edmondson, A. C. “Failing to Learn and Learning to Fail (Intelligently): How Great Organizations
Put Failure to Work to Improve and Innovate,” Long Range Planning, 38 (3): 299–319, 2005.
Edmondson, A. “Learning from Mistakes Is Easier Said Than Done: Group and Organizational Influences on the
Detection and Correction of Human Error,” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 32(1): 5, 1996.
———. “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2):350–383, 1999.
———. Organizing to Learn, HBS Publishing (Note-5-604-031), 2003.
———. “Framing for Learning: Lessons in Successful Technology Implementation,” California Management Review,45(2): 34, 2003.
Edmondson, A., Roberto, M. A., Bohmer, R. M., Ferlins, E. M., and Feldman, L. “The Recovery Window: Organizational Learning
Following Ambiguous Threats in High-Risk Organizations,” in M. Farjoun and W. H. Starbuck (Eds.), Organization at the Limit:
NASA and the Columbia Disaster, Blackwell, 2004.
Edmondson, A., Roberto, M. A., and Tucker, A. L. Children’s Hospital and Clinics, HBS Case #9-302-050,
Harvard Business School Publishing, 2005.
Lee, F., Edmondson, A. C., Thomke, S., and Worline, M. “The Mixed Effects of Inconsistency on Experimentation in
Organizations,” Organization Science, 15(3): 310–326, 2004.
Tucker, A. L. and Edmondson, A. C. “Why Hospitals Don’t Learn from Failures: Organizational and Psychological
Dynamics that Inhibit System Change,” California Management Review, 45(2): 55, 2003.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Amy C. Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business
School, studies leadership, learning, and innovation in teams and organizations. She is the authorof Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy(Jossey-Bass, 2012). aedmondson@hbs.edu
Sara J. Singer, M.B.A., Ph.D., is assistant professor of Health Care Management and Policy at
Harvard School of Public Health and an assistant in Health Policy in the Institute for Health Policy,
Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research uses organizational safety, organizational learning,
and leadership theories to understand and address the causes and consequences of errors andadverse events. ssinger@hsph.harvard.edu

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F E AT U R E 11.4

Systems Thinking as aTeam-Building ApproachC Y N T H I A WAY A N D J O N WA LT E R M c K E E B Y
The chief information officer of a research hospital faced a formidable challenge: Over the last five years,
his department had expanded from a staff of 65 to 94. Because of the complexity of the hospital’s computer
infrastructure, the CIO determined that a team approach was essential to managing the system. To improve
communication, the leadership group participated in a team-building retreat with a focus on systems thinking. The approach was not to teach the entire systems thinking methodology. Instead, after a brief introduction to key concepts to set the stage, the group learned to look for examples of the systems archetypes
in their organization. They later used these tools to improve teamwork, problem solving, and communication in the office.

T

Cynthia Way

he chief information officer (CIO) of the National Institutes of Health
Clinical Center, a research hospital with a large outpatient facility, faced
a formidable challenge: Over the last five years, based on the merger oftwo departments and increasing changes to meet the growing needsof this public healthcare organization, his department had expanded from astaff of 65 to 94. The IT department’s charter is to keep the Clinical Center’s
computer infrastructure up and running, create new computer databases toserve the hospital’s needs, and maintain existing databases – all of which are
critically important.

Because of the department’s rapid
expansion, employees had to develop specialized skills, which meantthat a team approach was essential
to managing even one system. Even
though the group was using structured project management methodologies and tools, the CIO recogJon Walter McKeeby
nized that silos were being formed,
communication was breaking down, and people weren’tfunctioning well as a team. So he turned to his executive
coach for help in conducting a team-building retreat for his
leadership group with the goals of “learning to work better
together” and “communicating better.”This article was originally published in The Systems Thinker® V19N8, October 2008.

Team Tip
In designing an intervention
to an ongoing problem, identify
potential leverage points –“a smallchange that has the capacity tohave a big impact.” Because theorganization is a living system,
look at the leverage points as
hypotheses to be tested in thesystem for their potential ripple
effects.

F E AT U R E | WAY A N D M c K E E B Y

The coach suggested that the team adopt a systems
thinking approach to see what was going on in theorganization from a bigger-picture perspective. Her
hypothesis was that it would provide the groupwith an opportunity to work on a meaningful challenge and, in the process, would help them develop
their collaboration skills. Senior leaders agreed
with this assessment, deciding that for the department to make progress in the areas of teamwork
and communication, they needed to change thesystem in which they worked.

A Culture of “Yes”
The initiative began with a two-day leadershipretreat, with 30-, 60-, and 120-day follow-ups. The
leadership group consisted of 25 managers andsupervisors, primarily information technology
and clinical informatics specialists – nurses anddoctors whose clinical expertise provided thelink between the department and the customers
they served.
The approach was not to teach the entire systems
thinking methodology. Instead, after a brief introduction to key concepts to set the stage, the coach
introduced systems archetypes. Systems archetypes
are universal patterns of behavior. In this case, the10 “classic” archetypes, as popularized in The Fifth
Discipline, were introduced, along with 10 “positive”
archetypes – the flip side of the same coin, as
developed by Marilyn Herasymowych and Henry
Senko of MHA Institute. Because the archetypes areuniversal, people quickly understand them and can
immediately begin to name where in their systemthey see that dynamic in action. Because the MHA
method is based on stories and patterns rather
than on causal loop diagrams, which often requirea learning curve to understand, it makes seeing
the big picture of the system easy for novices.
As each archetype was introduced, participants
identified examples of how it manifested in theirown group. By noon of the second day, they had
identified 10 classic archetypes. By the end of thesecond day, they had identified 10 positive archetypes. The team was then divided into four groupsof five to six people per group. Each group devel-

oped its own version of a map of the system in which
the department operated. The participants asked
questions such as, “Are there any obvious flows
here? Which archetypes feed into which others?”
The premise of this approach is that there is no one“right” map – they’re all stories seen, lived, and told.
The groups then told their stories of the system tothe rest of the team. While the maps were different,each narrative nonetheless resonated with theother participants. In particular, a pattern became
clear that the team dubbed “the Vortex of Doom,”with the flip side called “the Swirl of Hope.”
From the maps, the team identified “noisy”
archetypes. Noisy archetypes are characterizedby conversational inconsistencies (e.g., conflict,disagreement, disparities) or structural limitations(e.g., policies, organizational charts, change interventions). Next, they looked for leverage points– “a small change that has the capacity to have a
big impact.” The group viewed leverage points as
hypotheses to be tested. As individuals selected
their top three potential leverage points, the onethat generated the most consensus as a place tostart was “making choices about what to say ‘yes’
to and what to say ‘no’ to.”
The team talked about having a culture of “yes,”in that customers and senior managers refused toaccept “no” as a response to a request. They cameto realize that, as they took on more and moreassignments, the available resources in the department declined. The group talked about how
this “Growth and Underinvestment” dynamic led
people to take heroic efforts to accomplish theirworkload, which eventually led to burnout. They
explored the implications of the “AttractivenessPrinciple,” a pattern in which you try to meet
everyone’s needs but aren’t able to do so or
do so at a high personal cost.
The team also did a future map showing what
they thought the system would look like as aresult of addressing this leverage point. They had
lively discussion around the fact that their customers and managers were not used to hearing

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 11, N U M B E R 4“no,” and how team members might convey thismessage without alienating others. Participants
recognized potential negative side effects ofdifferent interventions and focused on ways tomitigate them. These included:t &OHBHFJODMFBSDPNNVOJDBUJPO
t .BOBHFDVTUPNFSFYQFDUBUJPOTt (JWFDVTUPNFSTDIPJDFTXIFSFUIFZDBO 
so it isn’t an absolute “no.”t -FUDVTUPNFSTQSJPSJUJ[FUIFJSPXOQSPKFDUT
t &OMJTUNBOBHFNFOUTVQQPSU

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trends in the system, they reported that theyfound themselves feeling overwhelmed anddemoralized. After identifying and mapping thepositive archetypes the next day, they were reminded of their capacity to make positive change
and started to feel excited about their ability to
improve what the day before had felt hopeless.
Upon reflection, the team also commented that it
was helpful to hear that others were experiencing
the same emotions.

30 Days Later
Management support was a topic for discussion,and the group debated whether you could tell
your manager “no.” The general consensus wasthat there were non-negotiable priorities, butthat managers were open to looking at different
options; for example, “Okay, we’ll push back thistime, but here’s what it will cost us in terms of support and impact on other projects and systems.”
Finally, to make informed choices and priorities,
the team decided they must first have a handle onwhat they had already agreed to. Thus, they planned
to compile a project list that identified all the work
being conducted within the department. The teamcame up with a 30-day action plan:

30-Day Action Plant 5IF$*0XJMMEJTUSJCVUFBMJTUPGLOPXOBOE
projected projects and initiatives.
t &BDINFNCFSPGUIFMFBEFSTIJQUFBNXJMM
validate their projects, identify missing items,
identify items no longer valid, and submit the
annotated list to the CIO.
t 5IF$*0XJMMDPOTPMJEBUFBOEEJTUSJCVUFUIF
consolidated list.
t 5IF$*0BOEIJTUFBNXJMMNFFUGPSBOJOJUJBM
review of the list.
t 5IF$*0BOEIJTUFBNXJMMNFFUXJUIUIF
executive coach for a two-hour follow-up
session to review the last 30 days and planfor the next 30.
The team noted the contrast in their mood fromDay 1 to Day 2. After focusing initially on theclassic archetypes, which draw out the negative

Initially, the most important benefit the seniorstaff experienced was understanding their coworkers and their responsibilities in a new, more
respectful light. In addition, during the retreat,
the group identified a few processes that were notworking as efficiently as possible. As people left
the retreat, they had already planned meetings to
discuss how to improve those practices. From theactual retreat content, the leadership team started
to use the language of systems archetypes to evaluate, define, and communicate about the current
system. Finally, the group had accomplished its
goal of updating the list of existing commitments.
However, this last accomplishment had an unintended negative side effect: People felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the projects
with which they were dealing. The project list was
longer than expected, with 200 items. In addition
to creating the list, the team also needed to design processes to filter new projects, maintain thelist, and work together to review the list. At times,
the list and the workload threatened to take overthe department. But the group continued to apply
its knowledge of the archetypes and monitor thesystem to improve communication andcollaboration.
Despite the fact that their 30-day action plan
only specified that they update the list, people felt
demoralized that they hadn’t made progress on theleverage point of “making choices about what tosay ‘yes’ to and what to say ‘no’ to.” One participant
commented, “Basically, nothing’s changed. All
the negative archetypes that were there when

F E AT U R E | WAY A N D M c K E E B Y

we started are still there.” Upon questioning, people
conceded that there was positive movement within
the negative archetypes, and evidence that morepositive archetypes were happening. But since theirworkload hadn’t changed, they felt they had failed,even though communication had dramaticallychanged. To dispel this negative perception, groupmembers discussed the time delay factor in seeing
the impact of the changes they’d made in theircommunication and in their system.

60 Days LaterAt the 60-day follow-up, the team started recognizing the significant impact that had occurredin communication. One woman remarked that
she was listening to a program on the radio
about stovepipes in organizations, and suddenly
it occurred to her that their organization no longer
had them. The CIO spoke of having more patience
about projects not getting done, because he had
a better sense of the big picture and the interrelationships. Because of that insight, he felt he wasless of a micromanager.
Various team members remarked that they see
things from a systems thinking perspective. Now
it is more common for them to think ahead andinvolve other teams in their efforts, whereas in
the past they may not have done so until halfway
through the project. The group also felt as though
there were fewer surprises now that members
had a broader picture of what was going on.
The project list went from being an overwhelming
prospect to a useful tool. Team members recognized that they still needed to prioritize, and theirplan for the next 30 days was around that goal.
Interestingly enough, the CIO speculated that the
project list was the cause of all the positive changes.
After discussing this opinion, the team concluded
that the list itself was not responsible for the
improved communication; the changes wouldn’t
have happened in the absence of the leadershipretreat with the systems thinking focus. In fact,
one person mentioned that the department had
created consolidated lists of projects in the past,
without the same kind of positive results they
were experiencing this time.

120 Days Later
A major project did not go as successfully as expected, and the team required about three months
to resolve outstanding issues. The department
worked hard to make sure the staff that worked on
the project did not feel that fingers were pointing
toward them. The team evaluated what worked
and what did not, and then developed a process
to handle unsuccessful projects.
Despite this setback, communication, teamwork,and morale stayed at an acceptable level. The
leadership team thought that the leadership retreat and systems thinking perspective prevented
the problem from being worse than it was. Here’s
how one team member described it:
Systems thinking brought levity to the situation. We were able to deal with it in more of a
non-blaming way, looking at things from a systems perspective. We made a collective decision to drift a few goals, so that we could move
forward relieving the pressure of this crisis. We
kept the customer informed and had a unified
presence. Despite the stress people were feeling, we worked through the issues while maintaining our cool, stayed out of each other’s way,
and sent people home for rest and recovery.
We understood the need to give ourselves abreath!
In describing in general what they learned at
the retreat, one participant gave the following
anecdotal story:
We came in, and the office was flooded. We
successfully communicated the need for temporary space, relocated everyone in three days,
and maintained the level of support to ourcustomers. Systems thinking helped us focus
on helping each other out.
Other participants described the success of thesystems thinking effort in the following way:
When problems come up, we work more effectively as a team. Communication has improved

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across different groups. We’re aware of creating a
win/win among our users and our teams so that
we all can win. The atmosphere we’ve created
has made accomplishing our work much easier.
“Planning for Limits” has been a big success.
Regarding our recent fiasco, we looked atshort-term fixes to relieve the pressure; now
we’re focusing on the longer-term strategy.

and everyone wants them to start now. How
we manage it will be key.
t Communicating to our customers is achallenge. They don’t read our e-mails. We
recognize that part of the problem might
be because we’ve been sending them more,because they complain we don’t keep theminformed. It’s a vicious circle.

We have a lot less “Shifting the Burden.” We arealso more aware of, and thus prevent, people
and departments from becoming “Accidental
Adversaries.” We get problems to the rightpeople more quickly, thereby minimizing thenegative “Escalation” archetype.

The team discussed how to sustain the momentum going forward and came up with the following two items:t After Action Reviews. The team emphasized
integrating lessons learned into adjustments
going forward. They would incorporate theAfter Action and Before Action Reviews into
the current Lessons Learned approach.
t Systems thinking at all levels. To maximize thesystems thinking process and sustain it going
forward, people thought it needed to go down
to all levels in the organization. Most people expressed a desire to have an abbreviated systems
thinking training similar to the four-hour makeup session (for those who were absent from thetwo-day retreat), whereby people from eachoriginal group would have a chance to explain
their maps, and participants would learn thelanguage of the archetypes. The folks who did
this at the four-hour make-up session commented that it was helpful to them in integrating their learning of the methodology.

We are putting more focus on “Fixes That Work,”
not just quick fixes to relieve pressure. We aredoing cross-training so we all are successful,minimizing the negative impact of “Successto the Successful.”
The leadership team identified existing challenges:t The “Attractiveness Principle” continues
to be a strong negative archetype. We keepsaying “yes” and are working on prioritizing andfiltering what we take on. We are still sufferingfrom “Growth and Underinvestment,” which inturn causes “Tragedy of Commons” and “Limits
to Success” (not enough resources to keep up
with demands). Now that it’s the end of the
fiscal year, we are seeing a lot of new projects,

F E AT U R E | WAY A N D M c K E E B Y

Three months later, people still thought the leadership retreat was a success and were still reaping
the rewards. Internal communication was themost visible improvement, and certain negativearchetypes were affected in a positive way. The
CIO and his leadership team recognized external

communication with their customers as an area
on which to focus next. They also saw the need tocontinue the efforts to prioritize and filter projects
to mitigate the continued presence of the “Attractiveness Principle” archetype. O

UpdateThe positive ripple effects of this retreat continue three years later and have moved beyond
the IT department to impact the entire organization. Specifically, four other initiatives
evolved to continue to improve communication and teamwork. These projects also produceda more coordinated effort with the wider organization, better relations between IT and its
customers, and increased focus and productivity.
t We identified “cornerstone projects” – the three or four major projects that would be ourdepartment’s main focus and would help the team stay focused on its key priorities overthe next several years.
t We created and implemented a scale for evaluating the priority and complexity of eachproject, which in turn helped us better coordinate with our customers.
t We developed a Portfolio Management Section within the department to address all
projects from conception to analysis, procurement, planning, design, activation, support,
and retirement.
t The most important initiative was to establish an IT Advisory Governance body that madethe project list and the prioritization of projects an organizational versus a departmental focal
point. This initiative elevated decision making to a higher organizational level, essentiallydispelling misperceptions that the IT department serves as the sole gatekeeper of all IT
work and that it favors particular stakeholders.

What started as a systems thinking approach to team building surpassed the original expectations with which the client and the consultant started. We are happy to have this opportunity
to provide a three-year update.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Cynthia Way is principal of Way To Go! Inc., a Washington DC–based company that is in the businessof creating breakthroughs in thinking, action, and results – individually and organizationally.
Cynthia is currently serving on the interim board for the SoL Global Coaching Community.
cynthia@waytogoconsulting.com
Jon Walter McKeeby, D.Sc., is the chief information officer of the National Institutes of Health ClinicalCenter as well as the department head of the Department of Clinical Research Informatics. DCRI
currently has a staff of approximately 100. Over the past year, DCRI has completed approximately
30 mid-range initiatives and projects with the implementation of the Inpatient Pharmacy System
as the cornerstone project. JMcKeeby@cc.nih.gov

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F E AT U R E 11.4

Thinking in Circles About Obesity
TA R E K K . A . H A M I D
The strength of the systems approach lies in its capacity to integrate variables that otherwise would
be isolated from each other. As shown in this article, in the case of human weight and energy regulation,systems thinking allows us to better understand the feedback interactions between the physiologicaland the behavioral. Psychologists have found that most people intuitively view causality in linear terms,
expecting effect to always be proportional to cause. But the effort needed to accomplish a task often
increases exponentially, not linearly, as the difficulty of the task increases. This is one of the perspectives
that a systems approach to weight management – and other cognitive and physical tasks – can offer.

S

ystems thinking is a perspective and a set of conceptual tools thatenables us to understand the structure and predict the behavior ofcomplex systems. While already commonplace in engineering and in
business, the use of systems thinking in personal health is less widelyadopted. Yet health is precisely the setting where dynamic complexity is mostproblematic and where the stakes are highest. Thinking in Circles About Obesity:
Applying Systems Thinking to Weight Management (Springer, 2009), aims to fillthis gap. The book applies systems thinking to personal health in a form that’s
Tarek K.A. Hamid
accessible to the general reader, with the hope that it will have a profoundinfluence on how ordinary people think about and manage their health and well-being.

Systems Thinking . . . and Thinking About Systems
The great shock of 20th-century science has been that systems cannot be understood by analysis
alone. While the performance of any system – whether it is an oil refinery, an economy, or the humanbody – obviously depends on the performance of its parts, it is never equal to the sum of the actionsof its parts taken separately. Rather, it is a function of theirinteractions. Breaking a system into its component pieces andstudying the pieces separately is, thus, an inadequate way toTeam Tip
understand the whole.
Human weight and energy regulation provide a good case inpoint. They are parts of a complex psychobiological systemthat involves the behavioral act of eating, the processes ofingestion and assimilation of food, the storage and utilizationof energy, as well as interactions with the external environment (cultural and physical). All these various factors areinterconnected, pushing on each other and being pushed on

Although this article focuses
specifically on the issue of weight
management, some of the lessons
are relevant for organizational
issues; for example, the ideaof “learning to squint” to see
feedback.

This article was originally published in The Systems Thinker® V20N10, Dec. 2009/Jan. 2010.

F E AT U R E | H A M I D

in return. Appetite shapes body weight, and bodyweight influences appetite. Weight reflects activity
levels (which are also shaped by the socioeconomic
environment), and activity levels reflect weight.
And on and on (see “Learning to Squint”).
Understandably, putting systems pieces back
together and recognizing the interactions between
them can appear slippery and elusive. So much
will be going on, and some of the things that aregoing on will cause still other things to go on.
Making sense of it all becomes a daunting task.
It’s why one of the most important and potentiallymost empowering insights to come from the fieldof systems thinking is that certain patterns ofstructure recur again and again in many systems– whether physical, biological, or social – revealing
an elegant simplicity underlying the complexity ofsystems (Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art& Practice of the Learning Organization, Doubleday/
Currency, 1990). And it’s why learning to recognize
these recurring building blocks is a powerful conceptual leverage that allows us to see throughcomplexity into the underlying structures thatdrive system behavior (or misbehavior).

Stock and Flow Basics
All dynamic systems – the human body being aperfect example – can be modeled as stocks andrates of flow threaded together by information

Learning to SquintW

hy do we see straight lines when reality works in circles? For two primary reasons: visibility (what we see
when we open our eyes) and time delays.

When we look with our eyes, we see “stuff.” We see material things like people, food, tubs, and buildings. Feedback
processes, on the other hand, are not physical objects; they are causal relationships between objects. To see themtakes training and effort – more effort than simply opening our eyes and letting the appropriate chemical receptors
be stimulated. We have to squint with our minds to see feedback relationships (from Barry Richmond, “Systems
Thinking: Four Key Questions” – available at www.iseesystems.com).
In the case of human energy and weight regulation, the feedback relationships are hard to see, because many
aspects of that physical system are opaque. The rise and fall of our energy stores, for example, are not as visible as
the rising and falling water level in a tub. Further, because with energy and weight regulation we are part of thesystem ourselves, it is doubly hard to see the patterns of interactions.
In addition to the lack of visibility, another important reason we often fail to see the loops is the asymmetry in the
delays associated with cause and effect (e.g., as when the effect of X on Y is immediate and directly apparent, but
the feedback effect of Y on X is delayed by days or months). In many of the things we do, the consequences of ouractions are not evident in the moment the action is being taken (as when smoking today leads to lung cancer many
years in the future). Because we are conditioned to use cues such as temporal and spatial proximity of cause andeffect to judge causal relationships, we often fail to close the causal loop.
The misperception of feedback, however, comes at a price. Misperceiving feedback often results in actions thatgenerate unanticipated (often undesired) surprises, and when this happens, we are quick to claim these to be
unfortunate side effects. But do not fool yourself. As John Sterman says in Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking andModeling for a Complex World (Irwin McGraw-Hill, 2000), “Side effects are not a feature of reality but a sign that our
understanding of the system is narrow and flawed.”
He concludes: “To avoid [side effects] . . . requires us to expand the boundaries of our mental models so that we
become aware of and understand the implications of the feedbacks created by the decisions we make. That is, wemust learn about the structure … of the increasingly complex systems [that we are managing].”

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Dieting Regulation System
Self-Control Strength

Replenishment

Exertion

Self-Control
Strength Affects
Adherence
to Diet

Maintenanceof Weight-Loss
Taxes
Self-Control
WeightStock and flow structures are not limited to physical“stuff,” however. For example, experimental research
is demonstrating that the human capacity for selfregulation – a critical faculty for successful weight
regulation – is a limited resource. In a manner
analogous to the storage and depletion of physicalenergy, the human capacity for self-regulation canbe conceptualized as a reservoir – or stock – thatis consumed and replenished with the exertion ofself-control and rest (M. Muraven, D. M. Tice, and
R. F. Baumeister, “Self-control as a limited resource:
Regulatory depletion patterns,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1998).

Behavior and Physiology Interactions
Food Intake

Energy ExpenditureThis diagram integrates two sets of stocks and flows in the human
psychobiological system for feeding regulation: (1) the stock of humanself-control, with its replenishment and exertion rates; and (2) thebody’s energy stock, with food intake as its inflow rate and energy
expenditure as its outflow rate. The interaction between these twosystems gives rise to the weight-cycling dynamic widespread amongand dreaded by dieters.

The strength of the systems
approach lies in its capacity tointegrate variables that otherwise
would be isolated from each other.
feedback loops. Stocks and flows constitutethe two fundamentally different processes –accumulation and flow – that characterize how
reality works and how systems change. You’ll findthese stock and flow structures in systems of all
kinds. A familiar “plumbing” example is that ofwater in a bathtub. A bathtub is a (hydraulic) stock
whose level changes as a function of the rates ofwater flowing in and draining out. And just like abathtub, the level of energy stored in the humanbody constitutes a stock (primarily of fat), withfood intake as its inflow rate and energy expenditure as its outflow rate.

The strength of the systems approach lies in its
capacity to integrate variables that otherwise
would be isolated from each other. In the case ofhuman weight and energy regulation, it allows us,
for example, to examine (and better understand)the feedback interactions between the physiological and the behavioral.
The diagram “Dieting Regulation System” integrates
the two sets of stocks and flows in the human
psychobiological system for feeding regulation
discussed above: (1) the stock of human selfcontrol, with its replenishment and exertion rates;and (2) the body’s energy stock, with food intake
as its inflow rate and energy expenditure as its
outflow rate. As we shall see, these two sets of processes are not isolated phenomena. Indeed, it isthe (mismanaged) interaction between these twostock and flow systems that gives rise to the weightcycling dynamic – the “lose-gain” phenomenon
widespread among and dreaded by dieters.
When the two stock and flow processes are combined into an integrated whole (see “Dieting Regulation System”), what we end up with is one of
the classic archetypes for oscillatory behavior:that of two stocks (resources) interacting with
one another such that the rise in one drains theother and vice versa.

F E AT U R E | H A M I DSpecifically, in this integrated psychobiologicalsystem for human feeding regulation, “Self-Control
Strength” (which we can designate as stock 1)
affects adherence to the diet and, hence, the regulation of the food intake rate into stock 2, “Weight.”
This regulatory function is not a free lunch –constraining food intake to decrease and/or maintain the weight stock at a certain level requires
effort which, in turn, consumes self-control
strength. This means that the state of the bodyweight stock (stock 2) regulates the exertion rate(the outflow rate) of the self-control stock. Stock 1
acts as a catalyst for the inflow rate to stock 2,
and, likewise, stock 2 returns the favor and acts
as a catalyst for the outflow from stock 1.
For any such stock and flow system, if and how
fast total depletion of a stock occurs depends on
the initial size of the stock and the magnitude of
the imbalance between the inflow and outflow.
In the case of self-regulation, we know from personal experience that most people are capableof exerting modest levels of self-control and sustaining the effort day in and day out. This suggeststhat the amount of self-control needed for ourdaily social functioning – for example, stopping
at a stop sign, standing in line even when in ahurry, holding our tempers, and so forth – is low
enough that normal periods of rest can compensate for the moderate depletion rate.
But what about when we have to (or choose to)exert more-than-modest levels of self-control?
Resisting stronger impulses, such as not eatingeven when persistently hungry, obviously requires
more self-control than resisting less appealing
temptations or weaker impulses, such as speedingon the highway. Would normal rest be enough,then, to compensate for the faster depletion rate?
Or is the human capacity for self-regulation alimited resource that intense exertion depletes
relatively quickly – akin say to our bodies’ limited
glycogen stores that fuel intense physical activity?
Over the last 20 years, a wide range of studies
have been conducted to assess self-regulatory
depletion in humans. (Many of these studies wereconducted by Dr. Roy Baumeister and his groupat Case Western Reserve University.) The results
generally point toward the following conclusions:
The capacity for self-regulation, just like muscularstrength, is a limited resource that is subject totemporary depletion. Furthermore, the research
results suggest that, for most people, this resource
is rather scarce.

The capacity for self-regulation,
just like muscular strength, isa limited resource that is subject
to temporary depletion.
So, how effective are dieters at managing theirlimited capacity for self-regulation? The record
indicates that successful long-term “losers” remain
a minority, and that the vast majority of dieters aretrapped in a recurring cycle of weight loss and regain – Yo-Yo dieting is the colloquial term for thisprocess. In this all-too-familiar pattern, dieters
seeking lofty weight-loss goals are able to slash
off large amounts of weight by eating very little
or even starving themselves, but then run out ofregulatory gas and end up, after a period of shortlived success, regaining the weight – often with“interest.”
But why?

Where More Is Less
When embarking on a diet, most overweightindividuals tend to set weight-loss goals thatreflect their image of what their ideal body weightshould be – based, perhaps, on personal notionsof aesthetics, advertised “poster” success stories,
or standard height/weight charts read in a book ormagazine article. The greater the weight-loss goal,
the greater the caloric deficit must be. The greater
the caloric deficit, the more acute the person’shunger and the greater the self-control needed
to override the deprivation and sustain the diet– that is, the greater the drain rate on the dieter’s
self-control capacity (stock). That’s obvious. But

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Escalating Energy Expenditure
11
10
Energy Expenditure (kcal/min)

54

9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

km 1

2

1

3

2

4

5

3

6

7

4

8

9 10

5

6

Speed (mph)The effort needed to accomplish a task often
increases exponentially, not linearly, as the difficulty of the task increases. For example, energy
expenditure escalates as walking speed increases.

what is often less obvious is how much harder
doing so becomes over time.
Dieters can seriously underestimate the escalationin hardship because, as psychologists have found,most people intuitively view causality in linear
terms, expecting effect to be always proportional
to cause. That is to say, we to tend to think that if
A causes B to happen, then 2As must cause 2Bs
to happen.
But the effort needed to accomplish a task often
increases exponentially, not linearly, as the difficultyof the task increases. This principle is not unique todieting, but applies to many tasks, both cognitiveand physical. And it is, perhaps, easier to grasp inphysical tasks such as, say, muscular exertion.
Consider, for example, walking, which for mostpeople is their major physical activity in a relatively
sedentary lifestyle. “Escalating Energy Expenditure”
portrays how energy expenditure escalates as walking speed increases, at speeds ranging from one
to 10 km per hour (0.62 to 6.2 mph). It shows that as
speed increases, energy expenditure rises, not in a
linear fashion, but exponentially.

At low walking speeds – at the one- to two-mph
pace of normal daily activities – the exertion of
muscular energy (the stock’s outflow rate) is modest
enough that the drain on energy reserves can beadequately compensated for by daily rest and foodintake (the inflow rate). It is, in other words, a levelof exertion that is sustainable, meaning that if wechose to, we could sustain this level of physicalactivity for extended periods of time without depleting our muscular energy stock. In fact, we cansustain it for very extended periods, as in the caseof Deborah De Williams. On Friday, October 15,
2004, De Williams arrived back in her hometownof Melbourne after having set a world record as thefirst woman to walk around Australia – traveling in aclockwise direction along Australia’s National Highway 1. She completed the 9,715-mile walk in 343
days (which also earned her a second world record
for the “longest walk in the shortest time”). Deborah
De Williams had walked close to 30 miles per day,at a speed of two miles per hour. That translates
into walking 15 hours a day, every day for almosta year – a sustained stock, if there ever was one.
As the speed versus energy-expenditure plot in“Escalating Energy Expenditure” shows, walking
faster can quickly increase the rate of energy
expenditure. Once our rate of energy expenditureexceeds our ability to replace it, our energy reserves
deplete over time. How fast? Consider what it takes
to run a marathon. The human energy “stock”(even the best stocked) is barely large enough tosustain a 26-mile marathon run (quite a bit lessthan De Williams’ 9,715 miles.) And those resilient
enough to endure that challenge will mostcertainly arrive with empty tanks.
Not unlike walking or running, the self-regulatory
effort in weight loss escalates not linearly, but
exponentially, with the difficulty of the goal. Our
body’s weight set point seems to have a certain
give to it, so that a person can stay a bit below itwith relatively little effort. Larger weight losses,on the other hand, are difficult to tolerate. Fat-celltheory provides one possible mechanism for thisphysiological nonlinearity. As the enlarged fat cellsof an overweight dieter (which had expanded inF E AT U R E | H A M I D

size during weight gain to accommodate excessenergy storage) shrink back to their normal size(or slightly below it) subsequent to modest weight
loss, the physiological signals to overeat andregain the weight are often easy to override. But
if the weight-loss effort persists and the fat cells
deplete to below-normal levels, the “volume” ofthe physiological message to the brain’s appetitecontrol center increases, eventually becominga scream: “EAT, EAT, EAT.”

Understanding How Weight
Cycling Happens
To understand how unrealistic goals can induce
weight-cycling behavior, in the lower part of “TheLose-Gain Cycle” (p. 56), we “walk through” one suchcycle by following the numbered arrows downfrom top to bottom. At the start of a diet cycle,
both stocks – “Self-Control Strength” and “Weight”– would typically be relatively full (such as at point
1). Voluntary restriction of one’s food intake whenstarting a diet causes “Weight” – stock 2 – to gradually drop. Because the dieting process consumes
self-control energy, the dieter drops to point 2 in
the figure with both stocks partially depleted.
But this particular dieter doesn’t stop there. Her
futile persistence to shed an unrealistic amount ofweight causes her to keep going, depleting bothstocks further. When that process ultimately depletes her self-control strength, she hits bottom –at point 3 in the cycle. While, from a weight-loss
standpoint, reaching that juncture may be cause
for celebration, unfortunately for her, she will notstay at that point. With a depleted stock 1, the dieter’s grip on the feeding inflow “spigot” loosens.
And with adherence to the diet progressively
weakening as a result, the weight stock invariably
refills – propelling her back to the top of thecycle, at point 4.
This two-stock feedback structure, while admittedly far too simplified to capture the full complexity and idiosyncrasies of human weight regulation, does in fact capture the essential elementsthat underlie human weight-cycling behavior.
Interestingly, this particular two-stock structure –two resources (stocks) interacting with one another such that the rise in one drains the otherand vice versa – is fundamentally the same structure that underlies cyclic behavior in many otherfamiliar systems, such as the pendulum clock
and a child’s Slinky toy. And if we were to mathematically represent the variables in these systems
and their interrelationships, the variables would
assume different names – rather than body weight,
feeding, and energy expenditure, we would have,for example, pendulum or spring mass, force, andmomentum – but the differential equations that
capture their dynamic interactions will have
similar forms.

This particular two-stock
structure is fundamentally thesame structure that underlies
cyclic behavior in many otherfamiliar systems.
While weight cycling is surely a source of frustration
to many dieters, the risks associated with repeatedcycles of weight loss and regain far exceed mere
disappointment. A substantial body of epidemiologic research clearly shows that repeated cycles ofweight loss and regain increase the risks of chronic
diseases (particularly coronary heart disease) andeven premature death – independent of obesity
itself.

Learning to “Manage Our Stocks”
Like any other limited (and exhaustible) resource,
self-regulatory capacity needs to be managed
and must not be squandered. But squandering
it, not managing it, is what most dieters habitually
do. The unrealistic goals that people set escalate
self-regulatory exertion and over time induce regulatory depletion and ultimately relapse (not unlike
a marathoner who sprints early, only to run out
of gas later).
Unfortunately, setting more realistic goals rarely
coincides with most dieters’ personal agendas. Nor

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The Lose-Gain Cycle
110
20

110
20

1

Self-Control
Strength100
10Self-Control
Strength

4
2

2

100
10

Weight1

Weight

3
90
0

90
0

0.00

4

3

8.00
4.00
TIME

4.00
0.00

16.00
12.00

8.0012.00
TIME

At the start of a diet cycle, both stocks –“Self-Control Strength” and “Weight” –are relatively full (point 1).Voluntary
restriction of food intake causes “Weight”
to gradually drop. Because the dieting
process consumes self-control energy, thedieter drops to point 2 with both stocks
partially depleted. As she continues to lose
weight, she depletes both stocks further,hitting bottom at point 3. With depleted
self-control, the dieter’s grip on the feeding inflow “spigot” loosens, and the weightstock invariably refills – propelling herback to the top of the cycle (point 4).
16.00

Self-Control Strength
Self-Control Strength

1 Start a diet
1 Start a diet
Replenishment Replenishment
Exertion

Exertion

WeightWeightSelf-Control Strength
Self-Control Strength

Replenishment Replenishment
Exertion

WeightFood Intake

Exertion 2

Food Intake

Energy Expenditure
FoodEnergy
IntakeExpenditure

Exerting self-control
energyExerting2self-control
energyandlosingweightand losing weight

WeightSelf-Control Strength
Energy Expenditure
Food
IntakeExpenditure
Self-Control Strength
EnergyReplenishment

Replenishment
Exertion

Exertion

3 depletion
Self-control depletion
3 Self-control
WeightSelf-Control Strength
Self-Control Strength

Replenishment

Replenishment
Exertion

Food Intake

WeightEnergy Expenditure
Food Intake
Energy Expenditure

Exertion

4 Regaining the weight
4 Regaining the weight

WeightFood Intake

WeightEnergy Expenditure
Food Intake
Energy ExpenditureF E AT U R E | H A M I D

are they encouraged to. The diet industry thrives
for two reasons – big promises and repeat customers. The big promises attract the customers in thefirst place, and the magnitude of the promises
virtually guarantees that they cannot be maintained.
It makes for a very attractive business model(J. Polivy and C.P. Herman, “If at first you don’t
succeed: False hopes of self-change,” American
Psychologist, 57(9), 2002).
Thankfully, however, things may be changing.
A growing understanding of the biological factorsthat regulate body weight and of the cognitivedifficulty of maintaining large weight losses is
prompting a redefinition of the “successful” goalsof obesity treatment. Slowly but surely, moderation
is becoming the overriding theme in weight-loss
efforts. A major impetus for this shift has been thegrowing evidence that moderate weight losses of
only 10–15 percent of initial weight, even among
substantially overweight individuals, are associatedwith a significant improvement in nearly all parameters of health – including blood pressure, heartmorphology and functioning, lipid profile, glucose
tolerance (among diabetics), sleep disorders, andrespiratory functioning. And these findings are
now prompting a growing number of federal
agencies and health organizations to call for
setting more realistic weight goals rather thanstriving for an “ideal” weight.

Next Steps
Here are some topics for additional exploration; many of these
are covered in depth in Thinking in Circles About Obesity:t 8IJMFMJOFBSUIJOLJOHJTDPOWFOJFOU BOE JOTPNFDBTFT 
may serve as a “good enough approximation”), in reality, it
is almost always invalid. Changes in system outputs are notalways proportional to changes in input, and things rarely
happen in straight lines. Until a few years ago when mathematical analysis was our only tool, “assuming away” nonlinearity was justifiable – some say a necessity. It no longer
is. With the advent of modern computers and the availability of inexpensive simulation techniques, we are now able
to develop realistic and faithful models of our real-world
nonlinear systems. Today there is no excuse (whether inmanaging a business or one’s health) to make simplifying
linearity assumptions when dealing with complex
phenomena.
t 8IJMFBMSFBEZDPNNPOQMBDFJOFOHJOFFSJOHBOEJOCVTJness, the use of systems thinking in personal health is lesswidely adopted. Yet this is precisely the setting wherecomplexities are most problematic, and where the stakes
are perhaps highest.
t 8FBMMOFFEUPSFBMJ[FUIBUJONBOBHJOHPVSIFBMUI BOEPVS
bodies), we are decision makers who are managing a complex and dynamic system. Effective self-regulation requires
more than motivation – it requires understanding and skill.

To this system thinker, that’s music to the ear. O

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tarek K.A. Hamid, PhD, is an MIT-trained system dynamicist with expertise in human metabolism
and energy regulation. He is a professor of system dynamics at the Naval Postgraduate Schoolin Monterey, California, and a member of the System Dynamics Society. He is the author of Thinking
in Circles About Obesity: Applying Systems Thinking to Weight Management (Springer, 2009).
tkabdelh@nps.edu

57

Reflections
The SoL Journal

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Volume 11, Number 4

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