Adaptive Leadership and Cultures

20 open-source guides for learning about Systems Innovation

A series of articles (links to article 2 and 3 below) exploring systems thinking by Roland Flemm:

1. What is Systems Thinking and why should I care

2. Complex Adaptive Systems (dcme.nu)

3. Mental Models 

The world is complex. If we don't seek to understand the system as a whole, and focus instead on optimising the parts, our results will be limited at best. We will also be ineffective at responding to complex problems (adaptive challenges). When we look at the whole system, we find and can harness connections and improve the whole system. 

'A key question inherent in any systems innovation initiative is how to scale to a level where we are affecting the whole system. Our world is populated with many small initiatives but as yet we have not realized meaningful large-scale systems change in many areas where it is most needed. The question of how we go from a system-changing idea to the re-organizing of a whole system is still unanswered. This guide is designed to help you think about scaling system changing ideas through a nonlinear approach that leverages the power of connectivity, feedback loops, and network effects to work with complexity; to scale faster and farther while remaining agile'.

An exploration of systems - entities that maintain their existence
through the mutual interaction of their parts. This definition of a system implies something beyond cause and effect. A systems view is somewhat in contradiction to the concept of analysis, which is breaking things down into smaller pieces to simplify the study. Analysis brings with it the risk of potentially losing the most relevant characteristics of the system, and possibly developing a less than complete understanding.