Resources

Learning a new language often involves as much forgetting or letting go as it does memorizing new words and creating new patterns of speech. On a recent trip to Mexico, I had a chance to renew my Spanish language studies. As I did, I noticed how my mid-life brain struggled to remember and retrieve unfamiliar words, and the surprising things it would do to meet the new demands. As a practitioner of human systems dynamics, I pondered what this experience could teach me about the role of difference in pattern formation. This blog explores some of my reflection.

We swim in a sea of noise. Images, words, sounds, and stories bombard us. Marketing tries to seduce us on city busses, bill boards, and buildings. News jumps from the black and white local newspapers. The 24-hour, almost unlimited, channels bring us news, shopping, stories, sports, and everything in between. Music, news, and talk radio keep us company wherever we go.

Human systems dynamics (HSD) prepares you to thrive in an uncertain future. When you see, understand, and influence complex, wicked issues, nothing is intractable. Join us for a new opportunity we will offer, starting soon and extending through the spring/summer of 2019. Are you interested in becoming a certified HSD Professional, but you cannot commit to the face-to-face portion of the program? If so, we invite you to join us in an all-virtual Human Systems Dynamics (HSD) Professional Certification program.

My 65th birthday isn’t the only reason I’m thinking about end of life. I’m hearing stories of death and dying from many people: Family, friends, friends of family, and families of friends. We also mark the passing of a generation that lived with the Holocaust, WWII, and the birth of TV and rock and roll. We experience the ultimate outcomes of the opioid industry, big oil, and the gun lobby, either in person or through the media. It would seem that death is all around us.

"Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day." - E.B. White

Consider how political, social, and economic pressures shape patterns of collaboration in your world.

What? Recently I worked with a group of organizational leaders who bring disparate groups together to collaborate on political and social issues. One of the challenges they face is helping their client groups define how they will make decisions together, ensuring adequate representation of their individual constituencies. Among this group, their largest question was about how they decide about engaging others and then make their intensions clear. In that conversation I shared four options for effective shared decision making.