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Over many years IFF’s international network has explored pretty much every tool in the toolbox designed for getting a handle on complex issues – systems thinking, mess-mapping, visual analytics, complexity science, biomimicry, panarchy, holarchy, other ecological thinking, scenario planning, appreciative inquiry, theory U, design thinking, methods from the arts and creativity, viable systems modelling, cybernetics (first and second order), group processes, open innovation, social movements, nudges, chaos theory, tipping points, agile programming... and so on.
We have learned that this work is not about the tools. There are plenty out there, and we have invented some more.
But the fact is that tools and theories and models only come to life in the hands of the user. We can use a hammer to bang in a nail, prop open a door, or chip another sliver of marble from the block that contains David. Effectiveness lies not in the tools themselves but in the worldview and the intentions of the user. We have learned to be sceptical when invited in to use a tool (‘do some systems thinking’, ‘create a set of scenarios’) rather than to address or engage with an issue.
The approach we have derived from this long experience, supported by simple tools and a well-rehearsed methodology, now revolves around three aspects:
- Take a wider view of the context: take a broader view, entertain other perspectives, invite the elephants into the room, explore the ‘system not in question’ as well as the system in question. We cannot grasp all of the complexity, but we can push the boundaries a little further;
- Take a longer view of the context: place the present in a perspective that includes the past and the future. The 'strategic conversation' is always about the ways in which the landscape is changing around us, ‘the gentle art of reperceiving the present’;
- Remember we are human beings: Sir Geoffrey Vickers, one of the founders of systems thinking, reminded us that ‘human systems are different’. Human beings have vast capacities for sense-making way beyond abstract reasoning. And human systems (individual and collective) include an important psychological dimension – we respond to anxiety and overwhelm by becoming neurotic, psychotic, or transformational (usually a combination of all three). Both the neurotic and psychotic responses are inimical to learning.
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