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 A free e-newsletter spotlighting systemic thinking and innovations in leadership, management, and organizational development. Please forward to your colleagues. 
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FACE
TO FACE Five Centuries of the Future: A Whirlwind Journey through Time with Eamonn Kelly |
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PEGASUS
CONFERENCE UPDATE |
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LEARNING
LINKS Action-To-Outcome Mapping: Testing Strategy With Systems Thinking |
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FACE
TO FACE
In the preface to his recent book, Powerful Times: Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World, Eamonn Kelly uses a metaphor from the world of bees to acknowledge the heartening spirit of experimentation and discovery that he observes in natural leaders at all levels. “This book is for all of the ‘scout bees’ of the human world—those explorers who find it their calling to seek, on behalf of us all, a better future. I hope it makes a modest contribution to strengthening your wings, animating your dance, refreshing your optimism, framing your insights, and, above all, helping you make a difference in the world.” Eamonn’s enthusiasm for addressing the Pegasus Conference this November stems from his recognition of how aptly that metaphor applies to the systems thinking community. Seeing the conference—like his book—as a means for strengthening, animating, refreshing, and framing, he promises to engage us with his insightful observations about the outdated mental models we’ve inherited over the last five centuries of history, and stirring inquiry about where we go from here. “It is no longer a luxury to think globally, act collaboratively, and tap into our capacity for collective intelligence. It is an imperative given the extent to which the bedrock assumptions that we’ve depended upon for the last 500 years are cracking right before our eyes.” To get a sense the exuberant presence that Eamonn will bring to the conference, enjoy this video with his “warp speed” survey of the roots of many of today’s major political, social, and economic issues: Suggested reading: |
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PEGASUS
CONFERENCE UPDATE Deadline Extended! Register before May 31 to secure your place and save $500 off the standard conference rate! Hot
Off the Press!
Teams Program Facilitator Jen Hunter Suggests Tools that Inspire Teams to Learn, Grow and Deliver! The Teams Program bookends the conference with launching and concluding sessions to help intact and project teams attending together achieve shared focus and make it stick. In addition to cross-pollination with other teams and the support of a dedicated coach throughout the conference, teams benefit from the wisdom of facilitators experienced in applying systems thinking and related tools to the knottiest team performance issues. In the following list, lead facilitator Jen Hunter suggests some of her favorite Pegasus resources to support team learning and development. Buy ahead or plan to pick up a copy at the conference bookstore to reinforce your conference learning: 1. The Systems Thinker. This is simply one of the most valuable team building tools I've ever found; short provocative articles that help a team frame or reframe a challenge or opportunity, or set the foundation for thinking boldly about new futures. 2. A tie between...The Systems Thinking Playbook, by Linda Booth Sweeney and Dennis Meadows. I LOVE THIS!!! It gives me a leg up on the design of interesting and provocative exercises, often providing context that allows me to slightly adapt the exercise to meet the specific needs of the team or community I’m serving. AND The Learning Fables by David Hutchens, illustrated by Bobby Gombert, with my favorites being Outlearning the Wolves, The Lemming Dilemma, and Listening to the Volcano. These are great tools to create common language and explore some challenging team areas. Each fable has such a lovely way of telling an important and meaningful story. The images are fun and engaging, and they make the learning process easy; these are fantastic social lubricants. 3. Pegasus Conference audiotapes (and videos). These are excellent ways to bring the conference home with you! When one of the keynote sessions moves me, I will often buy a copy of that audio or video and include a clip or two in my presentation to the team back home. It makes the experience real for others and exposes them directly to the power and quality of the keynote itself! BOTTOM LINE: I think the most valuable learning tool Pegasus Communications offers is the annual Systems Thinking in Action® Conference. With its thoughtful focus on innovation, leadership and systems thinking, it brings together people from all over the world and a variety of sectors and disciplines to explore issues, ideas and challenges in a way that’s fun, engaging, and rewarding. For me, it is the one learning event each year that stimulates new thinking and practices!
Register your team of four or more on our web site before May 31 for only $1050 per person, or call 1-781-398-9700 today to ensure that you will be part of this important conversation! Also, take advantage of a special subscription price for The Systems Thinker® Newsletter—only $89 for a one-year subscription when you register (regularly $109). |
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LEARNING
LINKS In the “classic” systems thinking approach, a group uses mapping and modeling to help explain an important behavior over time. While we occasionally encounter groups that resonate with this classic approach, more often we find teams that are fixated on immediately improving their current strategies. They look to systems thinking for some specific help in addressing questions such as, “How can our team test our thinking about the best way to achieve our goals? How can we strengthen our strategy and achieve more success with less energy? And how can we avoid unintended consequences or ‘push-back’ from the system?” To help a group respond to those queries, we lead them through a structured process that we are calling “action-to-outcome” mapping. We have found this approach particularly useful in situations where a team has already chosen a set of actions intended to achieve specific outcomes within an uncertain environment. This process can stand alone or lead to a more expansive effort to map, understand, and formally model the system in which the group is operating. While we have used several variations, the core of our action-to-outcome mapping process involves five steps: (1) Exploring the existing causal theory, (2) Adding feedback, (3) Uncovering critical mindsets, (4) Accounting for external forces, and (5) Looking for opportunities for learning and action. Having seen
groups use action-to-outcome mapping to improve their strategies
on challenges ranging from urban sprawl to sustainable agriculture
to air quality to inner-city poverty gives us hope that systems
thinking can fulfill its promise of helping overcome the complex
challenges of creating a more sustainable world. Read the complete article or see The Systems Thinker, V14N2 (March 2003) Subscribe to The Systems Thinker |
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| Copyright 2006 Pegasus Communications. Leverage Points® can be freely forwarded by e-mail in its entirety. To obtain rights to distribute paper copies of, reproduce, or excerpt any part of Leverage Points, please contact permissions@pegasuscom.com. | |||||||||||||
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Eamonn
Kelly
is the visionary author of Powerful
Times: Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World, and CEO
of 
Jen
Hunter of