Systems thinking goes beyond the use of systems tools. In this presentation, delivered as a keynote at the 2019 Systems Innovation Conference in Barcelona, Philippe Vandenbroeck (shiftn.com) lays out a path to systems mastery that is grounded in a personal ethos and worldview as a basis for the capacity to apply tools, developing method and sustain the capacity for social learning in dealing with complex challenges.

1. FIVE HORIZONS OF
SYSTEMS MASTERY
PHILIPPE VANDENBROECK, SHIFTN
SYSTEMS INNOVATION GATHERING
BARCELONA, 30-31 MARCH 2019

2. We need to be more
ambitious and take more
personal risks in shaping the
future systems practice.

3. ’Systems Thinking': here to stay?
Google N-Gram viewer: relative frequency of phrase 'systems thinking'
in a corpus of English-written printed sources published between 1800 and 2000
1960

4. What people really care about
money
sex
godST

5. Oops …
2000-2008

8. System dynamics rules !
Arnold and Wade (2015) A Definition of Systems Thinking: A Systems Approach

9. Success to the
successful
Eroding
goals

10. How will we navigate an
imminent time window in
which we will have to find
solutions to many pressing
societal problems?

11. Enter the
Anthropocene
istockphoto

12. How will we meaningfully
add to the intellectual capital
from the 1960s and 70s we
are still drawing down from?

13. Kahn & Wiener 1968
Schon 1972
Meadows 1972
Toffler 1970
Ackoff 1973
Vickers 1972
De Jouvenel 1964
The late 1960s and
early 1970s: a
period of ferment

14. How will we respond when
some mark us as
‘enemy of the people’?

15. serendipity science & engineering systems thinking’s USP
?
source:wikipedia
source:wikipedia

16. NOT ‘systems thinking's’ official language

17. FIVE HORIZONS OF
SYSTEMS MASTERY

19. Horizon 1 - TOOLS

20. Mastery at Horizon 1: Tools
Manifests itself in the ability to apply frameworks
and tools with a systems imprint (such as causal
loop diagramming, SD simulation, social network
analysis, issue mapping, paradoxical thinking,
full–cost accounting, appreciative inquiry, …).
Practice example: we relied on a causal-loop diagram to
synthesize insights about the organisational dynamics and
dilemmas in a platform organisation HQ.

22. Horizon 2 – METHOD
Systemic Design Toolkit
co-developed by Namahn – shiftN – MaRS Solutions Lab - Systemic Design Association

23. Horizon 2 – METHOD
Systems thinking
infused with design
thinking
Design thinking
infused with systems thinking

24. Mastery at Horizon 2: Method
Manifests itself in the ability to purposively and
context-sensitively combine systems oriented
tools into multi-faceted interventions with the
aim to improve situations perceived as
problematic.
Practice example: we relied on a systemic design approach
to increase the effectiveness of the information exchange
between platform HQ and platform members.

26. Horizon 3 - LEARNING
Our task:
"to reconfigure the
appreciative basis for
our existence"
Sir Geoffrey Vickers
(1892-1984)

27. LUMAS-model
Learning for a User by a Methodologically-
informed Approach to a Situation
Source:
P. Checkland and J. Poulter
(2004)

28. Can we imagine that this is how great cathedrals
came into being?
Copyright © The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia: http://www.effectuation.org/learn/effectuation-101

29. Mastery at Horizon 3: Learning
Manifests itself in the ability to create and
maintain a context to increase a social system’s
capacity for learning and action.
Practice example: we supported the platform organisation
to reframe their strategy from ‘defending sectoral interests’
to ‘supporting a cross-sectoral alliance to turn fragilised
minorities into a de facto majority that contributes to long-
term societal viability.’

31. "Good care: persistent tinkering in a world full of
complex ambivalence and shifting tensions. (...)
What changes along the way? One answer is: what
it is to be human. Care practices move us away
from rationalist versions of the human being. For
rather than insisting on cognitive operations, they
involve embodied practices. Rather than requiring
impartial decisions, they demand attuned
attentiveness and adaptive tinkering. Crucially, in
care practices what it means to be human has
more to do with being fragile than with mastering
the world. This does not imply a docile acceptance
of fate: care is active, it seeks to improve life.
Annemarie Mol
foto: Bob van der Vlist
Horizon 4 - Ethos

32. Mastery at Horizon 4: Ethos
Manifests itself in an individual disposition or an
organisational culture characterised by
suspension of judgment, humility, empathy and
an ability to reflexively question identity.
Practice example: we support the platform organisation to
develop a culture of ‘normative professionalisation’ with
staff members being fluent and open in negotiating tensions
between personal goals, professional standards and acute
needs of individuals in their member organisations.

34. Horizon 5 - Epistemology
https://www.bioedge.org
The major problems in
the world are the
result of the
difference between
how nature works and
the way people think.
-- Gregory Bateson

35. Mastery at Horizon 5 : Epistemology
Manifests itself in an ability to intuit and/or
articulate the pattern that connects us, mortal
and languaging beings with everything else
under the sun, and to model that wisdom in
personal behaviour.
Practice example:

36. systems thinking
systems tinkering
systems being

37. Image: RG&B photos, Stocksy

38. “If you can not grasp the
consciousness-altering
experience that real mastery of
these disciplines proposes,
of what value is your
participation?”
― Mark Twight

39. Thank you
www.shiftn.com