System Dynamics / Complexity

Delivering Health Care in Complex Adaptive Systems I: The Nature of Dynamic Systems

Delivering Health Care in Complex Adaptive Systems I: The Nature of Dynamic Systems

We face a major challenge in seeking to lead complex mid-21st Century organizations—and this is particularly a challenge regarding health care organizations and systems.

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The Complexity of 21st Century Health Care

The Complexity of 21st Century Health Care

There is much we can learn from our COVID experiences that would benefit not only our understanding of 21st Century health care systems, but also more generally the nature and dynamics of all complex systems in which we live and work.

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Tending the Fires of 21st Century Organizations

Tending the Fires of 21st Century Organizations

In this essay I am drawing a comparison between the fire that I tend in my living room hearth and the “tending” that is done by those leading dynamic and complex 21st Century organizations.

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Carving Up Gracie: The Loss of Integration

Carving Up Gracie: The Loss of Integration

“You can’t carve up Gracie!” While this was initially brushed off as just a theatrical gesture that reinforces the important of integration, the “carving up Gracie” became a recurrent theme at the Gathering.

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The Perfect Storm: Virus, Violence and Dysfunction

The Perfect Storm: Virus, Violence and Dysfunction

We have discovered that there might be a “perfect storm” operating at the point when these three systems interact. Pandemic virus meets race riot/police abuse meets government ineffectiveness.

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Leading into the Future VIII: Language and Segmentalism

Leading into the Future VIII: Language and Segmentalism

We are moving from a world that uses metaphors of sight (“having a vision of a future world,” “imagining an alternative”) to metaphors of speech (“finding one’s voice,” “telling one’s own story”). We are in a world where language has itself become reality and where globalization competing with a pull toward segmentalism.

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Mapping Effective Covid-19 Engagement: Four Responses to the Challenge

Mapping Effective Covid-19 Engagement: Four Responses to the Challenge

At times we must bring together wisdom, courage and vision—so that we might move forward personally and collectively under the guidance of a coherent and integrated map of virus-engagement.

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The Roots of Collaborative Innovation

The Roots of Collaborative Innovation

Abstract This article follows Charlie Smith’s kind request to address Buckminster Fuller’s question from which he created his extraordinary inventive …

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The Postmodern Condition: II. Troubling Ambiguity with Shifting Boundaries and Multiple Roles

The Postmodern Condition: II. Troubling Ambiguity with Shifting Boundaries and Multiple Roles

Frederic Jameson speaks about the troubling ambiguities of the boundaries that exist in this new era. This troubling ambiguity exists at all levels-personal, group, organizational and societal.

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Organizational Consultation: An Appreciative Approach–V. The Change Curve

Organizational Consultation: An Appreciative Approach–V. The Change Curve

We must expect any change effort to have an initial impact that is deleterious with reference to the achievement of these outcomes. A change curve accompanies any attempt to improve a situation.

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