The Sparkling Orcs From Alacatraz Discussing the Honey Sauce Right Meow

Trump-A Most effective Anti-Leader

You're asking yourself two questions based off the title. “Trump-an effective leader?” and “What is an Anti-Leader?” The anti-leader you can probably put together, akin to anti-Christ, anti-thesis, etc. An anti-leader is the exact opposition to a leader, instead of strengthening our economic system, social networks, and alliances the move he makes would seem to weaken. And most do. Yet here is the catch, as an anti-leader, his ridiculous moves, inspire large scale collaboration in the opposition, in novel ways. The argument I will make will be based off this weeks readings on System Leadership.

I would argue that currently people are truly beginning to realize the unwavering clench the two-party political system has us in. I believe the disbelief in Trump as a president and his actions inspired the courageous women standing up for sexual misconduct. Just last night I heard on NPR, the leaders of the EU are preparing to confront Trump about his tax bill. While I missed the details (easy to happen with radio,) the gist is that a certain caveat in the bill will detrimentally weaken the world market. I dont recall ever in my lifetime, the leader (yet alone leaders) of another country confronting an American President on part of his decision making. What this says on the part of global collaboration is huge.

In this time, I see people being kinder to each other at a grassroots level. While at first I watched Trumps moves in horror, now, a quiet comfort, knowing each step of idiocy is a step toward larger collaboration. This sentiment has been strengthened during my time in MENV, as each speaker tells tales of the way the environmental movement is progressing despite Trump's policies.

I believe in the old adage “everything happens for a reason” and I am optimistic to a fault. This is my attempt at rationalizing the two in our current state of the system

The end!

The wicked leader is he whom the people despise.
The good leader is he whom the people revere.
The great leader is he of whom the people say, “We did it ourselves.”

    -Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu

As we wrap up the semester of learning about systems thinking, I feel accomplished with what I know now about systems thinking.

I really enjoyed the Dawn of System Leadership reading for this week. I feel like it was a very inspiring read, and made me feel confident about the future of systems thinking in my life. I feel like it also summarized this subject in an easily explainable way. Systems thinking involves looking at a problem from all angles; It involves having the ability to see the problem from everyone’s point of view and working to fix the problem while bringing those different points of view together.

The proverb above to me shows the importance of leadership in a systemic way. It’s the interaction of everyone involved in the system, coming together to solve whatever the issue is. Or at least trying to solve it.

The reading talked about the book Leading from the Emerging Future, which talks about “three “openings” needed to transform systems: opening the mind (to challenge our assumptions), opening the heart (to be vulnerable and to truly hear one another), and opening the will (to let go of pre-set goals and agendas and see what is really needed and possible).”

I thought this put everything into perspective everything about systems thinking. As systems thinkers, you need to look from the outside in. You need to look at all of the individual pieces, even the very small ones, in order to delve deep into the system and to be able to understand it. When you’re looking at a problem you need to be able to understand the big picture and the small one. You need to be open to different perspectives, different opinions, and different goals.

When I first signed up for this class, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I started off very confused about what I was getting into. Now at the end, I feel like I’ve learned a very valuable technique, idea, tool, whatever you want to call it. I think that what I’ve learned can definitely be used in my future, not just in my career but in life in general. It’s given me a new perspective on things, and it had made me look at a lot of things very differently.

It’s obvious that this works; there are various examples of success in several different readings throughout the semester. So, the next step is getting more people to think in this way. Spreading the word, the knowledge, and bringing people together to work towards a better future.

 

Energy Collaboration and Leadership

The Senge and Company readings for this week on Collaborating and System Leadership re-sparked a conversation my wife and I had once about the energy industry establishing a learning network of sorts. It was around 2008 when it was reported in The Denver Business Journal that ConocoPhillips bought the StorageTek facility in Louisville. It was reported that they were going to open a technology and training center that would serve as a hub for their world operations. We speculated that the Denver Metro area would be a good place to host an energy collaboration. Due to the number of energy-related companies here we asked ourselves what if all the players in the energy industry in Colorado all got together and shared ideas and lessons from their experiences? Peter Senge and Company call theirs “The Society for Organizational Learning.” After reading this week’s papers, seems that what we were discussing back then was a sort of “cross-sector collaboration” (Senge). The energy industry in Colorado includes a diverse set of stakeholders that rarely cross each other’s paths, such as oil and gas companies, mid-stream companies, refineries, utilities, energy service companies, REAs, wind companies, solar companies, RMI, and NREL. That seemed like a real opportunity. “While the limits of transactional ways of interacting are apparent, generating change at a scale that matters often requires engaging large communities of diverse participants with different motivations” (Senge). The companies mentioned above may not think it was worth collaborating with each other. It would take people at the top or very near the top to start a collaboration such as this. Strong leadership would be needed even to suggest such efforts; this is where the “System Leadership” that is talked about in Senge comes in, “Bringing together diverse stakeholders with little history of collaboration, different mental models, and different and even apparently competing aims is a high-risk undertaking” (Senge). People worry about their reputations and how others in their respective industries see and think of them and how that reflects on the organizations that they are a part of or run. It would take a strong leader to start an energy collaboration on this scale. After reading Senge, I realized that other stakeholders could also be involved, such as the PUC, state and local government, and pretty much anyone involved with energy which is all of us. Ultimately ConocoPhillips never set up shop here in the area, but I think there is still an opportunity for energy companies to collaborate and solve energy problems and work together toward energy transition. Energy transition involves everyone—even oil and gas companies.

Roca, Inc.

I was really impressed with the specific leaders discussed in our reading. But, one in particular truly stood out for me.

"In 2013, 89 percent of the high-risk youth Roca's program for parolees and ex-convicts had no new arrests, 95 percent had no new technical violations, and 69 percent remained employed. On the strength of these outcomes, in 2013 Massachusetts entered into a $27 million social impact bond [...]."

When it comes to programs like this I'm used to hearing 13 - 20% as successful numbers. This is amazing. The "peacekeeping circles" sound like an exercise that is challenging (mentally and emotionally) to facilitate and participate in. This is me projecting my assumptions a little bit but, in communities that may not always be safe, I'd think that asking people to be "vulnerable and to truly hear one another," is a tall order. I'd expect things to blow-up as they did in the very first circle Roca held. I'd imagine there had to be a lot of strong emotions and hurt that needed to be discussed in order to move forward for the individuals involved and the community.

I'm super curious to learn how Molly developed the ability to facilitate a constructive session that allows everyone to be vulnerable, convey emotion, but to not let the session get heated and eventually counter-productive. Taking a guess, I'd say the circle back technique would be to remind everyone that they're trying to serve a common purpose/goal, and that listening to each other can serve a perspective broadening purpose that serves the goal. In this case, it seems everyone is trying to do the right thing; they just need to be reminded of that.

More programs like this should exist. This specific example reminds me of how messed-up our prison/correctional system is. Side topic...privatizing our prisons is doing more harm than good.

Example: http://www.businessinsider.com/video-visitation-is-ending-in-person-prison-visits-2016-5

Make Your Move

I've known my fair share of systems leaders. I had to reflect to realize this because often times, systems leaders are not aware they are such making it difficult for you to know as well. There are many Mandela's in the world, most of them without a platform. I used the steps in "The Dawn of System Leadership" by Senge, Hamilton, and Kania to reflect on systems leaders throughout my life.

1. To see a larger system.

    I initially thought back to our first few weeks of the semester and attempted to jog my memory on who our strategic thinkers were according to about MBTI2 tests we took in Sharon's class. A few came to mind. It takes strategic analysis to see parts of a system and their deeper functions. This is often seen as general intelligence but we see from our learnings in class what is driving the mind. The leaders drive to understand and have real influence.

2. Fostering reflection and more generative conversations.

    To reflect back on another one of Sharon's classes, I remember the viral Ted Talk of the man repetitively saying, "you don't sell what you do, you sell why you do it." Every leader and organization must know their whys. Heck, every person should know their why's of existence. But reflecting and challenging the foundations of one's why's is important, or as the article says, "thinking about our thinking." A pulse check keeps an organization or person honest and checks their intentions.

3. Shifting focus from reactive problem solving to co-creating the future

Resilience.. Here we are again. Success in Step 3 is the culmination of steps 1 and 2 done properly. When systems leaders can have a thorough picture of the system, they can work together with their team. Knowing points of change allows a team to co-create the future they want, prepared with bend but don't break measures to combat the known issues that may come at unknown times. This process is reinforced by my favorite quote from the authors. 

"Over time, their profound commitment to the health of the whole radiates to nurture similar commitment in others"

This is where great systems thinkers create others. My father was stellar at this. When I would bring him an issue, he would lay out all my courses of action on a piece of paper and laid out multiple cause and effect lines for each action. This taught me that sometimes, the first and worst effect from a cause can often be the best route if the ensuing effects are minimal or more desired. With that, I'll leave you with a quote that came across my new tab google plug-in. It reminded me that great men and women (systems leaders), may have influence from previous leaders, but at the end of the day they take their action and pursue their initiatives. At some point, you have to make your move to be great. With that said..

“How many success stories do you need to hear before you make your own?

Polycentric Systems and Collaboration

The readings this week made me take a step back and see how systems thinking is used in the ‘real world’. In the past, we’ve read a lot about systems and how they work, but these readings were a direct example of using systems thinking to talk about wicked problems (Which is what we’re trying to be able to convey at the end of this class).

I’ve been saying all semester that it seems that the most obvious way to get things done is to be in a collaborative relationship seeking to fix the issue. Wicked problems will never be explored or eventually maybe even solved unless stakeholders work together in a collaborative manner to work on solving or at least helping to get towards a solution.

I’ve also talked a lot about climate change in past blogs. This one will be no different, especially since it was discussed in Ostrom’s paper.

“There is no question that an international treaty is a major step that needs to be taken as soon as international leaders can agree on a variety of pressing issues related to responsibility for past and future emissions and the most effective future rules.” - Elinor Ostrom, Global Environmental Change.

It’s obvious that this is a global problem. It affects the whole world, from the small players to the big ones. Therefore, the different stakeholders from all levels should be interested in working towards a solution.

“A pressing global problem faced in the contemporary world is reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by individuals and organizations around the world that cumulate to increase the threat of major climate change. Solving this problem requires collective action. To avert this global threat, many actors at diverse levels need to make costly decisions to reduce GHG emissions. Everyone benefits from reduced emissions even if they do not contribute any effort themselves.”

Using collective action with polycentric systems seems like an obvious route to take, so why aren’t we using it more? Systems thinking when it comes to problems such as this should be used more often, and maybe issues such as GHG emissions can be worked on. Maybe not solved, but at least looked at, and then at least attempting to help solve the issue.

 

Learning Networks

Ahhh!! So much understanding, so little time left in this semester. I spent a good bit of time speaking with Michelle Desmarais over break. She is a first year MENV student & her Capstone is with Bruce, working on network and leadership collaborations. She really helped put into context this whole class and went into a lot of details focused around our readings for this upcoming class. (probably last class too, but I don't think I made it to that one)

 

Did you guys know that like, 'systems thinking' is a field and there are conferences and workshops that occur all over the country-  and probably the world -focusing on teaching practically anyone in the ecological field these ideas and concepts?? Meadows is huge there. Our nation's method of learning and solving problems really has been taught to us as a linear process, in every fashion. These ways of thinking and analyzing are ingrained in the generations above us. I think how 'easily' or maybe intuitively, we all picked up, or seemed to pick up on the underlying themes of this course, showed how malleable we still are to modifying and improving our problem solving behaviors. Obviously, this is enforced since we are students still in school as well. However, it's a little bit different going into the professional world and trying to change a system (such as our relationship to the environment and really, the standard business model), when you have to get people to recognize and attempt to solve problems that they possibly aren't even handled/ trained to take on or understand fully.

 

Communication of all this jumbo of information is a major key, especially when dealing with topics involved in changing the status quo. Organizing networks that cross disciplines so that the sharing of successful methods can easily be facilitated, is extremely important. We're all on the same team here, might as well help each other out when we can :-)

Secret Hitler

This week's readings about collective-action and relationships within networks reminded me of a game I played during Friend's-giving (Thanksgiving with friends instead of family). Collective-action requires trust between parties, accurate information, and sometimes, gestures of faith when the stakes are high (AKA expensive actions). The game we played tested these requirements in a unique and relevant way.

The game was called Secret Hitler. There are two groups in this game, the liberals and the fascists. One of the fascists is also secretly Hitler. The groups have asymmetric, but supposedly, balanced powers.

The liberals' goal is to enact 5 liberal polices or kill Hitler to win the game. They also have more players on about a 2:1 ratio. The fascists' goal is to pass 6 fascist policies or elect Hitler as Chancellor after 3 fascist policies have been passed. The fascist's have less players but they also know who the other fascists are and who Hitler is. The liberals do not know either. In the beginning, everyone is potentially a fascists but statistically more likely to be a liberal.

In order for the liberals to win, they have to pay attention to each player's turn, ask important probing questions, and try to trust their fellow liberal. They have to try and figure things out without all the information available. All the fascists have to do to win is lie, shift blame, and spread mistrust. The more chaos and emotions, the more likely they are to win. Liberals are more likely to win when they slow the game down and get everyone to talk through decisions.

The liberals need a "network weaver" in order to win and have to quickly become organized (the fascists already have this advantage). They need someone to take charge and help determine strategy very openly to make intentional decisions in order to improve the network AKA pass liberal policies.

This game reminded me, firsthand, how hard it can be to get multiple parties to make decisions with potentially large and/or expensive consequences when they don't really know or trust each other. It makes sense to me why we've struggled with global collective-action with regard to Climate Change. This issue is compounded when organizations and governments fall into rigidity traps. From my experience, the larger and older the institution the harder it is to escape rigidity traps when coming up with solutions to complex problems.

Networks, Collaboration, and Hard Decisions

The theme of this week’s readings is collaboration across multiple levels, vertically and horizontally, that have an interest in any complex or wicked problem. Both papers by Ostrom and Butler & Goldstein illustrate the benefits of learning and innovation through collaborative and collective action networks. Ostrom takes on the climate change problem while Butler & Goldstein talk about the rigidity of the wildland fire management system. Beth Kanter’s blog post also talks about the collaboration of network members working to change a system. I am learning that networks, much like systems, are everywhere and can be weaved around any interest. Kanter begins to illustrate the similarities and differences between networks and systems, while Holley details how to weave your own network in Network Weaver Handbook. I can imagine many of my classmates using Holley’s handbook in the future to weave together collaborative networks to solve wicked problems.

This kind of collaboration is intuitive and makes sense, and I wonder why collaboration is not the default. Regarding climate change and wildland fire management, I see no competitors, only collaborators. There are many actors and players in a system, and each one brings a unique experience, knowledge, and point of view of the system or system problem. Each one has something at stake and adds context to how a system works. This is illustrated in Butler & Goldstein through the creation of the U.S. Fire Learning Network (FLN). The FLN is a vertically and horizontally integrated network that developed from the bottom up. Ostrom also talks about a bottom-up approach. In place of a formal global treaty, individuals, families, and city and state governments can act on climate change serving as a network of actors.

However, solving wicked problems may require unpopular decision making. “To avert this global threat, many actors at diverse levels need to make costly decisions to reduce GHG emissions” (Ostrom 550). Ostrom continues, “many analysts have presumed that an enforceable global agreement is the only way to address the threat of climate change” (Ostrom 555). The climate change efforts of individuals, and state and local governments are a great start, but not enough. What are the “costly decisions,” or the unpopular decisions? There are a lot of well-meaning countries that are part of the Paris Agreement but the agreement seems more like a set of guidelines, and when the guidelines are not followed they become rules and laws, and when rules and laws are not followed, enforcement follows. Once there is a global treaty on GHG reduction, enforcement may call for military action, a sort of green UN. This shift in energy security is discussed in A new energy security paradigm for the twenty-first century by Nuttall and Manz. In the wildland fire management example, “FLN organizers envisioned that ‘by fostering innovation and transferring lessons learned’ among participants and beyond, the network would ‘accelerate the implementation of ecologically based and culturally acceptable fuels reduction and fire regime restoration strategies at ecologically meaningful scales…’ (TNC 2010)” (Butler & Goldstein 4). What is “culturally acceptable”? It sounds like a more unpopular option was perhaps considered. I am curious to know what the “costly decisions” and culturally unacceptable strategies are. Maybe we all need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Gathering to the Round Table

David Sabbet's "RE-AMP" is a living breathing 3SO project. Seeing a complete systems thinking focused conference is a nice change up to what we've been seeing, which is mostly already established businesses participating in the systems process to better themselves. This is a fabulous reference for portraying a group of people who care about an issue and taking action. That said, I have some qualms about this process. 

The amount of time put into this is baffling and begs the question if time is better spent solving elsewhere. I would like to know how long it took to compose 175 variable causal loop diagrams. To make that many diagrams just to result in a 16-factor map seems very snaillike. That said, as referenced in Goldstein and Butler's "Fire Learning Network", rigidity traps are extremely difficult to break out of and I think this process may be able to help with that. The biggest difficulty would be getting all the proper players to the table, given the entire basis of a rigidity trap is that certain incentives and procedures encourage the same patterns. Reaching those entrenched in the old ways would be a difficulty, but a major first step to moving on an issue.

"Collaborative networks, then, may be able to influence the reorganization of social-ecological systems at multiple scales" (Cash, Olsson)

As long as representatives do not feel isolated in collaborative networks, especially when they are the ones who need to change, you can get everyone to the table. You just need the proper liaison. The proper way to sensitively go about bringing change within a large group of stakeholders is to have each group with a couple members present to curb any vulnerability and "attacking" feelings. From there each mini-group should have the most level headed and collaborative member as a representative. Also, activities in the "Landscape Collaboratives" phase of our Goldstein and Butler reading is a great way to tie together differing opinions and gently force different minds to work together as a step to break down initial stigmas, egos, and barriers associated with an opposing stakeholder groups ideas. I see this in the "test practices" part of the circle.

Congress could take some notes on collaboratives networks. They may not have the time do all this systems mapping, but engaging cross-party in ways that break down barriers and most importantly egos, is a great start to finding common ground. However, there is an entirely separate discussion to be had as to why common ground can never be found. That is a wicked problem for another day.