Systems Thinking

(return to Co-creative Learning Teams or see some keywords)

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The Whole Course

1. Systems Thinking
2. Self-regulation
3. Self-coordination
4. Living systems
5. Team consciousness
6. Team synergy
7. Team sizes
8. Team diversity
9. Lucky Teams
10. Team Tools

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1. Systems Thinking

1. We need appropriate terminology if we are to grasp how teams work.
2. Systems thinking can also help us to find ways to improve teamwork.
3. It can help us to notice how people behave in a way that can help them to do it better.
4. Systems thinking enables us to compare biological organisms with teams, corporations, etc.
5. It might, for example, enable teams to learn from the behaviour of natural ecosystems.

1. Ecosystems use diversity, self-coordination and adaptation to survive.
2. But even a complex ecosystem can be conceptualised as a Black Box.
3. We might start by measuring what goes in and what comes out (i.e. inputs and outputs).
4. We can therefore observe its behaviour rather than thinking about its vast internal complexities.
5. This helps us to imagine what interior pathways and rules cause these effects.

A steering system presented as a 'black box'

Cybernetics

1. The Black Box analogy emerged from a systems discipline called Cybernetics.
2. The word comes from the Ancient Greek for 'oarsperson' (i.e. someone who steers a boat).
3. In systemic terms most vehicles 'steer', whether they have wheels, legs, wings, or fins.
4. In this broad sense, teams also steer themselves (e.g. around financial or logical obstacles).
5. In understanding steering, feedback is an important concept.
6. In order to stay on the cycle path you must remain aware of the effects of your actions.
7. Seeing where you are going is called feedback in systemic terms.

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