9/10/2014

Systems Theory an Introduction to Systems Thinking | Schumacher College

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Systems Thinking in a Complex World

January 4 21, 2011
Hardin Tibbs, Philip Franses, Jean Boulton, Peter Senge (by videolink), Alex Haxeltine, Gunter Pauli
Learning how to use systems think ing can be immensely inspiring and constructive for organisations, businesses and
other collectives. Indeed, engaging with a whole complex system is essential in work ing through potential outcomes and
dealing with those we cannot foresee. Yet education and training programmes rarely prepare us to operate this way.
Therefore, we have to re-learn how we understand the world and our approach to it. This course provides an exciting
introduction to systems think ing and its application to sustainability, ecodesign, organisational and social change,
industry, business and enterprise with some of the most dynamic theorist and practitioners work ing in this area.
This series can taken as a one, two or three-week series of courses. Full details are below.
Systems thinking and eco-design for sustainability, Hardin Tibbs and Philip Franses (4 8 January)
Living and working in a complex world, Jean Boulton, Peter Senge (by videolink), Alex Haxeltine (10 14 January)
A Systemic Business Model: Industrial Ecology and the Blue Economy, Gunter Pauli (17- 21 January)
Click here to book your place online.
Already booked on the course? Click here for course resources
Masters credits available subject to University approval.

Systems thinking and eco-design for sustainability (Week 1)

Hardin Tibbs and Philip Franses
Hardin Tibbs will introduce the fundamental concepts of systems thinking and explore their centrality to the challenges of sustainability and planning for the future.
Blending theory and practice, the group will work with case studies and examples in the fields of ecodesign, participatory design, and holistic management. Phil
Franses will introduce participants to complexity theory and how it affects our understanding of the world and our practices within it.

Further details
A blend of theory and practice, examples and cases, and hands-on work in groups focused around practical examples
What systems thinking is and why it is important
Understanding and addressing complex problems, understanding the link between system structure and patterns of system behaviour, framing issues in
systemic terms, identifying the nature of needed solutions, creating shared constructs for participatory design and problem solving
A brief history of systems thinking
The tools and methods of systems thinking
Systems mapping methods and notation, stocks and flows, computer-based systems dynamics modelling (Stella/iThink, etc.), potentials and limitations
Exposure to training models (e.g. Beer Game, Fishbanks, microworlds)
Systems thinking and sustainability
Sustainability is an issue best understood in systemic terms, human operation at global scale means whole systems responsibility, Limits to Growth and the
need for both technological and social changes, human activity within the Gaian safe operating space, ecological fit, industrial ecology, systemic thinking about
material flows and energy futures, the preconditions for optimism
Eco-design
Eco-design as the problem-solving mode that can enable sustainability, based on systems thinking as the link between human needs (societal and individual)
and design of technology & the built environment (cities, infrastructure, buildings, products), design that aims for synergy with nature not autonomy from nature,
principles of eco-design and holistic management, design of community for ecological quality of life
Using systems thinking to facilitate stakeholder understanding and action
Choice of focal issue, system level/boundary (contextual, transactional, organizational), use of visual mapping and influence diagrams, choosing the right level of
detail, soft systems modelling, content-enabling facilitation, balancing workshop and offline work, criteria for group process
Systems thinking and intellectual frontiers
Ecology, complexity, holism, autopoiesis, emergence, qualitative science, etc.

Living and working in a complex world (Week 2)

Jean Boulton, Peter Senge (by videolink) and Alex Haxeltine
Working more with the systemic reality of our world Jean Boulton will explore how we can act differently, in a way that takes into account complexity and uncertainty.
Planning and strategy take on new forms with this approach which can have massive, positive implications for the way we live and work. This week explores complexity
in more depth, particularly in relation to the behaviour of individuals, organisations and communities.

Further details
If we understand the world as essentially complex, interconnected, where new patterns emerge and the future cannot be known in advance, how do we go about living
our lives? How do we manage organisations? How does this thinking impact on governance, sustainable economics, political thinking? In this week, we will consider
the theory of complexity. What is it? Is it new or re-packaged ancient thinking? How can we be sure it is useful and relevant? Well then go on to consider how these
ideas are relevant for individuals, organisations and wider contexts. How should we develop strategy? What does it mean for leadership, for shaping organisations and
facilitating change? What can we learn to help us live and work sustainably, ethically and successfully?

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Systems Theory an Introduction to Systems Thinking | Schumacher College

Peter Senge will join the course by videolink for a morning to talk about new skills and approaches that we need to develop in order to create a sustainable future.
Unprecedented collaborations of many sorts between business, governments and civil society are developing around the world, but making such collaborative efforts
successful is not easy. It requires sophistication in the human domain comparable to the technical sophistication (in engineering, finance, marketing and operations)
that has driven globalization: deep listening and dialogue across very different viewpoints, learning how to see larger systems together, and moving beyond crisis
reaction to co-creating alternative futures.
Alex Haxeltine will present a case study of a new community-led sustainability initiative (that originated in Totnes) known as the Transition movement. The session will
provide students with an opportunity to apply what they have learnt during the first two weeks of the course to develop an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of
the approach being adopted in the Transition Movement. The overall objective of this session will be to stimulate students to think creatively about how systems
thinking can be applied in practical contexts to achieve global change through local actions.

A Systemic Business Model: Industrial Ecology and the Blue Economy (Week 3)
Gunter Pauli
How can a systemic view of the world transform the material and social world through a new model of business and enterprise? Gunter Pauli has spent the last five
years developing a model called The Blue Economy, which instead of taking profit as its bottom line, is based on collaboration, the generation of social capital rather
than debt, and innovations which model ecosystems by cascading nutrients and energy and eliminating waste. His new book describes over one hundred such
innovations which have been benchmarked and brought to fruition in different parts of the world. Participants will explore these ideas and how they can relate to their
own initiatives.

Further details
Gunter will start by introducing the principles on which The Blue Economy is based, and then will look at the interplay of physics, chemistry and biology as the
underpinning scientific hierarchy for doing business in systems based on both business cases and science. He will discuss the role of the manager vs the entrepreneur
as an opportunity to implement business as a system design, comparing core business, core competences, and supply chain management with how an ecosystem
inspired business operates. Finally, he will look at applications of The Blue Economy, particularly in relation to Bhutan, where he is working with the government on
developing projects which contribute to the Gross National Happiness as well as generating employment, meeting basic needs and encouraging social cohesion.

Teachers
Hardin Tibbs is a UK-based strategy consultant and futures researcher with extensive experience of scenario-based strategic thinking. He is a strategic analyst,
process facilitator and presenter, with a background in product development and visual communications. In addition to his strategy work, Hardin has made significant
contributions on issues involving technology and environment. He is CEO of Synthesys Strategic Consulting Ltd. in London, and he is an Associate Fellow at the Sad
Business School, Oxford University, where he helped to develop the executive education Scenarios Programme. Previously, Hardin was a senior consultant with Global
Business Network (GBN) in California, playing a role in its development in the 1990s as an influential scenario consultancy. Before this Hardin was a consultant at the
Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters of Arthur D. Little, an international management, technology and environmental consulting firm. Hardin is the author of an
influential white paper, Industrial Ecology: An Environmental Agenda for Industry (Arthur D. Little, Inc., 1991, and GBN 1993). This paper helped define industrial
ecology, a new approach to industrial sustainability. Hardin has an MSc in Management and a BA degree in Industrial Design Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Royal
Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA) in London, UK.
Philip Franses studied mathematics at New College Oxford from 1976 to 1980. Academias dull explanation of the world inspired Philip on a counter-journey into the
depths of experience, travelling and a re-sensitisation to quality. In 2005, after a fifteen-year career designing intelligent software, culminating in a programme now used
in The Netherlands by all Dutch courts, Philip had a chance encounter with Satish Kumar and was moved to come to Schumacher as an MSc student. Here he was
especially inspired by the work and scientific approaches of Goethean scientist Henri Bortoft, the physicist Basil Hiley and the late Brian Goodwin, professor of biology.
Philip now runs local workshops in Goethean science, offering people a foundation to a whole way of seeing the world; and with Basil, Philip began the forum Process
and Pilgrimage, inaugurated in 2009 at Birkbeck College. From 2006 Philip worked with Brian on a computer model exploring the interpretation of meaning within the
DNA code. Taking up Brians work on complexity and chaos theory has also led to an exciting partnership with Aboca herbal health company, restoring the whole herb
as the qualitative source of health.
Jean Boulton PhD, MBA is Visiting Fellow at Cranfield School of Management and also at Bristol Business School. She has a PhD in theoretical physics from the
University of Cambridge and a first degree in physics from the University of Oxford. Since 1999 she has worked with the Complex Systems Research Centre at
Cranfield and led the design and delivery of complexity teaching to MBA students for several years. Since 2006 she has also taught complexity theory on the MSc in
Responsible Business Practice at the University of Bath. She is Chair of Sustain Ltd (www.sustain.co.uk) and Chair of Social Action for Health (www.safh.org.uk).
Research interests include: policy development in times of uncertainty; action research as a grounded methodology for exploring complexity theory and complex
problems in practice. Her consultancy work centres on strategy and organisation development in times of uncertainty (see www.embracingcomplexity.co.uk). Jean is
currently co-authoring Embracing Complexity with Professor Peter Allen, to be published by Oxford University Press in late 2010.
Peter Senge is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL), a global community
of corporations, researchers, and consultants dedicated to the interdependent development of people and their institutions. He is the author of the widely acclaimed
book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization and his latest book, The Necessary Revolution, co-authored with Bryan Smith, Nina
Kruschwitz, Joe Laur and Sara Schley was released in June, 2008. He has lectured extensively throughout the world, translating the abstract ideas of systems theory
into tools for better understanding of economic and organizational change. His areas of special interest focus on decentralizing the role of leadership in organizations so
as to enhance the capacity of all people to work productively toward common goals.
Alex Haxeltine is a Research Fellow at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Deputy Leader of its International Policy research programme.
Gunter Pauli is a born entrepreneur whose scope of initiatives spans business, culture, science, and education. In 1994 with the support of the Japanese
government and the United Nations University he launched an initiative to design an economic framework and business model that converts all waste, including
emissions, into a value added cascade, modeled on ecosystems. In 2004, he launched a research project identifying the innovations that will shift business towards
higher levels of competitiveness and sustainability, while generating millions of jobs through the creation of a platform for entrepreneurship. In early 2010, he will
personally direct a two-year initiative that each week for one hundred weeks will present another business model to inspire entrepreneurs to translate these
opportunities into worldwide business initiatives. Pauli is the author of seventeen books published in twenty-one languages, and of thirty six fables that bring science
and entrepreneurship to children at an early age. His latest book is The Blue Economy: 100 innovations 10 years 100 million jobs.

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Systems Theory an Introduction to Systems Thinking | Schumacher College

Course Fees
Any One week 750
Any Two weeks 1,450 (Save 50 over weekly course price)
Three weeks 1,900 (Save 350 over the weekly course price)
All course fees include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.

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