Systems Thinking and Change

[Saul Kaplan]

Another log for the fire.

Arguably Priestley's greatest scientific discovery came from his "mint in the glass" experiment which led to the insight that plants produced breathable air. Johnson asserts that this simple observation may have been the foundation for modern ecosystem theory. Truly an amazing contribution to the way we think about and understand our planet. Priestley in cahoots with Franklin recognized the symbiotic relationship between plant and animal kingdoms and the environment in which they coexist.

Johnson describes systems thinking as a "long zoom" science, one that jumps from scale to scale, and from discipline to discipline.
Priestley was clearly a maverick, cross disciplinary thinker who dared to explore ideas across science, religion, and politics. He persisted even when confronted with serious personal risk.

For two hundred years we seem to have gone the other way. The 19th and 20th centuries can be characterized by the parallel developments of specialization and professionalization. Serious science has become the province of experts and specialists not the dabblers and amateurs that frequented the London coffee houses of Priestley's day.

According to Johnson the "giant turbines" of big industry and big government have created an inertia of bureaucracy making system level thinking and change very difficult. Yet systems level innovation is exactly what it is going to take to tackle the really important issues of our time including health care, education, and climate change.

I believe that the 21st century will be marked by integrated thinking and systems level change. We need more Priestleys today. I think he would have enjoyed these disruptive times, and seen them like I do, as an incredible opportunity to address important system challenges and to improve our world.

Off of my soap box. What do you think?

[June Holley]

First, Saul, I want to thank you so much for getting this Book Club started and in suggesting Invention of Air, which I love! Steven B Johnson is such a gifted story teller and his stories are so provocative.

On page 41 Johnson states"...what we don't have is a convincing theory about the system that connects all these local innovations, that causes them to self-organize into something so momentous.."

I think the theory needs to start with massive increased support self-organizing: for innovators (especially those such as Priestley who operate outside institutionalized science), for structures (whether coffee houses or social media) that enable us to find and engage with those provoking others, and for processes that enable innovations to be woven together, to scale and make a difference.

Somehow we've created a culture and social system where the self-organizing capacity that termites illustrate so effectively has been damped way down. Our only path back to this birthright is to become highly self-aware of our natural capacity to self-organize and take time to re-learn that set of simple, basic (but essential) skills and micro-processes that undergird self-organization. I would, however, suggest adding one new simple rule: "Seek out those who you perceive as different and include them in your coffeehouse." That may be the missing ingredient that enables the transformation we so obviously need to emerge.

[Lucy Bernholz]

Thanks for starting this group and talking about Invention of Air - this was one of those books I read in one sitting and immediately wanted to discuss with people. I completely agree with your sense that integrated thinking is going to be the way of the 21st C - as it was in Priestly's time. I was particularly struck by Johnson's description of Priestly's offering of an alternative funding model for cross-disciplinary science (Lunar Society, patrons, etc). Not to get too far ahead of myself, but am now delving into Fritjof Capra's "The Science of Leonardo" which makes a great complement to Johnson "Air" and looks at how Da Vinci's genius crossed art and science but because of the different ways he shared information in those two spheres he was known for one (art) while alive and his genius in science was less well understood until 200 years after he died.

[Saul Kaplan]

Interdisciplinary leads to transdisciplinary. Your replies remind me of another author friend of BIF, Frans Johansson who wrote The Medici Effect. Frans is a regular at BIF's Collaborative Innovation Summits and makes a very clear case for looking in the gray areas for new ideas. His work is well worth exploring.

[Christopher Rice]

I believe, as you do, Saul, that systems-level thinking and transdisciplinary praxis are going to be key to the coming restructuring of knowledge, community and business. One ingredient to Priestly's success in these areas is the lack of institutional and disciplinary structures which tend to enforce conformity and conservative (as opposed to innovative) behavior among today's academics. The tenure structure forces young academics to choose subject areas, theories and writing/research methods which are "approved" by the discipline to which they belong. Rather than take intellectual risks, they find themselves having to "play it safe" in order to earn tenure. The tenure system actually stifles academic innovation rather than encouraging it.

Priestly benefits from an intellectual ecosystem which allows him to be rewarded for venturing outside his "disciplinary boundaries" and which imposes no tenure clock, allowing Priestly the benefit of a longer time horizon to allow his ideas and experiments to ferment and flourish.

I am interested to see if we can recreate the type of intellectual ecosystems today which allowed Priestly and his work to thrive then. What would the coffeehouse of today look like? How can we encourage people from different ideological, intellectual or industrial perspectives to gather together to promote the free and open exchange of ideas? Bill Bishop's recent book THE BIG SORT paints the difficulties in achieving such an environment today. How do we move science and intellectual exploration away from its current home in the university system and re-create the subscriber model which aided Priestly? What would the business model for such an endeavor look like today?

Intellectual work needs a business model revolution, as well as a structural revolution away from the siloing of academic and industrial disciplines!

My 2 cents...

[June Holley]

So right, Chris. Like I have 25 years of down-on-the-ground action research on networks and self-organizing and now would love to get support (of all kinds) to develop a peer learning environment where I could share all that I've been able to gather from our local experiments-- both practical how tos and more theoretical insights - and enable others to use this as a jumping off/moving on place. I'm clearly going to have to invent it and am starting to find others interested in co-creating.