<html>
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 10 (filtered)">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Verdana;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;}
@page Section1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Temperamentally, I am something of a heretic (what Tom
Watson Jr. of IBM used to call a “wild duck”), and often have unresolved
questions on my mind. Here is the background to the questions I am going to ask
now. Last year, I wrote an article (named “Journeying as a Systems
Thinker) for Shambhala Institute Fieldnotes. In one section, I picked my
thoughts from Dana Meadows. Most of that section is reproduced below:</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:8.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;text-autospace:none'><font size=2
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>The question we have to
ask ourselves when intervening in a system is, where can I have the greatest
leverage? To answer, we not only need to clearly see the system being studied
and its interconnections with other systems, but also <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>who</span></i> is doing the intervening. We need to
know our own strengths and weaknesses, the quality of our relation ships, our
deepest assumptions, and the quality of our attention. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;text-autospace:none'><font size=2
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;text-autospace:none'><font size=2
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>The question of leverage
can perhaps be illustrated by the life of an exemplary systems thinker, the
late Dana Meadows. Dana was a contemporary of Peter Senge and accomplished at
systems dynamics. She was the lead author of a study published in 1972 named <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>The Limits to Growth</span></i> and became a leading
voice in the sustainability movement. Thinking systemically, Dana seems to have
decided that her contribution would be inadequate if she simply continued to
publish scientific studies, and she decided to write a weekly column,
“The Global Citizen,” where she commented on world events from a
systems perspective. She also became an organic farmer, in effect becoming
“the change she wanted to see” in the world. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:14.4pt'><font size=2
color="#202020" face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
color:#202020'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:14.4pt'><font size=2
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>In an article titled
“Places to Intervene in a System,” Dana listed nine leverage points,
<font color="#202020"><span style='color:#202020'>ranking them from those
having the least to the greatest leverage. Not surprisingly, the least leverage
was assigned to “measurable” points that are within — and use
the paradigm of — the existing system. </span></font></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:14.4pt'><font size=2
color="#202020" face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
color:#202020'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:14.4pt'><font size=2
color="#202020" face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
color:#202020'>Her top three leverage points follow, along with excerpts:
</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:14.4pt'><font size=2
color="#202020" face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
color:#202020'>Third: The power of self-organization. “The human immune
system can develop responses to (some kinds of) insults it has never before
encountered. The human brain can take in new information and pop out completely
new thoughts. Self-organization seems so wondrous that we tend to regard it as
mysterious, miraculous.” </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:14.4pt'><font size=2
color="#202020" face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
color:#202020'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:14.4pt'><font size=2
color="#202020" face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
color:#202020'>Second: The goals of a system. “The goal of keeping the
market competitive has to trump the goal of each corporation to eliminate its
competitors. The goal of keeping populations in balance and evolving has to
trump the goal of each population to commandeer all resources into its own
metabolism.” </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:14.4pt'><font size=2
color="#202020" face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
color:#202020'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;line-height:14.4pt'><font size=2
color="#202020" face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
color:#202020'>First: The mindset or paradigm from which the system arises.
“The shared idea in the minds of society, the great unstated assumptions
— unstated because un-necessary to state; everyone knows them —
constitute that society's deepest set of beliefs about how the world works.
There is a difference between nouns and verbs. People who are paid less are
worth less. Growth is good. Nature is a stock of resources to be converted to
human purposes. Evolution stopped with the emergence of Homo sapiens. One can
‘own’ land. Those are just a few of the paradigmatic assumptions of
our culture, all of which utterly dumbfound people of other cultures. Paradigms
are the sources of systems. From them come goals, information flows, feedbacks,
stocks, flows.” </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt;text-autospace:none'><font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:8.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><u><font size=2 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>My questions:</span></font></u><font
size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Verdana'> Open Space
does address the third leverage point. In some cases, the second leverage point
is addressed. For instance, on the FSN listserv, Ralph Copleman asked a
question about allowing his own agenda (as an environmental activist) influencing
the client agenda. How do we “choose” who we work with? And what is
the basis of our choice? I can see that some of us (an example that comes to mind
is John Engle) make conscious choices. How important are such choices? </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=1 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>But to address the first leverage
point: What are the paradigms of our system - the OS Network? What are the
unstated assumptions? </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Take care, ladies & gentlemen </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Masud </span></font><font
size=2><span style='font-size:11.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=2 color="#993300" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#993300;layout-grid-mode:
line;font-style:italic'>Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form
of every virtue at the testing point - C.S. Lewis </span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist@listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist