SIG: Systemic Innovation, Engagement, and Leadership
Current Activities
ISSS 2023 Conference
67th Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences
The Quiet Revolution
A Lifelong Perspective on Systems Capped by the Discovery of Stem-Systems
William E. Smith Ph.D.
This paper and presentation at the Conference use an emerging, overarching spiritual, scientific philosophy as phases of a narrative structure for a lifetime relationship with systems. The story, in that light, covers not only the evolution of new concepts, models, and practices but the personal, social, political, and cultural contexts in which they occurred.
The first spiritual phase attempts to capture the essence of the prevailing environments that influenced the body of work. It includes the effects of Liverpool and its bombings during WWII; the transformational effects of global travel working with BOAC; the hugely positive effects of a single book, J.A.C Brown’s Social Psychology of Industry, and the paper we had to write on the effect of theory on practice which I am still writing.
The second more philosophical phase of system engagement enlarged the perspective I was taking from the study of a single job to the management of whole international corporations and finally to the institutional development of whole countries through the World Bank and the United Nations. This phase produced some similar levels of performance but also gave a surprising answer to the high-performance riddle.
The resulting theory of power and its relationship to purposes led to a ten-year action research project at the World Bank. Clips from the video “The Quiet Revolution” illustrate the concepts in action in a workshop for twelve African countries that took place in Cape Town.
The final scientific phase, in partnership with Gary Smith and his colleagues in ISSS, has been ongoing since the Corvallis 2019 Conference. In tackling System Integration, our efforts are trying to answer three additional evolutionary issues.
The Shift to The Fifth
A Co-Creative/Reflective/Action Workshop
Michele Friend and William Smith
Work on system integration in the whole field of systems and organization has reached the limits of the concept itself. We are producing products that are an integrative mix of theories, models, methodologies, and best practices that are so complex that people have difficulty understanding and knowing what to do with them. We produce models and processes that may fit together but don’t’ always grow or function well together as coherent whole systems.
This result is not for lack of wisdom, intelligence, or resourcefulness from our theorists, designers, managers, and facilitators but from evolution itself. We have not yet evolved collectively an overarching or higher dimensional philosophy that would provide the increased capacity or power to resolve issues of wholeness that are unresolvable at lower dimensions.
This research aims to further develop the capacity to “shift to the fifth” by revealing five-dimensional phenomena in every facet of systems functioning.
1. We will use the conference as the whole, living, system for our exploitation.
2. Participants will be invited to use the three lenses of AIC (appreciation, influence, and control) as the base of a stem system to explore any dimension of the Conference of interest to them.
3. We will give ongoing support and training to participants which will add to their professional capacities to conduct a whole new level of research and participate in system projects that will develop from it.
We will meet, as we can, during the conference, and by Zoom after the conference to compare notes and contribute to a first communication of our findings. As the results warrant we will begin preparation for funded research projects.
Key words: multi-dimensional, spiritual, scientific, philosophical, fractal, stem-system, co-creative/reflective/action research.
About: Origins
1998 Original Charter
The SIG has had name changes
Evolutionary Design
Curating Emergence for Thrivability
Leadership and Systemic Innovation
ISSS 2023 Conference
67th Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences
The Quiet Revolution
A Lifelong Perspective on Systems Capped by the Discovery of Stem-Systems
William E. Smith Ph.D.
This paper and presentation at the Conference use an emerging, overarching spiritual, scientific philosophy as phases of a narrative structure for a lifetime relationship with systems. The story, in that light, covers not only the evolution of new concepts, models, and practices but the personal, social, political, and cultural contexts in which they occurred.
The first spiritual phase attempts to capture the essence of the prevailing environments that influenced the body of work. It includes the effects of Liverpool and its bombings during WWII; the transformational effects of global travel working with BOAC; the hugely positive effects of a single book, J.A.C Brown’s Social Psychology of Industry, and the paper we had to write on the effect of theory on practice which I am still writing.
The second more philosophical phase of system engagement enlarged the perspective I was taking from the study of a single job to the management of whole international corporations and finally to the institutional development of whole countries through the World Bank and the United Nations. This phase produced some similar levels of performance but also gave a surprising answer to the high-performance riddle.
The resulting theory of power and its relationship to purposes led to a ten-year action research project at the World Bank. Clips from the video “The Quiet Revolution” illustrate the concepts in action in a workshop for twelve African countries that took place in Cape Town.
The final scientific phase, in partnership with Gary Smith and his colleagues in ISSS, has been ongoing since the Corvallis 2019 Conference. In tackling System Integration, our efforts are trying to answer three additional evolutionary issues.
The Shift to The Fifth
A Co-Creative/Reflective/Action Workshop
Michele Friend and William Smith
Work on system integration in the whole field of systems and organization has reached the limits of the concept itself. We are producing products that are an integrative mix of theories, models, methodologies, and best practices that are so complex that people have difficulty understanding and knowing what to do with them. We produce models and processes that may fit together but don’t’ always grow or function well together as coherent whole systems.
This result is not for lack of wisdom, intelligence, or resourcefulness from our theorists, designers, managers, and facilitators but from evolution itself. We have not yet evolved collectively an overarching or higher dimensional philosophy that would provide the increased capacity or power to resolve issues of wholeness that are unresolvable at lower dimensions.
This research aims to further develop the capacity to “shift to the fifth” by revealing five-dimensional phenomena in every facet of systems functioning.
1. We will use the conference as the whole, living, system for our exploitation.
2. Participants will be invited to use the three lenses of AIC (appreciation, influence, and control) as the base of a stem system to explore any dimension of the Conference of interest to them.
3. We will give ongoing support and training to participants which will add to their professional capacities to conduct a whole new level of research and participate in system projects that will develop from it.
We will meet, as we can, during the conference, and by Zoom after the conference to compare notes and contribute to a first communication of our findings. As the results warrant we will begin preparation for funded research projects.
Key words: multi-dimensional, spiritual, scientific, philosophical, fractal, stem-system, co-creative/reflective/action research.
About: Origins
1998 Original Charter
The SIG has had name changes
Evolutionary Design
Curating Emergence for Thrivability
Leadership and Systemic Innovation
Formed in 1998
The SIG has had name changes
Evolutionary Design
Curating Emergence for Thrivability
Leadership and Systemic Innovation
Alexander Laszlo handover to New SIG Chair Bill Smith 8/29/2020
Papers from ISSS Annual Conferences
LEADERSHIP AND SYSTEMIC INNOVATION
2018
2017
2016
2015
SIG NAME: CURATING EMERGENCE FOR THRIVABILITY
2014
None
2013
None