Summary: At the end of a month that felt a bit scattered, I joined a conversation hosted by Emma Proud and Marcus Jenal about working with complexity. I chose meanders as my image, because they combine looseness with direction. I reflect on balancing polarities and share some things I found, with a few resources on polarities. It may interest freelancers and others in systems work.
- Finding balance between polarities, such as flexible and structured or focused and exploratory, came up repeatedly in the conversation.
- My month had been more about exploration than direction, so I am shifting towards connecting and synthesising.
- I share readings from Marcus Jenal, Jody Aked, Nora Bateson and others, plus resources on polarities.
About 4 minutes to read the full piece.
I’m aiming to share monthly updates on how things are going in my early-stage freelancing efforts to contribute to the creation of living, learning and loving systems by providing tailored support to organizations looking to enhance their capacity to engage effectively in complex systems. To this end, and feeling a little stuck and scattered at the end of the month, I was glad to be part of a conversation hosted by Emma Proud and Marcus Jenal last week.
Feeling a need for more collaborative reflection, Emma and Marcus brought together a number of colleagues whose work on social change is informed by systemic perspectives that emphasize and embrace complexity, diversity, relationships, collaborative learning, adaptation and emergence. Their reflections on the conversations can be found here and here.
The ice-breaker, as it were, was the question: “what body of water do you feel like now and why?” Participants’ answers ran from clouds and rain, through small creeks, mountain streams, waterfalls, whitewater rapids, lakes, canals and oceans, with some problematic plumbing also plunging us into a blocked toilet.
I opted aspirationally for meanders because of the ways in which they - as part of a wider watershed - naturally find a dynamic balance, flowing along in ways that are loose, exploratory, uncertain and emergent on the one hand, while also moving forward with direction, purpose, focus, and intentionality, on the other.
Polarities and dynamic balance - going with the flow
Finding balance between these sorts of polarities was an important feature of our collective conversation, coming up in relation to a number of seemingly contradictory pairings including fast/slow, flexible/structured, narrow/broad or focused/exploratory ways of working.
For me personally, the question of how to handle and perhaps embrace the paradoxes, polarities and creative tensions that are inherent to - and in some cases drive - the dynamics of complex systems is emerging as a key learning question which informs and is informed by my engagement with organisations looking to enhance their systems practices. [This is a topic I will dive more deeply into in the coming months, but I’ve included some items that may be of interest at the end of this article.]
More immediately, I’ve been aware that the last month of my freelancing adventure has been more about exploration than direction, and more about flexibility than structure. Here, for instance, is a scattering of interesting, and loosely connected, things that I’ve come across in the last month.
- The role(s) of evidence, by Marcus Jenal - a short piece which outlines Marcus’s seemingly contradictory [polarities and paradox again!] views about evidence, informed by his efforts to make systemic inquiries central to the Botnar Foundation’s ways of working.
- Stories and sensemaking, by Jody Aked - a piece which outlines Jody’s work with the B-Team, making stories and sensemaking, and an associated dashboard, central to the B-Team’s monitoring, evaluation and learning, and wider ways of working.
- Transforming systems through whole power, a conversation hosted by the Collective Change Lab which explores a relational approach to power, which might enhance collective agency to shift system dynamics. Questions about power (from me), and values (from Kathy Bain), and thoughtful responses, at 1 hour, 16 minutes, 40 seconds.
- Harnessing complexity for better outcomes in public and non-profit services. A review by Adrian Brown of a new book by Max French and colleagues which provides the focus for a mouth-watering conference on complex outcomes and relational public services I’m attending at Northumbria University next week!
- Ready-Ing: Tending the prelude to change, by Nora Bateson, which is a powerful exploration of Nora’s perspective on how change happens in living and learning systems. Or, try these three excellent short introductory pieces, by Nora, for starters.
To find some balance, this month I’m shifting my emphasis to spend more time connecting, comparing, synthesising and sharing the interesting things that I’m finding through my explorations. This post is a move in that direction.
Trusting the meanders to find their balance, I’m hopeful that, over time, the interesting things I’m finding through my explorations and connections will come together around a growing web of emerging learning questions and reflections, providing some useful perspectives on the complex landscape of social change and ways of being (systems practices, as it were), that can contribute to the creation of living, learning and loving systems.
PS: Via Iain McGilchrist’s video on matter and consciousness, I’ve just come across this motto and coat of arms which the Danish Nobel prize winning physicist Niels Bohr designed when he was awarded the order of the elephant by the Royal Danish Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1947. Opposites are complementary, complete with yin and yang!
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Thanks to Kathy Bain and Michael Moses for their very helpful feedback on an initial draft of this piece. If you’d like me to notify you when I put out a new article - once or twice per month - please let me know or sign up here.
Polarities and paradoxes - Some preliminary shares
- My recent piece on continuums, inspired both by Rachel Botsman and by Barry Johnson’s groundbreaking work on polarities;
- Adam Kahane’s application of polarities thinking to facilitating breakthroughs;
- Glenda Eoyang’s user-friendly approach to interdependent pairs;
- Marina Apgar and colleagues on creative, evaluative tensions; and;
- Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless’s liberating structure on integrated/autonomy (thanks to Jamie Pett for flagging this to me).
First published on LinkedIn, 5 June 2023.