Sunday, November 11, 2007

Systems Thinking In Action Conference

This week I had a great time at the Systems Thinking in Action conference hosted by Pegasus Communication. I have attended this conference for many years and hope to continue attending for many to come.
I’m really struck by the tools and methods of Peter Senge’s 5th Disciple (tools that help an organization become a learning organization) and the Buddhist 8 fold way. Have others looked at these two conceptual frameworks together?
Otto Scharmer’s Theory U is also some very exciting work that represents the culmination of 10 years of study. I agree with him that this area of study will have great consequence on how we work with organizations, teams and individuals in the future.
Also in the World Café realm, there was a great exchange around what is the real underlying power of conversation. It has to do with highly networked concepts and information that is created in the café conversations. This networking of information creates the conditions for innovative thinking to take place, not just in individuals but in the group as a whole. This is a very powerful technology.
I am starting to design a series of 20 cafe conversations that will take place across a population of 3000 employees. Of the 3000 employees the design calls for the personal involvement of about 1000. It will be interesting to see just how powerful this idea can be at creating grassroots change activity throughout our organization.