Category: Systems Thinking

2015/10/27

Modeling

Part 1: What

To define parts is to seek sense and communicate arrangement within an existing wholeness. To name tree, mushroom, frog, stream, pond, path, boulder is to identify elements of a terrain, guideposts for movement within a landscape. We distill to the bits to help objectify segments of what we see and thus locate within what we believe to be real. We break things into subsets to better grasp the way things hold together and also reveal how they might not. (Oil and water, mixed and shaken, still will separate.)

To inquire into the relation of parts is to explore the interdependency and ripple effect of natural order. Limbs fall, leaves cover, rain drops, mushrooms grow. To observe relation fixes parts in a moment of time. One day, frog on log; next day frog in pond.

To further notice coolness, mist, dew, light fading, crackle of breeze through leaves, is to let ourselves pause in the moment of the scene – to suspend our movement and orientation with time, towards BEING OF. Simply. Essentially. Without an agenda – AS. Information comes to us, not from objects but from the space between, from the greater surround, the hum, the universal heartbeat – a pulse from life itself, offering containment for relation.

A model, therefore, is a snapshot in time, a cross-section of a perceived order, one picture of a moment: a past state, a present reality, an imagined future – each resting in unfolding life.

Models can incorporate change and re-form over time. It is through the act of crafting a model that we can actually probe into our understanding of trajectories. If one day two parts align and the next day they repel, what is the underlying structure of relation causing this magnetic switch? A model can give voice to the dynamic.

Visual modeling serves at the structural level of the iceberg, to outwardly reveal the internal theories influencing behavior and events/action.

Results vary. Parts move. Systems adapt in time. The foundational container holds steady. The model simply lays out components of this order, already existing, needing a hand to map it to life.

Part 2: How

The following model comes largely from MG Taylor and Bryan Coffman – one of my first and most treasured mentors. All the visual modeling i do, the prime mechanics of my scribing, harken back to what i learned from and witnessed in Bryan and in Matt Taylor.

Originally presented as a method for Strategic Modeling, i’m now trying to adapt the framework into a 2D Modeling Tool for the U.Lab and Presencing communities, as applied specifically to the Crystallizing and Prototyping phases of Theory U:

2D Modeling is particularly useful as a sensemaking and communication tool when trying to understand elements of a system, to bridge an idea from concept to action. It is a method for giving form to ideas – and structure to processes – that might not be articulated outside the mind or intuition. In the context of Theory U, we can use modeling at any phase to create visual displays that share projects and engage potential stakeholders.

EXPLORE and PRACTICE

Level One: Parts (“Actors”). Actors represent the people and components of the picture or system. On a blank sheet of paper, practice drawing abstract shapes and textures of all sizes. Start with circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, triangles, etc, to get your hand familiar with the materials and to find your comfort zone with drawing. Also explore different textures, for example: dotted edges, solid lines, filled areas, speckles, swirls, etc.

Level Two: Frames. Frames define boundaries and can help sequence actions over time and place. Think of frames as an ordering device, like acts of a play that together tell a story. Draw different types of boundaries as frames, including boxes, larger circles, or even using the edge of the paper AS the frame.

Level Three: Relationships. Relationships reveal proximity and interdependencies. Use arrows to show influence. Play with drawing shapes of similar and different sizes. See what they look like next to each other, on top of one another, far away from each other. You can think of the shapes as people from above, as if you are looking down with a bird’s eye view.

Level Four: Context. Context provides meaning and reason for the story to exist. Include the essence of what is wanting to be seen and heard through your model. If the drawing does not yet represent this perspective, and the story is still emerging, use annotation (words) to help describe what you are wanting to convey.

APPLY to PROTOTYPES

Use the following questions to guide your modeling process, to help organize and represent the current state of your prototype into a visual display.

Level One: Name the Parts

Who is already involved? Who would you want to include?
What other elements – such as organizations, sectors, or locations – do you want to represent in the picture?

Level Two: Explore Frames

Are there phases to the development of your prototype?
Are there boundaries to the prototype that are important to describe?

Level Three: Establish Relationships

Where are connections between the parts and frames?
Are there disconnects worth naming? What parts might be excluded, intentionally or not?
How do YOU relate to the prototype and what might be your learning edge in the project?

Level Four: Reveal the Eco-System

Does the picture include your original vision and intention?
How does this root in an “emerging future whole, where there is a shift in identity and self?”

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The continued step for developing prototypes will be 3D Sculpting and 4D Embodiment. Clearly more to come on this one! Like many of these posts, a start….

2015/07/16

Storytelling

Sharing the stage with Anthony Weeks and Liisa Sorsa at the IFVP 2015 conference in Austin, in a session on “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Storytelling” we asked the questions: What is it to be authentic in our work? And what is it, in our times, to visually tell stories?

The following is the original thinking behind my small piece of the pie; the hope is to expand this to add everyone’s contributions, including the 8-9 generously recorded images in multiple languages!

A colleague from China recently explained her culture’s symbol of Yin / Yang as ACCEPTANCE / DESIRE. I have been thinking a lot about how this might translate to the balance of the known (Yang) and unknown (Yin) and how, if, this shows up in our visual language.

I’d like to offer an expanded scale to storytelling that incorporates this inquiry. Referring to the iceberg framework (which you can see in more detail here) as scribes, we usually start at the tip of the iceberg, in words and direct images, revealing tiers downward – if we are lucky and skilled – into patterns of behavior, structure, mental models, and vision. We generally scale down. We start with the KNOWN, because it is more tangible and easier to grasp.

But if we orient instead from the UNKNOWN – the water, the greater surround, the place of ultimate holding – if we think of the container AS the water (think also of a womb) and if from the container we attend to the TONE of a group and work from there, we essentially invert our standard process. We practice bottom-up scribing and open the door to timeless storytelling – much, much larger than only one event, one tip of one iceberg, one story on any one given day.

In thinking this through and drawing the above image, i also saw the visual metaphor of trees, where in the rings, age is revealed in the count. The “one story” is the new life at the very center. The outermost ring contains and protects new life within. Also, there is the old tree-forest saying…. do we choose to focus on one part, one tree, or do we choose to look at the entire range?

Storytelling speaks to multiple ways of seeing; it is a snapshot in time and a growing body of snapshots over time.

Now to the application of this wondering. In the session near Berlin a few weeks ago, I joined a circle of about 40 Presencing practitioners. (You can read much more about this here.) The circle looks like the outer ring of the tree AND functions as water. Circle as social field, from which the structures and content rise.

Drawing on the wall was just the tip of the iceberg. I drew very little compared to the amount of time i was WITH people. I oriented IN the circle, WITHIN the room, OF the people.

I drew as – and only as – was called for by the container.

The void on the far right was the most poignant part of the picture, as it desperately wanted to stay empty. When the topic of earth came up in the room, another image echoed – visually, spiritually, and in content – from a 2012 session attended by some of the very same people in the more recent group. Two walls, years apart, a continued story. And thus revealed: two tips of two icebergs.

This got me really excited. What potential! The thousands of practitioners in our field, in sessions all over the world, drawing chart after chart after wall after board, over days, months, longer stretches of time…

How many icebergs to surface? How many stories within stories within stories to be drawn?
As a supportive, fluid body, the storytelling in our hands seems limitless.

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Anthony Week‘s stunning staging for the conversation:

And Liisa Sorsa‘s equally impressive image from a presenation by Kristin Luck. Yowza!

2015/05/31

Domains of Knowledge

These Domains of Knowledge – which inverted to become known as the Flame model and which expand the Iceberg – come straight from my lacing with dialogos and submersion into the waters of collective intelligence. A journal entry from 1999, when i was first exploring how to visually represent dynamics of conversation beyond words, charts the possible range between notes and space.

This sharing, in a circle of about 30 dialogue practitioners, spoke to identifying “forces at play” that inform facilitative moves, or gestures. The domains stretch between the explicit (behavioral) and the implicate (awareness-based) orders, and indicate the importance of attending to all domains simultaneously. It is not a scale; rather, it’s meant as a tiered echo from inner attunement.

Explicit

This is the tip of the Iceberg: events, what we notice objectively. Top of the Ladder – behaviors, actions. Words. Sounds. Literal stories.

Tacit

“With structural problems, you need to make structural moves.” Bill Isaacs. As a scribe, the skill of diagnosing the structures of a group and its conversation allows for drawing in a manner that works with the structure to either relax, reinforce, or expand inherent (creative) tensions. Towards this, our role is to be “larger than the largest tension in the room,” and develop ‘predictive Intuition’ that can recognize what is going on under the surface and represent it accordingly.

To not identify the structure poses the risk of unknowingly becoming entangled IN it. How easy to get caught in a web of anger, when accusatory statements fly through the air. Or a web of fear when risk and stakes rise. Or sadness when the room fills with heart-heavy responsibility, like key leadership of a business realizing the supply chain’s impact on climate change. Or even exuberance, when the room swells with excitement over a new vision or idea. ALL of these cases can be structural, and then emotional, webs. If ensnared, our clarity can waver.

Field

Yet…. the structure is ‘out there’ and also ‘in here’; it is of them, and it is of me! “Everybody and everything is already interrelated. We may not understand it, but there is an invisible, underlying order. This is why inquiry is necessary. This work [dialogue, interject scribing] is about underlying movements. It’s not about pulling pieces together or about change…” Peter Garrett.

In the Theory U framework, Otto Scharmer identifies Field Structures of Attention: “Downloading, Seeing, Sensing, Presencing, Crystallizing, Prototyping, Performing… Each field structure of attention embodies a particular type of relationship between the self and the world. Each one makes visible what otherwise is not: the grounding in an archetypal gesture out of which social systems are enacted moment by moment.” (Read more in a very early draft of The Blind Spot of Leadership from 2003.)

We inhabit this domain to touch the roots and very soil of social bodies, of which we are active, inseparable, participants. In field, us. In field, source. In field, a context of letting. Scribing: drawing into and of and from and for field.

Awareness

Well, this must be how we stay in tune with the moment. You likely know much more than i do in this camp! I’m still learning… as we probably all are. From a workshop at the Omega Institute in 2000:

And because it kept ghosting through in the pictures – the image from the bottom of the following page on Resistance. This must be relevant to the knowledge domains, to staying aware, staying steady in all downpours, to remaining present, open.

Perhaps acceptance is a key. Perhaps scribing is a vehicle to help the social body notice and accept itself and its surround, thus return our perception of unstable conditions back to a more civil, stable, coherent place – from which the very disturbance originated and lost it’s way. ?

ResistanceS

(And yes, i clearly need better image reproducing…. Yet will accept this as is, for now 🙂

Related to Iceberg, flipped upside down, Visual Practices: Perceiving and Being, Ripples, Finding a Way into Field, and Reciprocal Zone.

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In response to Jody Isaacs comment, here is another drawing that could expand this thinking further. It’s called Visible/Invisible. Maybe it’s its own post… linked to DoK?

2015/05/15

Ladder of Inference

A visual practitioner must continually orient their inner landscape and seek to SUSPEND beliefs and judgements that block clear listening and an Open Mind. This requires ongoing self check-ins and mental model alignment, as related to ourselves, the content, the people in the room, the organization(s), and even the sector or region of the world represented.

It is far too easy to get tripped up by our own way of thinking, and inadvertently close off to what is actually happening. A room of 50 men in blue suits does not necessarily indicate a group of businessmen – it could be a NY Yankees reunion! or, or, or….. There could be dozens of interpretations, depending on our background and sorting mechanisms.

One fundamental framework to keep in mind is Chris Argyris’ Ladder of Inference, which describes the scale of thinking between experience-based data and belief-based action. Though all steps exist in the “now”, the top of the ladder tends to waver more abstractly in memory, and the bottom lands more solidly in the present moment.

Here is a breakdown (with reference to Google definitions):

Beliefs: Acceptances that a statement is true or that something exists.
ie: For someone to recognize a bird, I need to represent it in flight

Conclusions: Judgment or decision reached by reasoning.
ie: Birds fly.

Assumptions: Things that are accepted as true or as certain to happen.
ie: Cardinals, and all birds for that matter, must fly around a lot.

Added Meaning: What is interpreted as meant by a word, text, concept, or action.
ie: Cardinals must travel to many backyards in a day for food.

Selected Data: Chosen facts and statistics collected for reference.
ie: Cardinals eat off flat surfaces and come and go freely.

Observable Data & Experience: Practical contact with facts or events or occurrences.
ie: Sometimes my brother and i watch cardinals feeding in his backyard.

Reflexive Loop: Confirms bias. Beliefs influence data we choose to select in the future.
ie: I draw birds in flight, and watch birds coming and going, but not birds on branches.

Reflective Learning: Looking more closely to increase our understanding.
ie: I have serious challenge drawing animals, but if i more closely observe real birds in a variety of settings and notice their range of forms, my drawing will improve.

A purely behavioral example, not applied to scribing, would be something like this – starting at the experience and jumping around, as it can happen in real life:

I call my mom and ask how she is doing. (Data) “Fine,” she answers. (Data)

But i think to myself, “Her voice is low and her words are slow. (Data) She does not SOUND fine…” (Added Meaning) “Uh-oh. This is going to be one of THOSE kinds of uncomfortable conversations, loaded with innuendo.” (Beliefs)

See how fast i made that jump?!?!

Then i ask,”Is something going on?” I’m trying to inquire to scale down back to data.

“No, i am getting ready for XX today and the plumber is coming and XX etc.” (lots of data)

But in my body, in my heart, I sense gaps in this data, and am hearing something else behind the words, in her tone, and still can’t help think there is something more going on. (Conclusion)

I am substituting my reality (Selected Data) for hers – and i’m getting fixated that i am right about my interpretation.

“My mother is hiding something. Maybe she is trying to protect me, or not bother me. And clearly she does not want to talk about it now! All she wants is banter; this will not be a substantive conversation. (Belief) I might as well get off the phone now. (Action)”

Again – see how quickly i scaled back up?! And, in doing so, got lost in my own story about the call, became reflexive, stopped listening to my mom, and prematurely ended the call.

Back to how this applies to scribing…

To inquire into the situation, in order to surface the data, requires “scaling down the ladder.” As graphic facilitators, we must always return to actual words, no matter our triggers or wishes for the outcomes of a session. If something is not clear, pause. Slow down. Wonder. Check the reasoning. Turn away from the board and mentally move closer to the words, to the person speaking, to the data. Put yourself in their shoes. Inhabit another vantage point. Resist the urge to draw until you return to ground.

This kind of real-time inquiry risks getting in the way of our needed liquid state; to be checking what we heard for accuracy can break the momentum of attending to the next words, and the next after those. But one spot-on interpretation against 100 misrepresented ideas in invaluable. A picture is only worth 1000 words if it lands in an array of reference.

In the domain of Perceiving, in A Practice Model for Scribing, the Ladder is key.

The Ladder of Inference was first put forward by Chris Argyris and expanded in Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline. For additional reading, see: The Ladder of Inference by Rick Ross, excerpt from The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. Copyright 1994 by Peter M. Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Richard B. Ross, and Bryan J. Smith. Original illustration by Martie Holmer.

2015/05/13

Discern

In the “Know” domain of A Practice Model for Scribing, four moves* mark a facilitator’s choice around what to do with the volume of content we hear streaming in the air. The actual choosing process is completely subjective, and it is a scribe’s listening skills that inform the real sifting ability. This framework merely offers categories to consider while holding broad swaths of information, to inform decision-making of what to draw, when.

Bypass: In the service tracking with the flow of conversation, you move over topics that might be confusing or might not yet seem to fit in the picture.

Let it go! The easy road here and sometimes the path of least resistance. If the content is in support of another main point, redundant, or completely confounding…. quickly decide not to include it in your picture or even retain in your mind.
Come up with alternative ways to reveal the topic. Maybe this can be a short list and not a picture, or written in a smaller font or lighter color.
Seek to maintain balance. If things get heated, you can ease the flow by careful and reductive use of language to represent content, or draw less of what is growing (like when one person might be on a rant or in a monologue…)
Deepen your own inquiry and hold the container. Just pause. Reflect quickly in the moment and try to sense into what is actually going on.

Name: Bring attention to content by naming it, without judging or evaluating. You don’t have to elaborate at this point. It might feel like you should capture everything, but you don’t! Maybe the content is not yet all out in the air, and is still emerging, therefore only ready to be noted.

Listen (Level 2) in an objective way. Suspend your opinions or beliefs in order to hear as clearly as possible.
Draw literally. Use specific visual language that maps accurately to the speaker’s words and watch your level of interpretation.
Keep an ear open to content repetition, reinforcement, and differentiation. When something seems to keep looping back, make sure to include it.

Engage: Enter the dynamic to further surface patterns, to deepen the inquiry, and to expand the container.

Listen (Level 3) from the perspective of the room, of the speaker(s).
Identify unclear verbal streams in service of uncovering their sources.
Reveal structures of interaction, as explained the in the Iceberg model.
Explore what is at risk, what is not said, and what might actually seek expression.
Note: Requires a higher degree of facilitative skill and a stronger container

Transform: Make facilitative container-building moves to shift the dynamic, even if you are on the side of the room, silent. You have influence here to either disrupt or stabilize through your drawing. Transform with great care!

Listen deeply (Level 4) to space between the words, for what wants to surface.
Trust that a deeper meaning will arrive and be ready to include it.
Notice the sequence of voices and/or the flow and sounds.
Seek beyond the content to engage with the dynamic.

Lastly, considering system dynamics layered into this framework, as visual facilitators we can have a subtle influence on a room by either increasing or decreasing awareness to certain content.

If something has already been expressed a number of times, then we can further reinforce that point by writing it up again and again (amplify), or we can decide to only write it once, or include only a few keywords (attenuate), which in effect balances the dominance.

Depending on the needs of the crowd, we can use a more synthetic approach, taking in lots of content and organizing it into clusters, carefully framing and making connections, aiming to reduce the complexity and offer cohesion.

At other times, we can use a more deconstructive approach, intentionally taking one concept and breaking it into parts, so that what seems like a knot is more easy to parse out. This would have the direct opposite effect of synthesis, as the approach aims to surface and amplify complexity – to expand a conversation and prompt new thinking.

Either approach – balancing or reinforcing – weaves in along the entire path of bypass-name-engage-transform.

The key point is that, as we make sense of what we hear and what is called for in the room, we can actively choose how to respond.

Bypass-Name-Engage-Transform comes from my work in the late 90’s with Bill Isaacs of Dialogos, and I have mainly taken it from the original context of verbal facilitation and applied it to visual practice. The original framework was conceived by Diana M. Smith. Learn more in Divide or Conquer, Chapter 9.