Heads up: This post is 12 years old. My thinking may have evolved since then — read it with that in mind.
Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things, regarded as systems, influence one another within a whole. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together to make an organization “healthy” or “unhealthy”.
At my first meeting with EDiversity co-founders Cam and Doreen on August 13th, I learned about some cool alternative education projects that people have been doing, like the Floating Classroom, Bring Me A Book, and Holistic Education Foundation… etc. I was very inspired and motivated, thinking all night about the possibilities of collaborations in the future.
I also gathered that these different groups of people have only just gotten together, and we need to better understand our positions in the bigger picture, so that after the event, we can collaborate most effectively and create the biggest impact possible! For that, I told my good friend Thousand Lim at YES Network and see if he could help.
It just so happens that Adler Yang is also back in town for the screening of his documentary film - “If There is a Reason to Study 學習的理由”. After speaking with Adler, we decided to let him be the facilitator for EDiversity’s first Systems Thinking session.
The meeting took place last Thursday in the department of Sociology at Chinese University. We first started with writing down what are our expectations for the day. Then we move on to peer interviews to find out the problems in each other’s point of view. Next, with the help of the facilitators, we arranged all of our knowledge (in the form of post-it notes) into a system diagram. We then spend a long time discussing about where the “Root Causes” lie. After much discussions, we each wrote in black our choices of “Intervention Points” in the system.
Finally, due to a lack of time, we could only quickly go through the “Initial calling, Vision, Mission, BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)”. There isn’t time left for “Team Building” and “Scheduling”. Everyone was physically tired but mentally filled with new understandings and connections.
Thank you Adler and YES Network for this very useful training session!