Polonius. By the mass, and t’is like a camel indeed.

Hamlet. Methinks it is like a weasel.

Polonius. It is backed like a weasel.

Hamlet. Or like a whale?

Polonius. Very like a whale.

~ Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2, Page 17

The great science philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994) once said that all the problems of our times could be subdivided into two categories: they were either like ‘clocks’ or like ‘clouds.’

What do you think your personal and professional problems look like?
In which category would you put the challenges faced by our society today?

Consider a clock: it is a mechanical system that is relatively static in configuration. If it stops working, you may take it to a clock repair shop where an ‘expert’ will open it, take it apart, analyze the problem and develop a diagnostic of what’s wrong with it. With a system such as a clock, there exist only a finite number of problems that can occur—that is, the problem set is well defined and clearly understood. Often, the problem can even be anticipated.

Now, consider a cloud: in contrast to a clock, a cloud is a dynamic system with no defined boundary. Ask different people to describe the shape of a cloud and they will likely come up with different interpretations: one may see a bear; another a duck; yet another a rabbit. The shape of a cloud is, in fact, the emergent result of the interactions of water droplets and other chemicals suspended in the atmosphere; it is always changing and sensitive to any small changes in its environment. The behavior of a cloud is unpredictable.

Problems of a clock type, even the highly complicated ones, are technical.  The nature of a technical problem is usually well defined: ‘experts’ from multiple disciplines may collaborate with one another to analyze the problem by decomposing it into sub-problems until the issue under consideration is fully understood.  Once the origin of the problem is known experts can find a solution to fix it.  In contrast, issues that resemble clouds are ill-defined or ill-structured.  In a 1973 paper, social policy planners Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber dubbed problems of a cloud type ‘wicked’ (see: 10 characteristics of wicked problems by Rittel and Melvin).  In the domain of complex social and organizational problems, systems thinker Russell Ackoff used the terms ‘social messes’ and ‘unstructured reality.’  I personally prefer to use the term ‘adaptive challenges’ that was coined by Harvard professor Ronald Heifetz (1994) in his seminal book Leadership Without Easy Answers.

Of course, there might be some overlap: adaptive challenges may require some technical problems to be solved while technical problems may call for adaptive challenges to be addressed.  Yet, the main nature of today’s challenges resembles more clouds than clocks.  Here are some examples of adaptive challenges in our society (I am sure you can add more to this list):

• Global and local sustainability issues such as climate change and other environmental problems related to energy, water, transportation, and food scarcity;
• Social predicaments such as hunger, poverty, and violence;
• National conflicts;
• Community resilience issues;
• Challenges with our healthcare system;
• Challenges in our educational system;
• Strategic business challenges such as the need for dealing with uncertainties and dynamic business environments; designing and launching new products or services; developing a corporate social responsibility strategy; negotiating with employees and trade unions; identifying the culture and identity (brand) of a firm; etc.

Adaptive challenges arise from the complex interactions between different sets of values, beliefs and assumptions and the divergent understandings of the situation.  Adaptive challenges are symptoms of deeper structural dynamics and root causes that are often hidden from our level of awareness because of their complexity.  Unfortunately, our society has the tendency to attempt to resolve its problems by solely resorting to technical expertise while avoiding the difficult adaptive work required to effectively confront issues that call for a fundamental change in our values and beliefs.  Adaptive challenges call for different approaches than the ones used for solving technical problems.   Adaptive work requires people to undertake a deep transformational journey by which they let go of their traditional values and mental models and embrace a completely new world view—one in which short-term and long-term goals are not in conflict with one another, nor are self-interest and group-interest.  However, most people are neither motivated nor have developed the skills to deal with adaptive challenges.

My work at Soma Integral Consulting is to midwife the process of change while facilitating the resolution of adaptive challenges.  I have developed diverse processes and tools, all grounded in a deep understanding of the adaptive process of complex systems, to facilitate deep learning, creativity and emergence of new possibilities.  My purpose is to guide individuals and groups through the steps of the adaptive process so that they can successfully achieve its requirements:

Embrace the whole complexity of the system

Most of us get overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of our challenges.  The situations we must deal with are politically charged and involve a large number of stakeholders belonging to different organizations and systems; the issues are full of ambiguity; and the path forward is unclear.  Within this context, we are tempted to reduce complexity by fragmenting—leaving some elements out of the process and/or considering them independently of one another.  This, unfortunately, only takes us away from the source of insights and breakthroughs that specifically resides in the understanding of the interactions between the tangible and intangible elements of a system and in an awareness of the patterns that emerge out of these interactions.   Embracing the whole complexity of a system is necessary to uncover the root causes of adaptive challenges.

To embrace complexity in a productive way, a structured process is required that provides a collaborative platform and a safe container for a constructive dialogue to take place.  The process is designed to encourage the sharing of divergent views; make distinctions explicit; create new meaning; play with “what if” scenarios; and facilitate the emergence of insights.  In addition, the process supports the management of unproductive anxiety and has the added value that it fosters the development of empathy and trust among participants over the long-term.

Learn to perceive reality with ‘new eyes’

Faced with an adaptive challenge, we are like blind men trying to describe an elephant: based on our different background and expertise, some of us sees the elephant as a tree while other people identify it as a snake or as a rope.  Who is right?  No one and all of us to some extent!  Our blind spots corner us into supporting positions that are ungrounded.  Left unchallenged, our divergent ways of perceiving reality generate misunderstandings and conflicts.

The good news is that it is possible to learn how to perceive reality with new eyes and it’s urgent we develop this critical skill.   Using diverse approaches that make the best use of both sides of the brain (i.e., analytical thinking as well as pattern recognition/creativity) participants are invited to engage collaboratively and help one another inquire into the nature of the “big elephant”— using generative conversations and dialogues as well as creative techniques and activities that help people move back and forth between sensing (primal knowing) and analytical thinking.  In breaking out the existing pattern of thought we leave the space for “flashes of understanding” to arise, which can then be interpreted and tested to generate new agreed meaning.

Sense the future that wants to emerge

As we let go of the old beliefs and assumptions and open ourselves to learning we create a field for emergent possibilities, within which deep insights arise.  Our inner eyes start to perceive previously hidden patterns, which tell a richer and more accurate story of the nature of reality.  Our understanding of the adaptive challenge shifts, as we now perceive the deeper structural dynamics that have been at the origins of our challenge.  As we uncover the root causes of the issue, what we initially believed was the problem now dissolves: we have outgrown the problem.  From a clear understanding of the dynamics of the system (i.e., what happened in the past), we can better explain the behavior of the system (i.e., the challenge in the present), while simultaneously getting a sense of future emergent possibilities.  This is a very creative phase, when one can engage in designing solutions and strategies that will support our vision and desired outcomes.

Engage mind, body and heart

As we commonly say, “necessity is the mother of invention.”   When dealing with adaptive challenges, necessity might also be the mother of change and transformation.  Yet, we should not believe that reason could be the only driver of change.   Embarking on a transformative journey without engaging the heart will hinder, if not bring to a halt, the process.  Personal and group transformation requires deep listening and empathy toward others and a willingness to open our mind to the messages sent by our deeper selves.

Moreover, as we begin the journey, the unavoidable feelings of fear and anxiety, which are deeply rooted in our bodies, arise.  Left unacknowledged fear and anxiety can lead to paralysis.  In contrast, when we bravely face our fears and explore their origins with curiosity, we are able to overcome what Robert Kegan and Lisa laskow Lahey (2009) calls our “immunity to change,” thereby unlocking our potential for authentic transformation.

A transformative process is not for weak hearted!

Be unreasonable: believe that change is possible

The Irish playwright and socialist George Bernard Shaw said: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”   Is it unreasonable to believe that we can change?  I believe it is!  And so, unreasonable we must be.

A successful journey of change always begins with a belief, a determined will, and a choice.  One must BELIEVE that change is possible, which is to say, one must believe we are the source of our challenges and, therefore, the only people capable of addressing them.   One must have the WILL to investigate the challenge and go deeper into its root causes and, thus, accept responsibility for our past actions and/or inactions.  Finally, one must CHOOSE to commit to the process—a process, which is often difficult and emotionally draining but that can also be extremely rewarding.   How could not it be?  Transformation is the process of life!

My overall purpose when facilitating adaptive challenge is to develop the adaptive and creative capacity of the individuals and groups involved to empower them to facilitate new emerging challenges independently in the future.  This is an urgent necessity if one wants to overcome the societal crises we now face.

References:

Heifetz, Ronald, 1994.  Leadership Without Easy Answers.  Harvard College.

Kegan, Robert and Lahey, Laskow Lisa, 2009.  Immunity to Change: How to Overcome it and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization.  Harvard Business Press.

Rittel, Horst, and Webber, Melvin, 1973. “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” pp. 155–169, Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc., Amsterdam, 1973. [Reprinted in N. Cross (ed.), Developments in Design Methodology, J. Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1984, pp. 135–144.]

This presentation addresses the following questions:

• What gives an urban space its character, personality, quality, identity, and its sense of coherence and order?
• What are the characteristics of a sustainable, adaptive, innovative, resilient, and regenerative city?
• What do living systems teach us about the attributes of a healthy and regenerative city and what are the implications for city planning and design?

Here is a high level overview of the 3 sections of my presentation:

Section 1 -  Paradigm Shift: Shifting our Mental Models

While the reductionist scientific method we inherited from Descartes and Newton has proven to be very effective for the development of technological innovations, this approach is very limited when dealing with the complex adaptive challenges faced by our cities today and even more so, by the cities of tomorrow: population density or lack of; social justice issues; poverty; economic issues; environmental problems such as pollution (water and air), watershed health, greenhouse gases emission, waste management; energy issues; food accessibility; and so on.

Systems thinking teaches us that complex systems have emergent properties that do not reside in any of their parts.  In order to understand the whole, we must embrace complexity and focus on the dynamic interactions between the parts (feedback loops).

Complex systems are dynamic and unpredictable; they cannot be controlled or managed.   Most often, addressing a problem in isolation may cause another problem over time.  Fortunately, the understanding of the systemic structures of our urban environments may allow us to find high leverage points where to intervene to positively influence the future of our cities.   The highest leverage points, however, are to be found in our worldviews and mental models.

Section 2 – The Living Systems Approach

This section considers the key attributes of living systems: openness; purpose; autopoiesis (self-creating); structure-determined behavior; diversity and differentiation; adaptation; self-organization; and emergence, and discusses these attributes within the context of a city.

A city that is ‘open’ facilitates the development of connections, interactions and relationships.  Efficient, interconnected physical infrastructures facilitate exchange of goods and mobility of people internally within the city and externally with its region and beyond.  The presence of open/public spaces as well as the elimination of any “walls,” physical or metaphorical, support interpersonal and intercultural interactions.  Communication network facilitates exchange of knowledge, talent, qualified labor and investments.

From an evolutionary perspective, a city that is ‘open’ continuously and dynamically changes and evolves over time.  It encourages community engagement, stewardship and leadership in envisioning the city’s future (a city developed by the people for the people).

An autopoietic city is a city that uses its network of communication to maintain life and its sense of identity, i.e. the culture of the place.  The physical, social, cultural, political, economic structures of a city reciprocally influence one another in a way that is mutually reinforcing.   A city has the power to choose to redesign its (infra)structures and institutions so that to generate new patterns of behavior, thereby enhancing the quality of life and of the surrounding natural system.

Diversity is necessary for creativity and survival.  A healthy city encourages diversity at all levels: culture and ethnicities; physical and knowledge assets; characters and styles; built and open spaces; public and private spaces; and so on.

A healthy city is one that has developed its adaptive capacity and resilience in order to flexibly learn, self-organize and adapt to contingencies.  The transformation of a city over time should increase its level of coherence and wholeness and strong sense of identity.  A healthy, regenerative city cannot be designed or built.  These qualities are emergent.

Section 3 – Implications for Urban Planning, Design and Community Involvement

From a living systems’ perspective, sustainability is a capacity, not merely a set of goals, metrics or criteria, nor a ‘thing’ that can be built.  A living systems approach to urban planning embraces complexity (as opposed to reducing it by focusing on individual parts independently) and focuses on building the adaptive (learning) capacity of the place: it is about sustaining life — an evolving process of continual renewal.  The understanding of the local context is primary to increase the resilience of a city.

One cannot acquire tacit knowledge of a place solely through analysis.  The emergent qualities of a place can only be understood by experiencing the place.  Consequently, city planning and design should support processes that increase participants’ learning and discovery and help people reconnect to the place where they live.

There are no easy and simple solutions to the design or sustainable and regenerative cities.  Urban planning is an adaptive, transformative process that requires us to challenge our beliefs, values and mental models.  The process must transfer ownership and leadership to the community and leverage the collective intelligence that resides locally so that creative solutions emerge out of the collaboration between stakeholders.

“Life accepts only partners, not bosses.  We cannot stand outside a system as an objective, distant director.  There is no objective ground to stand on anywhere in the entire universe.  Our disconnection — our alleged objectivity — is an illusion; and even if we fail to realize this, the system will notice it immediately…Systems do not accept direction, only provocation.”

~Margaret Wheatley, A Simpler Way

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When we declare that we have solved a problem, one is likely to have only addressed a symptom.  The illusion of being done is due to our unwillingness or inability to see unintended consequences—unfortunately often negative—or unexpected changes in the system.  (Think for instance of the impact of fish farms, a solution to address wild fish depletion but which is creating huge pollution problems and the need to give antibiotics to the fish so that they can survive in their enclosed environment.)

If we are really serious about improving our state of affairs, we are going to have to take an attitude of humility in admitting our limits and our failures and accept the idea that we won’t be done, that we won’t solve the problem for our children and that no generation will be able to declare “we are done.”

To close this post, here is a quote from Nobel physicist Richard Feynman:

“If we take everything into account, not only what the ancients knew, but all of what we know today that they didn’t know, then I think we must frankly admit that we do not know.

But in admitting this, we have probably found the open channel.

This is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we really should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, tossed out, more new ideas brought in: a trial and error system. This method was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the 18th century. Even then it was clear to socially minded people that the openness of the possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown.  If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar. …

It is our responsibility to leave the men of the future with a free hand.  In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time.  This we will do if we, so young and ignorant, say we have the answers now, if we suppress all discussion, all criticism, saying, ‘This is it, boys! Man is saved!’  Thus we can doom man for a long time to the chains of authority, confined to the limits of our present imagination.  It has been done so many times before.”

Feynman, Richard P. and Leighton, Ralph (1988). What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character.  W.W. Norton & Company Inc.

I appreciate any comments or feedback you may have.

Warmly,

Beatrice

**********

Community Economic Development (CED) approaches that aim at developing sustainable and regenerative communities should be holistic and integrative and must consider the communities’ challenges and strategies from an economic, social, and environmental perspectives, simultaneously.  We believe that CED approaches benefit from the insights of Complexity Science, Systems Thinking, and Living Systems theory.

Communities are Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) or Living Systems (LS) whose components (the individuals, organizations, institutions, and all the diverse social-technical-political-ecological systems that are present within the community) continuously interact with one another to exchange information and resources; collaborate; compete; self-organize; and adapt under the influence of diverse economic, social and environmental pressures.

An LS approach to CED embraces the complexity of the community ecosystem. Understanding of the issues faced by a community can be gained by considering the complex interrelationships that exist between the community and its environment.  An ecosystem map is a useful tool to visualize the diverse interactions within the community and between the community and its environment.  This map can also be used to assess the level of diversity within the community—diversity that is critical for the system to thrive—and to determine what entities need to be added to rebalance the system.

LS theory provides insights on how to improve the adaptive capacity of communities by designing communities structures that facilitate the flow of information and the development of communication networks; connect diverse assets and resources to one another; support the development of collaboration; decentralize power and decision-making; and increase resilience in times of economic stress, hardship, or downturn.

A living community is a learning system, continuously searching for creative and innovative solutions to its problems and ways to generate value.  In the process, the community develops and grows.  Innovation is an emergent process that takes place when individuals, organizations and institutions self-organize while engaging in collaborative activities and collective actions.  Consequently, an LS approach to CED focuses on designing structures that facilitate the collective coordination of action and the development of mutually beneficial relationships.

Finally, the design of living communities is an adaptive challenge—a challenge that requires individuals, organizations, and the community as a whole to redefine long-held values, beliefs, and mental models and to embrace a new world view.   The role of the adaptive leader(s) is to mobilize and empower the community to do “adaptive work.”  This means engaging the community members in dialogue that supports the development of shared-understanding of the issues to be addressed; the development of relationship based on trust; and the co-creation of shared meaning and purposes from which a new vision can emerge and new strategies can be designed.

Open dialogue, transparency, accountability, and constant evaluation of the process and its outcome—the qualities of reflective systems—are essential to the development of purposeful and conscious living communities.

Yet, we must remember that living systems cannot be directed but only influenced.  There are no single prescriptions for success.  Strategies must be context-specific and their implementation carefully monitored using feedback loops and other evaluation systems so that to continuously adjust and improve the system.

Perhaps you know the answer to this question but more likely you are like me and you don’t.  Perhaps there are some experts out there who have done a comparative life cycle analysis of both solutions and who know the answer.  Perhaps the answer depends on where the coffee shop is located—I would suspect the answer would be different in India or Africa than it is in the U.S.  Perhaps ceramic cups are a better choice today while paper cups might be better in 5 or 10 years when we experience a major water shortage.  Perhaps in 20 years neither solution will be a good one because we won’t have enough water to make our coffee, anyway.  There may not be any coffee growing, by the way.

I may be over-dramatizing but you get the point.  We all mean well and we are all trying to do the right thing and we truly care.  Yet, driven by our mental models (yes, I know, I have been focusing quite a bit on them lately but they seem to me so critical if one wants to move to the next stage), we love to find easy technical answers to our complex problems and we love jumping to conclusions quickly.  We also love to point fingers and blame others for their unsustainable behaviors.  We bad-mouth our neighbors for not recycling; we complain about our employees who do not embrace our latest corporate sustainable initiative; we get upset with the grocery store that is raving about its sustainability strategy yet carries Chilean grapes in the winter; and while they may be making their baby steps toward transforming their business operation, we still blame large corporations for their unsustainable business models and for greenwashing.

Listen, I am not saying there is no greenwashing: it’s everywhere.  I am not saying there aren’t people who do not care: there are still too many.  I am not saying that all businesses getting involved with their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative are doing it for the sake of the environment, their local community and social justice: many are still doing it only for the bottom line and in many cases simply because they are forced to do so by stakeholders’ demand, regulatory constraints, and NGO pressures.

What I am trying to say is that we, the well-meaning people, have to rise above the pack and start asking the right and smart questions.  If we want to lead, then we must lead in such a way that the results of our actions are truly making a positive impact on the world.  We must acknowledge that problems are complex and that oversimplification is a very risky business.  We must be aware of our own filters and mental models and make them explicit and open to the scrutiny of others.  We must take a rigorous and scientific approach when investigating our problems and the strategies we are developing to solve them.  And, at the same time and in the same way that we are using our rational brains for analysis, we must also open our hearts, use our intuition, and practice love and compassion because the use of soft skills and our ability to connect to emotional intelligence are critical to our ability to adapt, transform ourselves and ultimately impact the world around us.

More than anything else, we should not jump to conclusions too quickly.  Is it difficult?  Hell, yes!  But by rolling up our sleeves and accepting the hard work; by acknowledging that we are both rational and emotional people and by honoring both reason and emotion as valuable human assets; and by learning how to mesh these in our personal and professional lives, all together we will be able to achieve our highest aspirations for a better world.

In “Believing Impossible Things,” Gail talks about the “Spirit of Sustainability,” which she suggests requires a strong belief in five principles: Choice, Truth, Power, Fun and Laughter, and Love and Gratitude. (See how she defined these principles at the end of this post.)

In the section on Power, she recalls a particular “earth angel” in her life – a medical intern whom she met in a hospital while she was being treated for a brain aneurysm when she was in her twenties. (Note: Gail borrowed the term “earth angels” from Lance Armstrong who used it to refer to his nurse while he was treated for cancer.) That night, while she felt desperate and had lost the desire to live any longer, this man told her his own story; he told her about how his belief in the impossible helped him to survive while he faced his own death. This man and the story he told gave Gail the courage to believe in the impossible and the hope and strength she needed at this challenging time in her life.

We all have met earth angels at some point or another in our lives. As I read Gail’s story, I thought about all the earth angels in my own life who, at difficult times, with a few words of encouragement, a positive attitude, a smile, or a story, gave me the hope and strength I needed to continue the journey. To all my earth angels, in the past and in the future, I want to express my deepest gratitude. You have made a huge difference in my life and, while I may never be able to give you back in a similar way, I wish and hope that I can be an earth angel myself, at times, when someone needs the support.

And, with Gail, and in her own words, I too want to say:

“I DO believe in the impossible.

I believe empty grounds can be made rich.

I DO believe:
• We can change ourselves and how we choose to view and live life. (Choice)
• We can find our own personal truths and share these with others yet also allow others to find their own paths and share. (Truth)
• We can share the fact that there is no limitation to the journey of the human spirit by constantly and consistently empowering ourselves as well as others. (Power)
• We can laugh and giggle 400 (or more) times a day even as adults! (Fun and Laughter)
• We can remember our oneness with all life and be grateful for that oneness. (Love and Gratitude)

I believe in the impossible and I practice believing everyday. (Sometimes even before breakfast!)

I believe in the Spirit of Sustainability and I believe that it can propel us to new levels in our evolution.

Yes, I believe in the “Spirit of (not just) Sustainability (but also) Abundance and Love.”

How about you?”

(The section above is an excerpt from the Conclusion of “Believing Impossible Things”)