Abstract
An ‘ideal-type’ model of systems practice is introduced through the device of an isophor/metaphor of the systems practitioner as juggler. It is argued that four balls need to be kept in the air for any form of effective systems practice. These are (1) the B-ball which concerns the attributes of Being a practitioner with a particular tradition of understanding; (2) the E-ball which concerns the characteristics ascribed to the ‘real-world’ situation that the juggler is Engaging with; (3) the C-ball which concerns the act of Contextualising a particular approach to a new situation, and; (4) the M-ball which is about how the practitioner is Managing their overall performance in a situation. An account by Donella Meadows of her own systems practice is introduced as a reading to explore the juggler metaphor.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Students of the Open University course/Managing Systemic Change. Inquiry, Action and Interaction (TU812) have offered other possible isophor s such as knitting, guitar playing.
- 2.
It was Kathleen Forsythe’s paper on Cathedrals of the Mind (1986, p. 175) that led Maturana to invent the term isophor (Bunnell, May 2009, Personal communication. Systems Ecologist, President of Lifeworks, Vancouver, BC, Canada). Understood as either a metaphor or isophor can reveal different insights. In this second edition my preference is isophor over metaphor because of my focus on relational dynamics as central to systems practice.
- 3.
Humberto Maturana (personal communication, 19 August 2009).
- 4.
For too long in my view the Systems field has been plagued by method and methodology wars – incessant arguing about the virtues, or otherwise, of particular methods and methodologies, often in the form of a product offered by a consulting group. Unfortunately, this has constrained both the institutionalisation of Systems within academic life as well as drawing attention away from the praxis of systems as described here. As I do not want to perpetuate this unhelpful situation I want to make it clear that in juggling the C-ball it is not just about choice of a method or application of a method but, rather, the question of how a method or methodology can mediate the emergence of situation -improving action. ‘Putting into context’ could also be understood as a form of bringing forth (as per Maturana – see Proulx 2008) or as a form of context sensitive design (Ison et al. 2007).
- 5.
In a revealing paper Leung et al (2011) have found that ‘in five studies, findings revealed that both physically and psychologically embodying creative metaphors promote fluency, flexibility, and/or originality in problem-solving. Going beyond prior research that focused primarily on the kind of embodiment that primes preexisting knowledge, we provide the first evidence that embodiment can also activate cognitive processes conducive for generating previously unknown ideas and connections’.
- 6.
This claim may warrant critical scrutiny – a common fallacy here is the idea that a goal is needed, i.e. the signalling device that responds to above or below is all that matters. However, we interpret the ‘goal’ based on the result. We create a goal with our thermostat setting, but the ‘thermostat system’ itself has no‘goal’. In other words, the goal is only a heuristic invention, not part of the system (unless the observer /designer with a goal in mind is included), but about our relation to the mechanism , it represents our value.
- 7.
From a second-order cybernetic perspective it could be claimed that Donella, like most people, was at this point in her thinking not aware that Control and Goal are both human concepts grounded in our ability to imagine and desire a particular configuration, with the goal being a description of the condition of a system under the configuration of being subject to actions named control. It’s our belief that we can choose to do or not do the actions that turns them into a ‘control’.
- 8.
In a later publication the number of places to intervene was increased from 10 to 12. See Meadows, D. (1999). Leverage points: Places to intervene in a system. Hartland: The Sustainability Institute.
References
Abson DJ, Fischer J, Leventon J, et al (2017) Leverage points for sustainability transformation. Ambio 46(1):30–39
APSC (Australian Public Service Commission) (2007) Tackling wicked problems. A public policy perspective. Australian Government/Australian Public Service Commission, Canberra
Cook N, Wagenaar H (2012) Navigating the eternally unfolding present. Toward an epistemology of practice. Am Rev Public Adm 42:13–38
Forsythe K (1986) Cathedrals in the mind: the architecture of metaphor in understanding learning. In: Trappl R (ed) Cybernetics and Systems ‘86: Proceedings of the Eighth European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research, organized by the Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies, held at the University of Vienna, Austria, 1–4 April 1986. D. Reidel, Dordrecht, p 285–292
Ison RL, Blackmore CP, Collins KB, Furniss P (2007) Systemic environmental decision making: designing learning systems. Kybernetes 36(9/10):1340–1361
Leung AK, Kim S, Polman E, et al (2011) Embodied metaphors and creative “acts” [Electronic version]. From Cornell University, ILR School site: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/486/. Accessed 29 May 2017
Meadows DH (1997) Places to intervene in a system. Whole Earth, Winter
Meadows D (1999) Leverage points: places to intervene in a system. The Sustainability Institute, Hartland
Meadows DH (2008) Thinking in systems. A primer. Earthscan, London
Proulx J (2008) Some differences between Maturana and Varela’s theory of cognition and constructivism. Complicity 5(1):11–26
Ramage M, Shipp K (2009) Systems thinkers. Springer, London
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Open University
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ison, R. (2017). The Juggler: A Way to Understand Systems Practice. In: Systems Practice: How to Act. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7351-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7351-9_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-7350-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-7351-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)