Learning in Complex Systems

Many of us would like to know how to change things that feel ineffective, wrong, or unjust. In simple systems, that's pretty straightforward. In a complicated system, we might consult an expert and follow their advice. In a complex system, we face a conundrum. We are not outside the problem. Thanks to years of social conditioning & professional training, we may find our ways of thinking, doing, and relating reproduce the problem. Without always realizing it, we tell stories and repeat narratives to ourselves and others that can hold the problem in place. How can we trust our intuition, our senses, and our knowledge when they have been honed in the same context that nurtures the problem? Chris Argyris, one of the architects of adult and organizational learning, lays out the challenge of separating ourselves from the status quo long enough to see it, and change it.1

• 
  How do we open ourselves up to stories that might rub against what we believe to be true?
• 
  How do we expand whose stories are heard and repeated, and to what ends?
• 
  And, how do we even know what we believe if our world view is like the water we swim in and the air we breathe?

Collaborative or cooperative inquiry is one methodology that can help us understand the way things are in order to re-vision our mental models and re-work our practices.

Cooperative inquiry is a way of working with people who have similar concerns and interests to yourself, in order to understand your world, make sense of your life and develop new and creative ways of looking at things, to learn how to change things you may want to change, and find out how to do things better.2

What happens: Peers come together to explore an agreed upon area of human activity. Here, they talk about their shared interests and develop a first set of questions and propositions to explore.

What happens: Peers get more immersed in the process, start to see their experiences in fresh ways, discover new ideas, and unearth insights.

What happens: Peers agree to undertake some action, some practice, which will contribute to this exploration, and sign-up to a process of observing and recording their own experiences.

What happens: Peers reconsider their initial questions, make sense of what is emerging, and revise their inquiry. They go through another round of action and reflection, with new input and ideas.

This learning content was first designed by collaborative inquiry cohorts at Vancouver Foundation. They have been redesigned for both individuals and groups, to inspire learning in your own contexts. Heron and Reason maintain that "experiential knowledge is gained through direct encounter face-to-face with persons, places, or things."3 And they argue that experiential knowledge, while not the only form of knowledge, should be the starting point for other ways of knowing. Solo readers can plan cycles of action in which they test different ways of interacting with persons, places, and things, and perhaps invite others' observations and reactions, to prompt reflection on their practice.

• 
  We are Microcosms of Systems

  We have been encouraged to think, behave, and develop skills that perpetuate the status quo.
• 
  Experiential Learning

  Systems change starts with experiential learning that helps us understand our relationship to other components of a system.
• 
  Collaborative Inquiry Process

  Collaborative inquiry is an experiential or action learning process that moves through loops of action and reflection.
  

Experiences & Observations

How have you learned about a complex problem in the past? Where did action fit into your learning process, if at all?

Reactions & Impressions

How do you react to the idea of testing out alternative practices, on a small scale, without an extensive planning process? Are there voices of fear, cynicism, or judgement in your head?

Questions & Hunches to test

Can you think of an area of your work in which testing a different practice feels pretty low risk? What might you learn?