Learning Systems Thinking

Chapter 7. Collective Systemic Reasoning

Ambiguity…presents a puzzle. It challenges one to grasp something from multiple perspectives, each of which demands equal attention. One never solves an ambiguous situation, but puzzles through it, searching for the unity of multiple perspectives, for the sense of the thing this, which is illusive and shifting.

Ann M. Pendleton-Jullian and John Seely Brown, Design Unbound: Designing for Emergence in a White Water World

In Chapter 5, I encouraged you to notice your reactions and stop allowing them to drive your thinking. Later, I said, we would learn how to respond. Here, in this chapter, we’ll build a response.

As knowledge workers, we are proposing ideas, actions, or theories, formally or informally, all the time. We do this through structured communication. Making artifacts like documents, models, working code. Sending an email or Slack post. Joining a meeting discussion, or modeling session, skywriting…the form doesn’t matter. What matters is the quality of the thinking we contribute, and how well our process supports knowledge flow.

We will frame the practice of responding as “creating a proposition.” Creating a proposition is systemic reasoning because it includes the reasons that support your proposition. The process is deceptively simple but diabolically difficult.

A proposition includes three key components:

• The idea, action, ...