CRITICAL AND CREATIVE SYSTEMS THINKING AND SYSTEMS EDUCATION
Harold G. Nelson, M. Arch., Ph.D.(First published in1993 in the Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting and Conference International Society for Systems Sciences )
Key Words - Design; creativity; whole systems design; critical systems thinking; adult learning.
ABSTRACT
Systems science, systems management and other systems based ways of thinking and acting in the world have offered an alternative to the positivistic tradition of science. A tradition that has proven to have limited utility in securing improvement in the human condition. Critical systems thinking has moved to rectify the short comings of systems science with systems rationality. Systems rationality emerges from an intellectual tradition that is shared by whole systems design. Whole systems design is creative inquiry that is able to deal with normative and aesthetic values, directly and authentically, in a way that positivistic inquiry is prevented from doing. Whole systems design uses the systems perspective for seeing and conceptualizing complexity. Creative inquiry in whole systems design provides access to vision in the face of chaos, ambiguity and contraries. Whole systems design education is essential in fulfilling the promise of systems rationality and creative design.
A graduate program, Master of Arts in Whole Systems Design (WSD), located within Antioch University is designed to provide the academic context for the education of whole systems designers who think and act wholistically from a critical systems perspective and creative insight. The WSD degree process is modeled on the creative process allowing students to experience, in the design of their own learning, the kind of creative inquiry that they can use as life long learners and as professional systems designers working on the behalf of clients.
INTRODUCTION
Creative design and critical systems rationality are covalent perspectives within the same "whole" truth as discussed by Briggs [2]. The omnivalent quality of both provide the possibility of greater insight into the process of acting on someone else's behalf so as to enable the full expression of their humanity. This is true for our present generations and is equally true for all future generations. Whole systems design inquiry is the embodiment of the integration and transcendence of these individual perspectives. Critical systems thinking is well represented in systems literature as exemplified by Flood and Ulrich [4]. Creative design is less well developed in systems literature especially as differentiated from problem solving. Given the teleological and epistemological challenges of both perspectives, an educational program for whole systems designers requires an entirely new approach to learning.
The pedagogical focus of the Master of Arts in Whole Systems Design (WSD) is on adult learning. Learning has many operational definitions and meanings, inside and outside of formal educational programs, which one most often depends on the point of view of a particular discipline or profession. Of the many meanings of learning available to faculty and students in WSD, and put into practice individually, design inquiry is the major process for learning for the student's degree process and is a model for learning that will have utility for the student for the rest of their lives.
DESIGN INQUIRY
Design inquiry can be characterized as a process of creative inquiry leading to future belief and innovational action. Design, as creative inquiry, is dependent on sensuous perception, critical reasoning and informed intuition. Design embodies the added teleological dimension of human intention and purpose, which is quite obscure in other forms of inquiry. Design inquiry is descriptive in part but it is primarily prescriptive. The goal of design inquiry is not to just gain a clearer truth or a better understanding of reality, but to also create reality that is more beautiful, right and ethical.
The intellectual tradition that design inquiry is a part of is different but complementary to the intellectual traditions that focus on explanations, descriptions and predictions as in systems science. Design inquiry includes a meta level of aesthetic inquiry used to bring forth other forms of inquiry used in planning, problem solving and scientific research. Design inquiry deals directly with values, meanings and other qualitative issues that other designs of inquiry based on the science tradition are not designed to deal with. Because of this, design is a natural bridge between scientism's research inquiry and everyday life; life which is desperately searching for ways to improve its quality concomitantly with its standard. Scientism remains a prisoner of a design of reason unsuited to work in pragmatic settings.
A design approach to life is very different from the unremitting framing of reality as problem states, or from attempting to substitute the descriptive for the prescriptive in fulfilling human purpose. A problem-solving framework sets up the expectation that a good solution cannot and must not be rejected, because, it is obvious that accepting a solution state is superior to remaining in a problem state. The responsibility of the problem solver therefore lies only with managing the needed change by defining the problem, coming up with an effective solution and an implementation plan. The responsibility of the owner of the problem is to accept the necessary change from problem state to solution state. This dynamic is responsible for an arrogance that is not just in attitude but in epistemology: more often securing resentment and resistance than improvement. This is the type of challenge critical systems thinking is rising to as demonstrated in Ulrich's work [5].
A design framework does not automatically define an existing situation as bad. Often problematic symptoms are far removed from their causes. Any situation is the consequence of past decisions, accidents, lost opportunities and designs and the situation is almost always far from being ideal. Indeed there are numerous manifestations of morally, aesthetically and rationally untenable conditions. But as Ackoff [1] points out, getting rid of what we don't want does not get us what we do want, and working out of hate against something rather than love for something creates very different strategies for securing improvement in the world. Creating a new opportunity or improvement ought not to be measured on just the negation of what has come before. This is unfortunately what a lot of stylish design or problem solving depends on for a sense of rightness, acceptance and worth.
Designers understand that consequential change is not good in and of itself with no need for further reflection or accountability. In fact cultures have known the importance of marking well and deliberately the passage from one stage to the next of any structured life. Designers understand the importance in unstructured life as well. It is essential that designed change be marked by a process of letting go of the old, of grieving, and of accepting the new, in a way that assures that deliberate change is life giving and not life threatening. This becomes very clear when the designer becomes his/her own client, as happens, for instance, to the Whole Systems Design student as they experience directly the move through authentic personal change.
Change is an essential aspect of design, if not the focus of design. Rate of change, order of change (process) and order of process are common concerns of any designed inquiry that leads to action and artifact. Additional forms of change that have special importance to design inquiry include; transformational change, flow change and change leading to emergent qualities or attributes. Designed change, however, is not important because of the form it takes, but because of its fulfillment of purpose. That means every designed change does not have to lead to a particular type of change. Often all forms of change are appropriate facilitators of a particular design intention. Sometimes, it is important to change your style of clothing and sometimes, it is important to change your style of life in the process of designing your life. It is not appropriate however, to be fixated with always and only, changing either styles of clothing or styles of life. It is also, not appropriate to treat change as an end in itself. Change, like all the other attributes and aspects of design, is an integral part of the unity or wholeness of design. Because the role of change in design is not to facilitate the status quo or to maintain order, there is a special burden of assuring survival and growth within designed change, while fulfilling purpose through the creation and implementation of something new which facilitates human purpose.
Design is the embodiment of the urge of "becoming" to "being". This means that design is triggered by an urge to express an aesthetic truth, with follow through to the real existence of an artifact whether conceptual or concrete. Design then is project oriented.
Intention and purpose in design inquiry is played out in a complex dialectic between the designer and, using Churchman's concept, the client [3]. The existence of this relationship in design (building on Churchman's work) is the major reason why design is so different from art or basic science. For instance, art is termed "self" expression while design can be best termed "other" expression. The term client is not as explicitly descriptive of this relationship as is needed. The English language is not very useful in providing any useful alternative concepts however. There are terms like customer, which define the relationship between producer and consumer, but this is not getting any closer to the essence of the client relationship. Altruism, agency and similar concepts are more descriptive of the designer-client relationship but are still short of the mark.
The designer can be one's own client, as is the case with the Whole Systems Design students who design their own learning. Or the client can be an "other" who is readily identifiable and accessible as is the paying, contracting client. Often though the client is very difficult to identify and access, like; "the public" or "society" or "humanity" , which never-the-less, are legitimate design clients in need of some creative manifestation that can serve their needs and desires. There are also clients that are even more difficult, if not impossible, to identify and access such as future generations. These clients are still legitimate candidates for the services of the designer however. A case can be made that they are essentially this generation's major ethical client. Potential sources for design clients can be expanded to include the animals, plants and places which form the larger unity that humans are necessarily a part of.
The relationships between designers and clients are complex and remain undeveloped in many ways. The character of these relationships include: I - me, I - it, I - thou, I - us, me - them, us - them, us - thou and we. The separation between client and designer is not a case of dualism rather, an important statement about the dynamic tension between client and designer. The relationship is not a static resolution of either no distinction at all or alienated separation.
The designer is a boundary person, who during creative inquiry, must cross out of collective life and return back into collective life and not be captured in either place. The designer must know how to draw the line that defines boundaries and when and where to cross the line. The relationship between designers and clients is dynamic, risky, often frightening and uncomfortable, but absolutely essential for the import of new life sustaining energy into the client system.
The demanding and critical nature of the relationship between designer and client requires that particular attention be paid to the design of the designer. The designer must attend to the development of the whole person, intellectually, spiritually, professionally and socially. The design of the designer is an ongoing activity that is not synchronized to the meter of design projects, but has a critical effect on the quality of the client-designer relationships. The compliment of this is that the design of the client is of equivalent importance.
The structure of this relationship becomes more multidimensional through the formation of design teams. Design teams are structured to function differently in each of a number of multiple phases of the design process. This includes completing specific tasks and synthesizing the outputs of the tasks, passing milestones marking pragmatic limits of time and resources available for any one design project. Doing different work in these multiple phases of a design project require different ways of thinking and knowing. This means that designers must be able to utilize multiple forms of intelligence and engage in multiple ways of knowing at appropriate times during a design inquiry.
Creative leadership and visionary capacities are essential qualities the designer needs in order to be successful. Of equal importance to the success of the design process, are the craftsmanship skills the designer needs in the innovation stage of design. Designers will not be successful in their charge if their ideas are not given life as part of their client's world. Innovation is as important to success in a design project as is the creative stage of the design process and often is one of the first issues to be dealt with in a design project.
Creative design as an approach to securing improvement in the human condition is essential to the well being of the world. Working as a creative designer is exciting, demanding and fulfilling. The designer is forever transformed and re-created by her/his designs. It is a way of working in the world that is often not a matter of choice, but, the answer to an insistent call from within that is not easily ignored.
The MA in Whole Systems Design is a graduate degree program that has been designed to provide the kind of learning context needed for the creation of whole systems designers. The program is designed to be coherent with the values taught or, to put it another way; to "walk the talk".
MASTER OF ARTS IN WHOLE SYSTEMS DESIGN
The Whole Systems Design MA programs are (1993) located at the Seattle campus of Antioch University, a national university with multiple campuses. The well-known progressive American educator Horace Mann was the first president of Antioch established in 1857. Antioch has been a leader in higher education and social issues since its founding, with the Whole Systems Design (WSD) graduate program continuing in this tradition. An interest in systems theory and the concept of wholism was the initial impetus for the founding of the program by the Dean of the Seattle campus. The full import of design as a powerful addition when integrated with the concepts of systems rationality and wholism was realized through the total redesign of the degree processes and curriculum for both graduate programs by the then new Director (1987), Dr. Harold G. Nelson. The programs received enough support within the University during its short tenure that when there was little support or qualified support the program was able to continue to grow and develop. Detractors, whether from within traditional university domains or from the public at large were suspicious of the non-disciplinary nature of the programs and their nontraditional degree processes. The number of supporters however, especially in business, governmental agencies and nonprofit institutions grew exponentially as word spread not only about its innovative pedagogical (or androgigical i.e. "adult') basis but also about the successes of graduates of the programs in real world settings.
The degree is a Master of Arts degree although the program is inclusive and not exclusive of specific disciplines or academic domains. The degree programs, in fact, are not disciplinary, multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary at all. The programs are not disciplinary in the taxonomical sense of traditional universities and are not exclusive to either of the academic cultures of the sciences or the humanities. They were designed to better reflect how the world is experienced extraordinarily in ordinary daily life. The programs' niche is within an emergent intellectual space, rather than as a midpoint between academic extremes. Extremes that are reflected in an idea presented in 1917 by Lewis Mumford [6]: "To know a thing by its parts is science, to feel it as a whole is art."
Whole systems design fills this emergent space and represents a concept of design that is very different from the everyday usage of the term which is often used to mean no more than decoration or used interchangeable with planning or problem solving. Whole systems design is much different. It deals with the creation of living mythos, with the forming of vision and the transforming of living systems and with the creation of systems with emergent qualities that have never existed before. Whole systems design is the manifestation of deep creativity embodying aesthetic and normative values that give form and substance to unfolding human purpose. Design is about imagining what ought to exist in support of human needs and desires and about bringing the image to life.
WSD is not a midpoint between science and art but integral to the source from which art and science flow. Whole systems design is built on a firm grounding in basic inquiry into the true, which systems science does, the good, with which systems rationality is concerned and the or aesthetic with which art is concerned. Whole systems design inquiry becomes belief that informs appropriate action which grows our of and transcends a synthesis of all of these forms of inquiry.
WHOLE SYSTEMS DESIGN.
WSD is an educational system designed to nurture learning within the mature student by bringing together four strategies for knowing. The first strategy is the systems approach, a powerful and effective way to observe or imagine complex phenomena as "systems." This approach allows the student to analyze complex relational patterns of elements that can be ascribed with functional meaning. This is called the systems approach. This systems outlook is of less value without creative design. Design, the second strategy, is an authentic way to work with values, aesthetics, quality, creativity and norms. Design action combined with systems perspectives provides a liberating foundation from which to build a student's work.
In addition to these two strategies is the concept of wholism or unity and emergence. Wholism provides the metaphysical perspective that transcends analysis and reason, providing access to the aesthetic qualities of observed, or designed, systems. It provides a sense of unity with purpose in conjunction with an understanding of function. The fourth strategy deals with personal development or the design of the designer. Without this design work, the other strategies have little chance of becoming successfully embodied and employed in their full potential.
The final milestone of the WSD degree program is marked with the emergence of graduates who understand the challenges of being whole systems designers who will become involved in and change other peoples lives. This involvement is done without fear of analysis paralysis, of risk, of knowing, or fear of ones own voice among the collective, and with knowledge of full accountability. The designer is fully aware of how to draw the line and when and where to cross it.
ACADEMIC DESIGN
The program's design includes structure, process and content that has been carefully crafted to have coherency with what students are expected to learn as self directed and life long learners. The structure of the degree is essentially that of individualized design teams with a clear understanding that the primary client of each team is the student. The student, in this context, is in a mutual contractual relationship with the WSD faculty who carry the vision of the program and represent the requirements of Antioch University, while they, the students, represent their own intellectual passions and interests. The full team is made up of the student, the student's faculty advisor, field advisors (chosen by the student and numbering two or more individuals who are leaders in their areas of expertise) with significant involvement of University faculty. Additional consulting comes from peers.
The substance of the program is made up of both academic content and an intellectual container. The container is the a priori framework that is in place for all students engaging in the degree process, which assures that any particular learning experience is whole systems design learning, whether designed by the faculty or the student. The academic content of the program is drawn partially from systems tradition which includes critical systems, soft systems, systems science, systems praxis, general systems theory, cybernetics, ecosystemology, management science and systems concepts drawn from the humanities, professions and the arts. The content is also drawn from the equally substantial design tradition which includes creativity, design epistemology and theories, project management, sciences of the artificial and synthetic, problem solving approaches, planning and intervention strategies plus the creative arts traditions. Additionally there is content in individual and group development including dimensions of spirituality, health and professionalism.
The degree process is composed of two major stages: the creative and the innovative. Each of these stages is made up in turn of a number of phases. These phases may not be entirely engaged in sequentially but there are major milestones which, when passed mark the successful passage through the degree process
(see table 1).
WSD STAGES AND PHASES
CREATIVE STAGE
•TRIGGER - INSPIRATION
•PREPARATION
•IMMERSION
•DIVERGENCE
...........................................MILESTONE #1
•CONVERGENCE
...........................................MILESTONE #2
•INCUBATION
•CRYSTALLIZATION - AH HA!
•DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
............................................MILESTONE #3 - CANDIDACY
INNOVATION STAGE
•PLANNING
•IMPLEMENTATION
•EVALUATION
............................................MILESTONE #4 - SYNTHESIS & GRADUATION
TABLE 1
The WSD degree process is a design of inquiry that is modeled on an interpretation of the creative process as witnessed to by those who have been considered or consider themselves to be creative. This design for creative and innovative inquiry is a model for the kind of inquiry one can engage in as a life long learner and as a designer working on behalf of another's interests. A major intention of the degree process is to get the students to experience creative design in the design of their own degree experience. This then becomes a model for the form of inquiry to be used on behalf of their "client".
CREATIVE STAGE — INSPIRATION
Inspiration is the trigger for the student's initial engagement with the degree process as is true for any creative process. Inspiration can take the form of certainty about exactly what is intended, for how the student wants to prepare for a different way to work and live in the world or, inspiration can remain a mystery manifested by a vague sense of dissatisfaction with how one's life has unfolded personally and professionally and a desire to transform a life. It is important that the process is initiated by authentic inspiration because, if unauthentic, does not carry the essential seed and energy for the successful completion of the the degree process.
CREATIVE STAGE — PREPARATION
Preparation is the next phase, a phase honored since antiquity as essential to the success of any new serious endeavor involving a major life change such as in a vision quest for example. This is a very difficult phase for many students in that it requires the destruction and letting go of old comfortable frames of reference and beliefs. It is the the most frightening aspect of Shiva, the Hindu creator god, who declares "I am the creator and destroyer of worlds." This is analogous the cleansing and purifying stages honored in ritual and mimicked by psychology. At this time the program engages students in self-reflection as learners, on their readiness for new learning and on their cognitive development. For adults it is a time to begin to recognize what part of their identity is tied to the role or roles they have played up to this point in time, and what will be needed to understand who they are anew, based on an entirely new way of working and being in the world which will be discovered during their creative quest.
CREATIVE STAGE — IMMERSION
At about the same time as preparation has gotten underway the student engages in an immersion phase which introduces them to the tradition, language, norms and inertia of the fields of systems, design, wholism and personal development. Intuition plays an important role in the later phases of creativity that is not random intuition, rather it is informed intuition. Informing intuition begins with immersion and is supplemented with individualized interests in later phases of the creative process.
CREATIVE STAGE — DIVERGENCE
The student comes into the program with a motivational spark, sometimes vague, sometimes crystalline, around a particular interest. This individualized interest initiates the divergence phase of the degree process after the preliminary phases are well underway. The student is encouraged to explore and push into unfamiliar intellectual territory, without pre-judging the utility or meaning of this new learning, guided by personal interest and passions in consultation with faculty and field advisors. This phase is started by a formal brainstorming session with the core design team that is focused on the student's stated interests and goals. This continues as a sustained effort until the student and the other members of the design team feel the time has come to bring closure and begin the next phase, which is convergence.
CREATIVE STAGE — CONVERGENCE
The convergence phase is that part of the creative process that forms limits and defines the space in which creative insights can crystallize. During this phase the student forms the crucible within which the key question(s) of their design inquiry are placed in an intellectual kiln. This framework is made up of the a priori values of the graduate program, the emergent values of the student, and such boundary definers as ethics, aesthetics and rationality. This container for creative energies is a synthesis of the client's, designer's and social collective's agreed upon limits, defining the space within which there is the freedom to design. At the end of this phase the student has defined the domain of their inquiry with issues and opportunities identified as key design questions. The answers to these questions emerge in the next two phases. In these next phases the client is often externalized to include more than just the student so that the student is now working on behalf of someone other than themselves.
CREATIVE STAGE - INCUBATION AND CRYSTALIZTION
During these two phases, the active, engaging search for patterns, relationships and the interconnectedness of ideas explored during the divergence phase of inquiry is replaced, with quiet contemplation and a conscious looking away from the design task at hand. This is an appropriate time for re-creation, for solitude and for getting back to the other parts of the designer's (student's) life that have been left unattended, including personal relationships and the practical complexities of adult life. It is a time to let the subconscious, creative mind engage in the design work without the overwhelming chatter of the conscious mind masking the deeper work. It is during this time that there is a sudden crystallization or a series of sudden insights or ah-ha's that come to the designer's conscious mind, revealing a part of aesthetic, normative, and reasonable qualities which have the feeling of certainty in the unity and rightness of the composition. The design is just a sketch at this time and needs to be more fully formed consciously, to make it into something that can be given over to the social collective in their own service.
CREATIVE STAGE - DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
The design development phase includes the work of filling in and forming more fully the conceptual armature which was the product of the cognitive leap, experienced during the ah-ha phase of design inquiry. At this time, things like feasibility, assessment and economy are brought to the fore to verify the worth of the design in the real world setting in which it will be introduced. Design communication is extremely important during this phase, because those who must help make the vision a reality, and those who will own the new reality as their own, need to be invited into what has been a very personal conversation and engaged in an exchange of intention and understanding. For the student this involves presenting their design to the design team with a plan for how some part of this design can be put at risk in the world to further mature the vision prior to full implementation. This phase marks the end of the creative stage of the design process. The next stage involves giving the design public life.
INNOVATION STAGE: PLANNING, IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION
This stage includes three phases beginning with the development of a plan on how to best put some important aspect of the student's design at risk in the world. This includes finding an appropriate strategy for an intervention into a "real world" context and a method(s) for evaluating the success of the design and its implementation. The student then engages in the implementation of their design work while reflecting actively on the success of the engagement itself. The student then evaluates the experience formally and reports back to the design team about what has been learned through experience, what would be changed in the future and what would be reinforced in the future.
At the end of this stage, the student is asked to present plans for their immediate professional future along with a professional resume.
CONCLUSION
Upon completion of the degree process, WSD students have experienced creative inquiry (whole systems design) which they can then use on behalf of other clients and in the further redesign of themselves as designers. They have learned how to see complexity and characterize it in terms of relationships and interconnectedness from a systems tradition. They have learned to feel the unity of wholes and to look for the emergent qualities of wholes that are not present in the separate parts of a system. The learning has been in partnership with a design team, but in response to their own intellectual passions and in the domains of their own choosing. They have experienced the dynamics of the individual and the collective in creative tension. They have also experienced and learned how to work out of the positive role of creative leadership and not as just a problem solver or mere facilitator. They have learned to pay attention to the design of the designer, the whole person, including spiritual, social, professional and academic development.
1. R. L. Ackoff, Management in Small Doses. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York (1986)
2. J. Briggs, Fire in the Crucible. Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles (1990)
3. C. W. Churchman, The Design of Inquiring Systems. Basic Books, New York (1971).
4. R. L. Flood and W. Ulrich, Testament to conversations on critical systems thinking between two systems practitioners: Syst. Pract. 3, 7-29
5. W. Ulrich, Systems thinking, systems practice, and practical philosophy: A program of research. Syst. Pract. 1, 137-163
6. J. Walljasper, Lewis Mumford's bountiful legacy, Utne Reader (May/June 1990)