Killing the Change Agent
By John Atkinson. Living systems act to preserve their identity. If you perturb them they try to remove the source of perturbation. In short, if you try to change them, they try to kill the
Author: Heart of the Art
Heart of the Art was launched by John Atkinson and Emma Loftus in 2014, We've grown into more than we ever could imagine. A place to explore what it means to really make meaningful change, in a world that is messy, complex, and beautifully human.
Wicked Problems and Category Mistakes
Certain statements about problems are likely to be rendered false or meaningless if it can be shown that the problem is actually wicked,
Culture Change Pogroms
We are all familiar with cultural change programmes. Sadly most of them are more like ‘Culture Change Pogroms’. They ask people to conform or go. If you don’t fit the new norm there is no
A binary issue
Whenever you try to reduce a complex dilemma to a binary issue you are wrong. The ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain’ question asked of the British people this week was therefore always incomplete. Politics in its most
Are you good enough to lead?
Are you good enough to lead? Is there a problem in your organisation? Are you a senior person in that organisation? Have you been there any length of time? If the answers are yes then
Irreducible Uncertainty
Sometimes we think we've got it cracked, finally found the answer, discovered the insight, the key that unlocks everything. In such moments we might be reminded of the words of Donella (Dana) Meadows. Myron Rogers
Working with Systems
From John Atkinson. I get repeatedly asked about the difference between working with the ecosystem (or human system) and working with formal organisations. For me this is largely a perceptual difference and yet perception is
The Bleakest Thing I’ve Seen
When we don’t consider people’s lives in context, in their entirety, we design policy that manifestly fails. People on health related benefits are invariably suffering deeply yet we design inappropriate and simplistic policy to address
Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast
By John Atkinson Peter Drucker is credited as saying that ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’. It is certainly manna from heaven for those who love working in the cultural field of change. However it wasn’t
And who are you?
Does how you respond get conditioned by who asks the question? In what circumstances? In what environment? Do you always answer exactly the same or do you change it? Understanding and forming identity is a
The ethics of systems leadership
When you consult to a system who is your client? How do you know if you are doing the right thing? What constitutes doing good here and who decides? You cannot please everyone all the
The Queen!
what happens when your organisation is so evidently getting it wrong that people are suffering, that their work is becoming meaningless? What do you do then? Can you continue to ask for this loyalty? Should
Disruptive Algorithms for Change
Exploring using' clever' algorithms as a way of interacting with and even as mechanisms for distilling change from within. It's curious perhaps that here we see algorithms used as disruptive technology, with the potential, albeit
There Is No Scientific Method
Why are the results of science considered more reliable than those from other forms of human inquiry, like poetry or philosophy?
Embrace Complexity- Don’t Suppress it
By John Atkinson. If we genuinely believe the world to be a complex place, we need to consciously embrace that complexity, not suppress it. Once we do this, we realise we cannot resolve our activity