| July 15th 1999 |
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| In order to gain my UKCP
registration in April 2000 I need to increase the number of NLP training hours.
So, today I attended the first of four days exploring "Systems
Thinking". The course is presented by Ian McDermott and Joseph O'Connor
and is a part of the ITS stable of
courses. It also ties in with their book. We were asked to make the training as practical as possible. To this end we were encouraged to make notations of: Particular understandings that we gained. Things that caused us to be puzzled Specific questions that came to us. Ideas about how to increase our learning. How we might use this training in the following table:
However, today we had a general introduction to the basic ideas of systems. Joseph said that in systems thinking we needed to look beyond the horizon of our present thinking - to grasp that which seems just out of reach. In the following hierachy he suggests that: The words in italics are mine. In the process of systems thinking it is this flow, in both directions, that needs to be explored. We were asked to discuss with a partner the following questions:
This brought up a lot of both personal and professional thoughts and ideas. In fact the professional areas of our selves were easier to discuss and the second two questions provoked a lot more thinking and contemplating than the first. A number of people said that there was a difference in the "quality" of response between the external focus and the internal. As you may guess the next question was: What is the relationship of the systems to me ? The response to this brought us to the idea of "feedback". Without feedback there cannot be a system. But as our discussion elicited, feedback need not necessarily be noticed, wanted or understood. We were asked to think about what blind-spots we may have: "Is there feedback that I am not noticing ?" "What of my experiences could I regard as feedback ?" Without feedback there is no system, just a collection or a heap of unconnected bits. We then looked at the types of feedback and came up with an impressive list. However, ultimately there are two types - so far that is - these are: reinforcement - keep doing this balancing - enough of this is enough and its time to stop. (whatever "this" happens to be) In the literature they are shown as:
The final stage of this first day was to apply these ideas to a real problem. After thinking hard I came with a problem I have of writing a book that I am working on. The following grid was prepared to explore these issues around writing this book. The questions are in black and my responses are in blue. The numbers in red mark the sequence that I completed the frame. The "it" refers to the activity in the cell and the "I get" refers to the finished book. The Issue began as: Clarifying the messages.
The words in the centre are my attempt to conceptualise the frame in total. What I learned from this is that I have a belief that a book is a difficult thing to write for me. I need to think about the book as a series of short articles. Although I have enough belief in myself to start this project I need to focus in on the production of the book. The conclusion I came to is that I know the messages for the book I need to focus on writing it - getting it done. After working with a colleague on her frame the first day came to an end. |
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