What makes HSD New and Different?

According to theories advanced by Sir Isaac Newton and his contemporaries of how the world worked, industrialists designed new machines which were predictable and, when broken, easily fixed. Life, of course, became much easier. This seductive, comforting model of linear and predictable change was embraced wholeheartedly. We soon learned to apply that model to all systems, including human ones. The fact that natural and human systems didn’t respond to orders or predictions as implied in this model was largely ignored; to this day, the structure of most organisations and the behaviour of their leadership are Newtonian.

Now, through the knowledge gained from the study of complexity science there is an alternative approach to the Newtonian model that better reflects the reality of what we know about human systems.

Traditional approaches to systems focus on one level at a time.  They can be identified as by the following characteristics:

One level at a time

• Interventions focus on one level at a time - individual or team or organization or community, but not all at the same time. 
• Change is understood in a series of snapshots – one before and one after the change
• Every effect has an identifiable cause, and every cause has predictable effects. 
• Every problem has a single cause at its root, and that root cause can be identified. 
• Change is driven by pre-determined purposes.  Outcomes and impacts drive all productive change. Competent professionals should be able to predict the results of change initiatives and control action toward results.

Whereas human systems dynamics approaches are seen as:

Whole, part, greater whole

• Interventions focus on whole systems and relationships among individuals, teams, organizations, and communities.  Change is understood as a flow of interactions over time.
• Causes and effects are linked so that what looks like an effect is also a cause.  Every change has many causes and every cause has many effects. 
• Results of change cannot always be predicted ahead of time, they emerge from complex interactions over time.    Unintended consequences are a fact of life in complex change.  Expect to be surprised!
• The future unfolds in unpredictable ways.  Adapt to the unexpected!

The differences in these assumptions are the key to determining what type of intervention will be useful and appropriate in any situation requiring change.  If one can assess the type of change that is occurring, then the system can examine the sources of uncertainty and what might be the consequences within each change category.