Our series on the understanding of systems thinking in the six economic sectors of government, business, health, media, education, and non-profits has drawn dozens of responses from listeners all over the country.  It is not surprising.  People who have grown up in industrial societies often get enthused about systems thinking and dynamic modeling because they believe that in the analysis of the interconnection of so many moving parts, it just might be possible to predict the future!  Alas, it is not so.  For example, self-organizing, nonlinear feedback systems such as our guests have talked about are inherently unpredictable.  They are not controllable by reducing the actions of the whole system down to the parts and trying to understand them.   In truth, when dealing with the interplay and dance of systems in our lives, we can never fully understand them. They are full of uncertainty and for any objective, other than the most trivial, we can’t find a proper, sustainable relationship with any systems behavior, each other, or institutions we create if we try to do it from the role of the conqueror, a lesson we have learned from each of our guests.

In this series we have been talking with people who have used the systems thinking approach to shape sustainable businesses. We have engaged Ray Haynes (6/23/09), an aerospace and corporate business leader who works inside and outside of his profession to foster the development of engineering and leadership talent. We have talked with  Phil Schlechty (6/30/09), founder of the Schlechty Leadership Center in Louisville, Kentucky who trains successful education administrators, with a strong focus on the importance of relationships between schools and the communities they serve.  Becki Donatelli (7/7/09), Chairman of Campaign Solutions, founder of NextDoorSearch.com and NextDoorPolitics.com, talked with us about how she is bringing national campaign and fundraising success closer to the community level. Last week, we talked with Dr. Peter Levy (7/14/09) about lending his professional stature to the support of individuals and families, encouraging them to value care with a focus on the whole body system, instead of just the parts.

Today we bring systems thinking in the attention of media folks Linda Seger, a long time Hollywood script consultant,  and writer and published author,  Pamela Jaye Smith,  Both women can display significant resumes packed with worlds of creative writing and consulting and end up taking this discussion far beyond the media sector.

Similar to systems thinking is what our guests call “web thinking” (not the internet web, visualize spider webs). It's the idea that interconnectedness and collaboration yields greater results, more often, than solo action. Just as the director of a movie (or mayor of a community) holds a vision and acts as the ultimate decision maker when necessary, by seeking out engagement from the leaders of the different departments (the "parts") he/she ultimately succeeds in improving "the whole." Leaders don’t have to be hierarchical to be effective and yet very often, leaders, for their own myriad reasons “go it alone.” Linda and Pamela discuss the application of web thinking in the professional entertainment industry today, but also go deeper into the stories and myths that inform creative minds and how that affects the innovations they create.
Join us for a rich and tantalizing peek at the worlds of two women who play well in the Hollywood scene, but most often prefer to rely on the web of relationships they have built for success in luck, love, life and learning!

Join us!  It often tough to get such diverse, yet articulate and fun writers together for a ride.

Next week on Birth2Work Radio: for the final episode in the Birth2Work Radio series on Systems Thinking. This week, the hosts address Systems Thinking  in the government sector - or rather, the difficulty of applying and lack of systems thinking in the government -  with Dr. Linnea B. McCord, Associate Professor of Business Law at the Graziadio School of Business and Management of Pepperdine University.  The U.S. is the longest running, self-organizing republic in world history because our forefathers thoughtfully conceived of systems and rules of governance that have given us sufficient trust to hold together under the most difficult circumstances.  Dr. McCord discusses the 10 principles she has identified that have made our country successful from its outset and must be restored if we, as Americans, are to continue to enjoy our freedoms and overcome the reactive patterns of our governance of late. Please join us.

Special Note: In order of the celebration of the Moon Landing, Rick and I sat down and gave our musings about that historic event while in Alpine, Texas where the first astronauts tested the first lunar lander. 

Enjoy our commentary in a specially recorded program just for the moon landing.  It has never lost its luster as the most sophisticated, systems thinking project ever conceived and carried about by human kind.  (LINK HERE) to hear it now!!