From Linear Transformation to 4D System Looping

Organisations continue to invest heavily in project-based linear transformation programs largely based on mechanistic and psychological, rather than systemic change assumptions. These are clearly not a fit for the complex adaptive challenges we face; we need a new set of practices for organisational systems to be recalibrating themselves in continuous adaption. So why are leaders still relying so heavily on Transformation Programs? Leaders tend to solve the problems they think they have or the ones they know how to solve. Role theory would say that individuals don’t take up roles, often because they don’t know how. This may be compounded by consultants offering the same solutions in a reinforcing loop. It may be that many of the systems practices and methods on offer are still mechanistic and complicated, and perhaps inaccessible, cumbersome and difficult to apply - often more a fit for complicated challenges rather than complex adaptive ones.  Over the last 30 years through experimentation and research in practice, I’ve developed the 4D Adaptive System Loop™.  It is a framework, set of principles, practices and rituals which draws on complex systems thinking, second-order cybernetics and ecological principles. It provides a more organic scaffold which organisations can apply with more ease to observe and shift the patterns they have come to be in without simplifying or reducing the complexity. It offers the enabling constraints for deliberate adaption and the containment for self-organisation.   In this talk I describe how 4D Adaptive System Looping works, how it’s been applied in a few case studies and what it offers for leaders and practitioners for navigating the current context.