Systems thinkers, organizational innovators, and localists Deborah Frieze and Margaret Wheatley, with the Berkana Institute, have developed a very helpful model for better understanding the complex process of systems change. Their model – among other things – thoughtfully attends to the gap between the obsolescence of dominant systems and emergence of new systems.
Many, if not most of the Western world’s big systems—education, healthcare, government, business, and yes… religious —are failing our communities. What if we stopped trying to fix them? The two loop model suggest that it’s not possible to change big systems—we can only abandon them and start over or offer hospice to what’s dying.
I included three helpful resources here. One is Deb Frieze TEDx talk in which she powerfully introducing the concept of “Two Loops.” The TEDx talk is followed by a “Two Loops” instructional video by the folks at Systems Innovation, and finally I’ve posted the co-author paper by Frieze and Wheatley that introduced the Two Loops theory.
Peace, dwight
