Co-creating safer and fairer
communities and groups for more of us to live in

If like me you were concerned about political and social behaviours during the Covid pandemic, you may be even more shocked by the knife murder of three children by a 17-year old in Southport in 2024 and subsequent rioting.

The social disorder and riots at a subsequent wake demonstrated a lack of social cohesion. The national Police Crime Commissioner reported (July 2024) violence against women and girls is now a strategic national threat and called for "other agencies to contribute to wholesome change in society to make women and girls to feel safe and be safe".

Abhorrent behaviour within our liberal democracy is not solvable directly by government edict. Government can stimulate effective actions through its own agencies, such as the Department of Education and Home Office but only if this is based on new paradigms and uses systems thinking solutions.

We have to look at ourselves for action. 

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All of us, in our groups and communities, must be agents of change to integrate an understanding that rights and responsibilities are mutual. This should be a basis for a common set of ethics and as natural as breathing.

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About
About

About Me

I am a former senior lecturer at the Open University, having previously served as Wing Commander in the RAF. In 1957, I took part in the Christmas Island H-bomb trials. I also was navigator in the reconnaissance element of the V-Force and tested the navigation system chosen for Concorde. I was awarded a military MBE and became a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation in 1974. My last service appointment ending in 1978, was to the secretariat of the UK Chiefs of Staff Committee at the MoD.

At the OU, as contributor to the Systems Department, my research interest developed into a different navigation context – how might social systems find a safer and fairer pathway into a better future as their ‘landing zone’, and how could they view their future in a collective way? 

I approached this metaphor in different ways through authorship of books, book chapters, over 40 papers in conference proceedings and published articles in 10 different academic journals, including: Systems Research; Systems Practice; World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution; Constructivist Foundations; Journal of Business Chemistry; Educational Technology; Electronic Networking- Research, Applications and Policy; American Journal of Distance Education; Journal of the Dutch Systems Group; Journal of Navigation. I was a participant, group leader and academic convener at conversation events run by the International Federation of Systems Research (IFSR) and the International Systems Institute (ISI) from 1991 to 2014.

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My Book: Safeguarding Our Future

My most recent book is Safeguarding our Future – systems thinking framework for action post Covid-19. This collates my 30 years’ experience of IFSR and ISI style of conversations. In this book, I offer a practical framework of methodology for action at a small group or community level to draw on collective intelligence to improve resilience and enhance cohesion in face of threats.  

The conversation process enables a small group to envision a future with enhanced relationships and acceptance of mutual rights and responsibilities and then consciously work together to achieve a new vision of a desired ‘landing zone’.  As winds affect an aircraft it changes heading in flight. In the same way the group will need to consciously review, adapt its ‘landing zone’ and change direction as new technology and other impacting factors arise. 

The small group starting point is where lever points through elements of common values might be discoverable as basis for collaboration. This in turn can offer chance for cascade sideways and upwards into the larger systems we live in. Read a briefing note on the book which summarises its rationale and provides an outline of the methodology here.

Safeguarding Our Future Book

A CALL FOR ACTION...

Engaging in any co-creativity – such as playing in a band, group dancing, or acting in a play – produces emergence of a sense of joy of living.  The same feeling occurs with co-creating conversation, which encourages co-designing, co-leadership, co-working in a group and most importantly co-learning in all participants.

You find you share more values with others than you thought. It highlights the value of diversity in maximising the potential of collective intelligence of group members.  This will offset the depressing feeling that we are helpless to change anything.  

A next step is to encourage others to try the co-creating process – and for them to experience the emergence of joy. This cascade sideways and upwards could help reduce the rigid perspective of implacable larger systems, we live in. 

The model for action I present is based on what we have learnt to date about the value of a conversation process and what seems to work.  Given the breadth and variety of contexts, including groups in employment, we can only consider a framework of methodology but with markers for consideration by a particular group. Like any social study with the kernel of the approach of science it is crucial to trial its hypothesis in different contexts, consider adaptions, trial again and share results.

Please try it with a group you know – and help a craft practice become worthy of a label of a scientific approach – and improve life for more.

Book Reviews

Rating

When analyzed from a 30,000-foot perspective, “Safeguarding Our Future” by Gordon Dyer can be usefully divided into three main sections:

I. Chapters 1 through 6: The threat to humanity: COVID-19

II. Chapters 7 through 10: An exploration of many far-reaching philosophical issues such as the nature and history of human rights, the effects of the legacy of racism and slavery in the UK and the US, and the nature of political and social power.

III. Chapters 11 through 16: A path toward potential solutions to similar, future global threats through the adoption of systems thinking, taking the perspective of evolutionary learning, and engaging in intentional design conversation.

This book is deeply rooted in factual information about the social and health-related impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially with regard to their impact in the UK and the US.

The author makes a convincing argument that very significant shifts in outcomes of future global threats could result from a change in how we collectively engage in thinking, communicating, and problem-solving via-a-vis these threats. Massive global threats, such as COVID-19 and global climate change, require effective cooperation and collaboration on a massive scale. The climate of increasing political divisiveness has not positioned us, collectively, for effective action. Dialogue, design conversation and systems thinking just may be the way forward that we all need.

The author provides a useful and practical guide for systems' practitioners to implement these ideas, as well.

In future work by the author, it would be interesting to hear his thoughts on how individuals can affect the organization — or self-organization - of would-be stakeholder groups poised to engage in the kinds of design conversation he promotes. I'm referring to tactical, logistical ideas for getting these conversations started.

For example, are these conversations to happen strictly within existing social frameworks (e.g., schools, political meeting rooms, boardrooms, town hall meetings, etc.) or is there a need for them to extend beyond and across the boundaries of these pre-existing, individual local and national social systems? An exploration of these types of tactical matters would seem like the next logical step in effecting the real change that the author is calling for.

The potential change Dyer envisions represents a real chance for humanity to transcend areas where it is dangerously stuck in outdated means of thinking, acting, and decision-making for the greater good.

Read My Book Online

PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS RELATING TO RESEARCH AREA

My initial area of research, from 1991, was focussed on 'social systems design' - a sub-discipline initiated by Bela Banathy - see his "Designing Social Systems in a Changing World" Plenum, (1996). This research aims at how we might individually and collectively contribute to the design of a better future for mankind, rather than just let the future happen. This raised enormous questions relating to the role of education in developing within individuals the competence to engage in what Banathy considered to be a design process.

Initial researchers started to explore a set of broad questions which through a series of conversations :

  • What kind of society do we envisage for our grandchildren's grandchildren?
  • If we have a vision of such a society, what kind of education systems will engender the society we have envisioned?
  • If we have a vision of such a society and an education system to support it, what arrangements and processes for learning, student support, logistics and funding do we envision?
  • How do we implement such a system?

These questions are abstract and lack lever points at global and national levels. However, the underpinning concept of being proactive was compelling to me. So was the form of dialogue Banathy proposed, by which he suggested we co-design and co-create a new future. I was keen to find a practical context. 

My first contribution (2002), and accessible below, is a online learning module which extends Banathy’s ideas and relates action, not to major changes to education, but to the level of a small social unit, or as I put it to any small social enterprise or work team trying to find a better way forward.  Even at the level of a small group the most important thing is a new lexicon which excludes phrases like “That’s rubbish” to others’ proposals.  That is the style of politics and not the best way to co-creativity. Much better to explore why the proposer has offered that suggestion.

Based on some 30 years of experience of Banathy-style conversation, what makes them effective and how to avoid possible pitfalls, I have written:

Online Publications

An on-line learning module  focussed at the level of a social or work group,  which I call small social enterprise trying to find a better way forward.

Design Guides for Conversation

NB  These are available below and open in a separate window. They are also available via the archive on the IFSR website

Guide for Designing and Sustaining Conversation(V8 Dec 2016) - and an Addendum for Team leaders for the Guide (V6 Dec 2016)

Book Contributions

Evolution unfit for Purpose: a pathway toward  a better future,  (2018)

This also focusses on practical application at the level of small social systems or work groups. See:

"Am I using a Systems Approach?- a framework for response" in Systems Science: Addressing Global Issues, Edited by Stowell, F.A. et al, Plenum Press, New York, , July 1993

"Methodology: Guardian of the Realm of Systems Science or a Straitjacket?" in Cybernetics and Systems Science , Edited by Trappl,R , World Scientific Press, April 1994

"Life-long Learning OK! but to what future learning agenda?" in Systems for Sustainability: People, Organisations and Ecnvironments, Edited by F.Stowell et.al., Plenum, New York , July 1997

"Systems Design for Education" (with Craft. A.,) in " Can You Teach Creativity, (with Craft A., Dugal J., Jeffrey B.,and Lyons T.) Education Now, Nottingham, October 1997

"Changing Roles and Processes in Online Tuition for Higher Education" in Usability Evaluation of Online Learning Programmes, Edited by C.Ghaoui, Idea group Publishing, PA (2003)

"Metaphor as trigger for Individual Emergence" in Systemica, (2008)

 "Rights and Responsibilities in Conversation Practice" in Dialogue as a Collective Means of Design Conversation (Volume II), Banathy B.H. and Jenlink P.J (Eds), Springer, New York, (2008)

Journal Articles

"Design and Implementation of an MBA Program in the United Kingdom". American Journal of Distance Education Vol 5 No.2 1991

"Empowerment and Reduction of Isolation of Housebound Disabled Students: A Computer Mediated Communication Project at the UK Open University". Electronic Networking: Research, Applications and Policy Vol l No 2 Winter 1991

"Am I Using a Systems Approach?" Systems Practice, Vol. 6, 4, August 1993

"The 1992 Asilomar Conversation: A Journey for Systems Travellers" (with Banathy,B.H., Pruzan,.P., and Horiuchi,Y.) Review of Administration and Informatics, Vol 6,No. 2. March 1994, University of Shizuoka, Japan.

"Design of a Conversation" (with Collen,A. et.al) Review of Administration and Informatics , Vol 7,No.1 January 1995, University of Shizuoka, Japan.

"Developing a Family Declaration of Interdependence: A Methodology for Systems Design within a Small Social Unit" Systems Research, Vol 12, No. 3. pp.201 -208 Wiley (September 1995)

"Communication Methods for Design of Conversations: Some Cultural Perspectives" (with Banathy, B.A. et al.) Review of Administration and Informatics, Vol. 8, No. 1. December 1995, University of Shizuoka.

"Enthalpy: A Metaphor for a Design Guide for Conversation", Educational Technology Vol. 36, No. 1 , Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA ( January-February 1996)

"Enthalpy: A Metaphor for the Chemistry of Conversation" Systems Research Vol 13,2 Wiley (June 1996)

"Formulating a Transnational Design Inquiring System using Japanese Cultural Values in a Japanese Setting" (with Horiuchi Y. et al) Review of Administration and Informatics, University of Shizuoka, Japan (March 97)

"Future life-long learning: a Provisional model for the Creation of Value" (with Horiuchi et al.) Review of Administration and Informatics, University of Shizuoka, Japan (November 98)

"The Y3K Problem: Evolutionary Guidance Towards the year 3000" (with Brahms S. et al.) in Social Systems and the Future, Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies,(November 2000 )

"The Y3K Problem: Building a Better World for the year 3000" (with Brahms S. et al.) Review of Administration and Informatics, University of Shizuoka, Japan (November 2000)

"It's a Small World Idea Book team: "2000 Asilomar Summary" (with Brahms S. et al.) Review of Administration and Informatics,  Vol 13,2 University of Shizuoka, Japan (March 2001)

"Towards a New Meta-systems Paradigm for Y3K" (with Hammond D. et al.) Review of Administration and Informatics, Vol 15,1 University of Shizuoka, Japan (November 2002)

"Triggering Individual Emergence:Inspiration of Banathy the Visionary" World Futures pp 365-378 Vol 58, Nos 5-6 (September-December 2002)

"Beyond Systems Design as we know it." Journal of European Union Systems Science  (Res-Systemica) ,  Vol 2 Special Issue (December 2002 ) [online]. Download here.

"Repositing Thinking for Future Social Systems Design: In Tribute to Bela H. Banathy and his Inspiration of the Fuschl Conversations" Systems Practice and Action Research Vol 17, No.4, August 2004"

"Metaphor as trigger for Individual Emergence" in Systemica Vol 14, Journal of the Dutch Systems Group (2007)

"Enthalpy Change: firing enthusiasm for learning" in Journal of Business Chemistry Vol. 4, Issue 3, University of Munster, Sept 2007

"The Banathy Conversation Methodology" (with Jones J, Rowland G, & Zweifel S.) (2015) in Constructivist Foundations 11(1): 42-50.

" Early Voices of Conscious Evolution: Insight and Inspiration from the Beginning of the Modern Era", World Futures, May 2024  [DOI.10.1080/02604027.20242343257]    Book Review

International Conference Proceedings

"Landscape Painting as a Metaphor for Systems Design: Analysis, Interpretation and Limitations", 38th Annual Conference of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, Asilomar, California, USA, June 1994.

"Exploring Interdependence in the Context of Social Systems Design" in Proceedings of the Seventh International Conversation on Comprehensive Design of Social Systems" (ed. Rowland, G), sponsored by the International Systems Institute, Asilomar, California November 1995

"Enhancing Systems Design Practice Through Creative Synergy" (with Collen, A et al) in Proceedings of the Eighth Fuschl Conversation, sponsored by the International Federation of Systems Research, Austria, April 1996

"Metaphorming for Systems Designers" (with Dyer, J et al) in Proceedings of the Ninth International Conversation on Comprehensive Design of Social Systems" " (ed. Rowland,G), sponsored by the International Systems Institute, Asilomar, California ,November 1997

"Towards Integrative Systems Engineering:A case study derived form the movement of people, goods and information" ( with Chroust G et al) in Proceedings of the IFSR Conversation 2010, Pernegg, Austria.

"Future Directions of the Banathy Conversation Methodology" (with Rowland G et al) in Proceedings of the IFSR Conversation ,Linz , Austria 2014.

"How do we identify transcultural metaphors?" Output reflection paper - in Proceedings of the IFSR Conversation ,Linz , Austria 2014  (available ibid)

"Social Evolution unfit for purpose: a pathway to a better future" - Annual Conference of UK OR Society - Dec 12 2019 Abstract in Proceedings

"Covid-19 lessons - proposals for creating a group’s future through the lens of Banathy’s evolutionary consciousness, Annual Conference of the UK OR Society Sep 16 (Paper 1)

"Post Covid-19 – Some markers for practical methodology through the viewpoint of Banathy’s conscious evolution ",Annual Conference of the UK OR Society Sep 16 (Paper 2)