The purpose of my current work is to help us all improve how we learn together – to join-up our thinking to get the outcomes we each desire.
It is about engineering joined-up thinking or engineering synergy.
By engineering I mean creating desired outcomes – ingenious problem solving – that includes not just traditional engineering but all forms of practical decision making from medicine, economics to politics. I interpret engineering not as something-to-do-with engines (though it can be that) but as being inventive, resourceful and aesthetic. The word engineer stems from the Latin ingeniator meaning someone who is ingenious. To engineer is to solve problems as only we humans can, mindful of our delight in our creativity. In that sense we are all engineers.By synergy I mean working together – achieving more than we can on our own. Creating emergent properties where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
I have developed some axioms for systems thinking which I set out in one of my blogs. They address impelling purpose, appropriate layers, complex interdependency, ubiquity of change and evolutionary learning. Also I have seven principles of fitness for purpose, duty of care, integration, sufficiency of structure and content, control and evidence.
I welcome all thoughtful comments and constructive criticisms.