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TB872: What I talk about when I talk about juggling

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Note: this is a post reflecting on one of the modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. You can see all of the related posts in this category.

A juggler juggling four solid-coloured, slightly squishy balls against a blurred background. The balls are vibrant and distinct, coloured red, yellow, green, and blue, and are the focal point in the centre of the image, which is in a 16:9 aspect ratio. The juggler's movement is suggested by the position of the hands, but the juggler's body and the background are artistically out of focus to draw attention to the balls in motion.

I’m new to the juggler isophor which is introduced in Systems Practice: How to Act. While I attempted to apply it to the work of Donella Meadows in a recent post, I haven’t discussed in much detail how each of the BECM balls ‘manifest’ in different areas of my life. Hence this post.

As a reminder, an isophor is different to a metaphor:

  • Metaphors — help us understand one thing by comparing it to something quite different (e.g. “politics is war”). Involve the use of imagination to think about things in a new way.
  • Isophors — compare two things that are similar in how they relate or work, but are in different areas. Focus our attention on understanding the patterns and relationships involved.

The four balls are:

  • Being (B-ball): concerns the practitioner’s self-awareness and ethics. Involves understanding one’s background, experiences, and prejudices (so awareness of self in relation to the task and context is crucial).
  • Engaging (E-ball): concerns engaging with real-world situations. Involves the practitioner’s choices in orientation and approach, affecting how the situation is experienced.
  • Context (C-ball): concerns how systems practitioners contextualise specific approaches in real-world situations. Involves understanding the relationship between a systems approach and its application, going beyond merely choosing a method.
  • Managing (M-ball): concerns the overall performance of juggling and effecting desired change. Involves co-managing oneself and the situation, adapting over time to changes in the situation, approach, and the practitioner’s own development.

Although I’m hoping that my understanding of the juggler isophor deepens dramatically before I start the assessment for this module, the following is based on where I stand at the moment. It’s not the most intuitive way of thinking about things for me, but until I come up with a better isophor, it will have to do.

🔴 Being (B-ball)

The B-ball feels foundational to me, and it seems as if Ison describes it as such. In a video in the course materials, for example, he stands next to a juggler showing how they have their feet planted on the floor, and have a stance which helps them with their practice of juggling.

Similarly, we take a ‘stance’ when it comes to juggling systems. We have a tradition of practice which informs and shapes the way we interact with others and with our environment. For me, some of this includes a strong ethical stance around everything from uses of technology to the problem I have with eating animals. There are some things I cannot help, or rather I have to be aware of as I interact, namely that I am a privileged white male who was born and raised in a post-colonial western nation.

There are other things at play here relating to personality and upbringing. For example, I am aware that I tend to appear more confident and care less about what others think about me than the general population. I tend to say what I think and ‘wear my heart on my sleeve’. Some, including me, might put that down to poor emotional control. These are all factors to take into account when interacting with systems that contain other humans, who also both live in language and who will naturally respond to situations with a degree of emotion.

Finally, my tradition of practice and ‘default approach’ also comes from a rational and reflective tradition within the Humanities, notably Philosophy, History, and the study of Education. I am more likely to be drawn towards explanations that ‘make sense of the phenomena’ from a more judgemental, rationalistic lens, rather than an intuitive one.

🟢 Engaging (E-ball)

If the B-ball is about a stance, then the E-ball is about a choice of orientation that a STiP practitioner takes towards the world. For example, to continue what I mentioned above, it’s possible to engage with a particular situation with more or less emotion, or to conceptualise something as simple or complex. Doing so is a choice.

A quotation that often comes to mind, and which I say to those around me on occasion is a version of this:

Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.

Baltasar Gracián

In other words, we can choose how to frame a situation. From a systems thinking point of view, this involves thinking carefully what words we use, or in fact what we name, as these can lead to situations (or parts of situations) becoming reified. For example, as Ison has pointed out, even talking about a situation as a ‘problem’ (versus a ‘mess’ or ‘of interest’) can change the way we engage with it.

This has the potential to take me down a rabbit hole, but thankfully I wrote a post recently for the WAO blog on the strategic uses of ambiguity which I can point readers towards. In my own life, I think about issues raised by the E-ball a lot, especially since I went through therapy. The CBT process helped me step back from my everyday life and think about what I’m doing; in fact, looking back it was a proto- and meta-version of what I do when I do what I do.

🟡 Context (C-ball)

The C-ball involves, but goes beyond, choosing a method to apply to a situation. As I’ve said in a couple of other blog posts, if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. Having a wider range of (reflexive) tools and approaches makes for more choices and a more nuanced approach.

A phrase that changed my life when I first learned and applied it was “good enough for now; safe enough to try”. This comes from Sociocracy and, in particular, a series of transformative workshops I attended from Outlandish. It fits perfectly with my Pragmatic approach to the world which is built upon provisionality, which in turn helped overcome my tendency towards perfectionism.

By saying that something is “good enough for now; safe enough to try” you are providing momentum within guard rails provided by an ethical framework. I hope that the relation to the C-ball is obvious: there are many ways of approaching a given situation, and the intention is to create advantageous changes in a system which are “systematically desirable, culturally feasible and ethically defensible” (Ison, 2017, p.155)

There is a temptation when finding something that ‘works’ with one client and in one particular situation to try and replicate that success elsewhere. But every context is different and therefore requires the contextualisation of “a diverse array of systems concepts and methods” (ibid.). One rather prosaic example of this is the tolerance or appetite that different people and organisations have to theory. Some geek out on it, some really do want you just to get on with the practical side of things. So I would suggest there is a nuanced communication element to the contextualisation represented by the C-ball.

🔵 Managing (M-ball)

If the B-ball describes the relationship between the practitioner and their tradition of understanding, the E-ball the relationship between the practitioner and the situation, the C-ball the relationship between the practitioner and the methods in their toolbox, then the M-ball describes the relationship between the practitioner and their STiP performance. It wouldn’t be ridiculous to describe it as more of a dance.

As far as I understand it, this ball involves an ‘in-play’ metacognitive approach which allows the practitioner to reflect on what they’re doing while they’re doing it. For example, when I work on projects there is usually a ‘goal’ to work towards. But if we take the long view, projects are often nested and/or lead to new projects. The idea is less to encourage “goal-directed practice” and more to foreground “practices that foster innovation and change through managing for emergence and self-organisation” (ibid. p.189).

I’m reminded of the early differentiation in this module between systematic and systemic thinking, which I outlined in my very first reflections:

  • Systemic thinking is an approach that considers the complex interactions within a whole system. It recognises that changing one part of a system can affect other parts and the system as a whole, often in ways that are not immediately apparent. This kind of thinking is holistic and focuses on patterns, relationships, and the dynamics of systems.
  • Systematic thinking, on the other hand, is a methodical and structured approach to problem-solving. It involves following a step-by-step process or a set of procedures to arrive at a solution. It’s more linear and analytical, focusing on order, sequences, and detailed analysis.

When we juggle the M-ball the idea is that we keep on juggling. As a STiP practitioner, the goal is to not drop the balls. Emergence happens not because of a logical step-by-step, pre-ordained march towards a future imagined state. Instead, it comes via purposeful action, intervening systems using an approach which (to use a phrase from William James) is “good in the way of belief”.

References

  • Ison, R. (2017). Systems practice: how to act. London: Springer. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7351-9.

Image: DALL-E 3 (try as I might, it wouldn’t get the fingers exactly right!)

TB872: Adding the juggler isophor to the PFMS heuristic

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Note: this is a post reflecting on one of the modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. You can see all of the related posts in this category.

The image illustrates the PFMS heuristic where a practitioner (P) is engaging in a systemic inquiry within a situation (S). The practitioner is considering various frameworks (F) and methods (M) in an iterative cycle. F and M are represented as systemic enquiries where a practitioner is juggling balls labelled B, E, C, and M which relate to the juggler isophor.
Image taken from TB872 course materials

This course is accretive in that it builds up student knowledge and understanding, particularly through the use of concepts as they relate to diagrams. In an early post for this module, I introduced the PFMS heuristic. This post adds into the mix the isophor of the juggler.

Placing myself in the position of the practitioner in the above image, I can see how the juggler isophor fits into the PFMS setting: I am not merely an observer but an active participant. I bring with me a history of systems thinking in practice (STiP) as well as the experiences of juggling various aspects of my personal, professional, and academic life.

In this example wehre the practice situation S is my own practice of STiP, I’m engaging with a nested set of frameworks (F) and methods (M). This nested nature reflects the complexity of systems thinking, where ideas are interconnected and inform one another. The first layer of the framework is the domain of Systems itself, as interpreted through the various lineages and the readings incorporated in the course material. This forms a theoretical backdrop against which my inquiry is conducted.

The second layer comprises systemic inquiry, where the juggler isophor serves both as a framework and a method. This duality recognizes the isophor as a conceptual tool informed by second-order systems praxis theory and metaphor theory. These theories are not just academic constructs but are actively developed and applied by practitioners in order to make sense of and navigate our practice.

As we juggle, we’re not manipulating physical objects but relational dynamics over time. This includes me as a practitioner (P), as well as the frameworks (F), methods (M), and situation (S) over time. The performance of juggling in this context is not just about maintaining balance and motion but also about understanding, analysing, intervening, modelling, changing, and interpreting the situation at hand. It’s about how these elements are perceived and assessed by myself as a reflective and reflexive practitioner— somebody who is not just thinking but also evaluating the effectiveness and impact of actions within the practice.

The juggler isophor reminds us that systems thinking is a dynamic and ongoing practice, where the practitioner is continuously engaged with the elements of PFMS; we adapt, learn, and evolve in response to the situation of concern. In doing so we’re trying to achieve an ‘ideal type’, as mentioned towards the end of a recent post. To reiterate: “an ideal type is not a Platonic form, but rather something which is more akin to the Pragmatic idea that something is ‘good in the way of belief’. That is to say that it’s an approach to situations which lead to good outcomes, rather than being a template for all outcomes.”

TB872: The juggler isophor for systems practice

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Note: this is a post reflecting on one of the modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. You can see all of the related posts in this category.

A person in the centre of the frame against a blurred background, juggling four brightly coloured, slightly squishy balls in red (labelled 'B'), green ('E'), yellow ('C'), and blue ('M').

An ‘isophor’ is different to a metaphor. Coined by Humberto Maturana, the idea is that instead of sparking the imagination, it focuses our attention:

The notion of metaphor invites understanding something by proposing an evocative image of a different process in a different domain (e.g., politics as war). With the metaphor you liberate the imagination of the listener by inviting him or her to go to a different domain and follow his or her emotioning. When I proposed the notion of isophor… I wanted it to refer to a proposition that takes you to another case of the same kind (in terms of relational dynamics) in another domain. So, with an isophor you would not liberate the imagination of the listener but you would focus his or her attention on the configuration of processes or relations that you want to grasp. In these circumstances, the fact that a juggler puts his or her attention on the locality of the movement of one ball as he or she plays with them, knowing how to move at every instant in relation to all the other balls, shows that the whole matrix of relations and movements of the constellation of balls is accessible to him or her all the time. So, juggling is an isophor of the vision that one must have of the operational-relational matrix in which something occurs to be able to honestly claim that one understands it. That is, juggling is an isophor of the vision that one wants to have to claim that one understands, for example, a biological or a cultural happening (such as effective system practice)

Maturana, H. quoted in Ison, R. (2017) Systems practice: how to act. London: Springer. p.61. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7351-9.

So to summarise:

  • Metaphors — help us understand one thing by comparing it to something quite different (e.g. “politics is war”). Involve the use of imagination to think about things in a new way.
  • Isophors — compare two things that are similar in how they relate or work, but are in different areas. Focus our attention on understanding the patterns and relationships involved.

The example given in Chapter 4 of Ison’s book Systems Practice: How to Act is of a juggler who is juggling four balls:

The isophor of a juggler keeping the four balls in the air is a way to think about what I do when I try to be effective in my own practice. It matches with my experience: it takes concentration and skills to do it well. But all isophors, just like metaphors, conceal or obscure some features of experience, while calling other features to attention. The juggler isophor obscures that the four elements of effective practice are related. I cannot juggle them as if they were independent of each other. I can imagine them interacting with each other through gravitational attraction even when they are up in the air. Further, the juggler can juggle them differently, for example tossing the E ball with the left hand and the B ball with the right hand. These visualisations allow me to say that, in effective practice, the movements of the balls are not only interdependent but also dependent on my actions. Also, when juggling you really only touch one ball at a time, give it a suitable trajectory so that you will be able to return to it while you touch another ball. So it’s the way attention has to go among the various domains, a responsible moment of involvement that creates the conditions for continuance of practice.

Ison, R. ibid. p.60.

Those four balls, as illustrated in the image at the top of this post, are:

  • Being (B-ball): concerns the practitioner’s self-awareness and ethics. Involves understanding one’s background, experiences, and prejudices (so awareness of self in relation to the task and context is crucial).
  • Engaging (E-ball): concerns engaging with real-world situations. Involves the practitioner’s choices in orientation and approach, affecting how the situation is experienced.
  • Context (C-ball): concerns how systems practitioners contextualise specific approaches in real-world situations. Involves understanding the relationship between a systems approach and its application, going beyond merely choosing a method.
  • Managing (M-ball): concerns the overall performance of juggling and effecting desired change. Involves co-managing oneself and the situation, adapting over time to changes in the situation, approach, and the practitioner’s own development.

Thinking about the isophor of juggling in relation to my own life and practice is quite illuminating. It’s certainly relevant to parenting, where everything always seems to be a trade-off, but as I promised to focus mainly on professional situations in my reflections for this module, I’ll instead relate this to my work through WAO.

🔴 Being (B-ball)

At our co-op, we believe in living our values and in approaches such as nonviolent communication. Some of this is captured on this wiki page. As an individual member of WAO, I need to understand why I act (and interact) in a particular way in different contexts. This relates to my colleagues, clients, and members of networks of which I’m part.

We also need to think about the way that we as an organisation interact with one another and with other individuals and organisations. We’re interested in responsible and sustainable approaches, so ethics are particularly important to us. (A good example of this is the recent Substack drama.)

🟢 Engaging (E-ball)

There is always a choice in terms of how to engage with a situation, and every client is different. There are plenty of individual consultants and agencies who take a templated, one-size-fits-none approach to situations. But while we learn from our experiences and previous projects, we try to engage based on the specific context.

Client environments can be complex, as there are all kind of pressures and interactions of which we are not always aware. For example, a CEO being under pressure from their board, or an employee being at risk of redundancy can massively change their behaviour. Having tried and failed to change something previously can lead to cynicism or malaise.

Equally, finding the right ‘leverage points’ within an organisation or network can be incredibly fruitful. Success tends to breed success (in terms of validation) and changes most people’s conceptualisation of the situation.

🟡 Context (C-ball)

A lot of ‘systems thinking’ approaches that I see on LinkedIn are simply people taking templates and trying to apply them to a particular situation. While this is part of systems thinking, contextualisation means deploying one or more of a range of techniques.

Some of this involves crafting approaches which resonate with the client’s culture and objectives. For example, there are ‘messy’ clients, ones that thrive in a slightly chaotic environment. They prize relationships over things looking shiny. Conversely, there are those where every slide deck must look polished and interactions are more formal.

What I remind myself (and others that I work with) is that when we’re working for a client, we’re often working for their boss. That is to say, unless we’re working directly with the person who signs off the budget, we need to produce things that fit with how the person holding the purse strings sees the organisation. That perception can change over time, but it can’t be done immediately. Sometimes there has to be an element of smoke-and-mirrors to give space to get the real work done under the guise of something else.

🔵 Managing (M-ball)

Situations change over time. Particularly when working with longer-term clients, it’s important to take a moment and ensure that the strategies we’re using mesh with current realities. For example, as Heraclitus famously said, we can’t step into the same river twice. The way that I understand this enigmatic quotation is that this is because the river has changed and we have changed.

This is why retrospectives and planning sessions are important. Simply allowing a project to float along without them means that the dynamics of the project aren’t being addressed from either our side or the client side. This can include everything from increasing our day rates due to the cost of living going up, to the client pivoting their strategy and neglecting to tell us.

Sometimes, this might mean bringing in different skills, approaches, or expertise to the project. After all, meaningful and sustainable change doesn’t happen simply by doing the same things on repeat. To bring it back to parenting, we don’t treat kids the same way as teenagers as they are as toddlers.

This isophor of the juggler underpins a lot of the rest of Ison’s book, and will inform the next assessment I do as part of this module. So you’ll be coming across it again in future posts!

Image: DALL-E 3

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