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I enjoyed this, it captures the tension between who we are as an individual, our values and aspirations, and how we end up acting do to the need to conform and be accepted in the external ecosystems we depend upon. This tension should be explored and talked about in organisational contexts, but asides from the conversations I initiate with the teams of Software Engineers I work with (smart people who are interested in the dynamics or real life systems) I rarely see it being addressed.

As Deming observed, 90% to 95% of the performance of an individual is attributable to the system, yet we still put all our focus (praise and blame) on the individual, often ignoring all of the relational aspects.

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Mar 25, 2023Liked by Colin Newlyn

I was going to mention Deming as well! I stumbled across his work by reading this blog https://chrisgagne.com/1255/mary-poppendiecks-the-tyranny-of-the-plan/ - it’s no understatement to say that reading about how they built the Empire State Building and the concept of working within constraints has completely altered my adult thinking - and my thinking about work and workplaces.

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Thanks, John. It's not just in work that we have seen the focus switched (deliberately, in my view) to the individual. If it's all down to the individual then those at the top are absolved of responsibility. We see this in the 'personal responsibilty' mantra of the neoliberal politicians (a deliberate punch-back against the 'system is to blame' argument I mention at the beginning) and the victim-blaming that is prevalent in our society today. In work, it's the infleunce of the individual psychology movement that pushes aside both the relationship aspects and the system view that are actually far more important. Deming was rejected in his homeland and had to go to a different country and different culture to find acceptance (and reverence) of his thinking.

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Love this Colin! I may have also had some 'career limiting' moments when my mask slipped too.

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Sometimes it was a 'Oh, did I say that out loud?" moment, and sometimes it was just an eye-roll that they weren't supposed to notice, or an involuntary sigh of exasperation ...

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The song headlines get better and better Colin 👍

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I second that emotion 😉

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😑this just made me *sigh*

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Mar 25, 2023Liked by Colin Newlyn

Great to read this Colin - I am newly interested in systems too. There’s a lot to see when we notice systems. It’s a bit of work to get people to recognise them, believe they are exerting a force etc. So many people have been conditioned to take all the blame or foist all the blame on others.

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We can't really understand ourselves unless we understand the systems we are operating in. We don't find it challenging to acknowledge that we operate within a family system and this has been a foundation of family therapy but we are oblivious to the many other systems we are in, how they impact us and our ability to affect them.

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