the human experience of agreements
We chose the name for the Institute for Strategic Clarity (ISC) to reflect the integration of our dual interest in strategy and clarity. Strategy focuses on what is important and how to achieve it. Clarity focuses on understanding. Strategic clarity, then, focuses on understanding what is important and how to achieve it.
This integration blends the fields of economics, business, and politics with the fields of psychology, sociology, and ethics. The field that embraces this integration is called ecosynomics. Since 1993, ISC has developed a set of practical, ecosynomic frameworks for describing the human experience of systems of human agreements - how to map them and how to shift them. This mapping is called pactoecography, for agreements field mapping.
The practical, ecosynomic frameworks developed at ISC, and field tested in dozens of countries, include:
The term ecosynomics means the principles of collaboration. Ecosynomics provides a theoretical framework for understanding how people relate to the experience of human interactions. Agreements Evidence Mapping is a framework for mapping that experience, and seeing how to shift it
|
ISC developed the agreements field equations to describe mathematically the experience of distinct, interrelated dimensions of the agreements field. The agreements field has to exist, as a unity, because it is one phenomenon, one experience, perceived from different angles or dimensions. The agreements field is the coherence of the capacity to tangibilize the potential energy in a system. Coherence is when the energy fields are reflecting the same agreements field, the same multi-dimensional field
The agreements field has a specific geometry, which can be expressed with a set of agreements field equations. The agreements field geometry works for any system, any set of relationships amongst parts that people agree to with each other. A set of interrelated parts is the definition of a system or a network. The intention of a geometric understanding of the agreements field is to demystify the perceived arbitrariness and embeddedness of agreements we unconsciously accept for everyone everywhere everyday. The agreements field equations are a geometric synthesis of the set of geometries in the agreements fields in which Homo lumens interacts, reflecting the ecologies of consciousness and nature
The inspiration for the Agreements Field Equations comes from Einstein’s field equations, which use tensors and scalars to integrate and synthesize multiple equations into one field equation. The Agreements Field Equations describe the fundamental coherence of (wellbeing generated by) an agreements field within a specific set of relationships. The field equations are predictive of:
- possible and most probable agreements fields (states), and
- how to transform to another coherent state (dynamics)
How does seeing the agreements field help? Seeing only a behavior, one can only predict either more of the same behavior as the current behavior or a trend of the past and present projected into the future. One assumes, usually implicitly, that the underlying geometry remains constant. Seeing the underlying geometry provides the multi-dimensional context for the behavior. From a geometric view, they are not discontinuities in development, rather shifts in the geometry and conditions
To see and engage the potential energy available around and within us and our relationships, we look internally and externally, to our internal experience and awareness and to our external structures of agreements. The agreements field equations describe these internal and external geometries and how they relate to each other. The external geometries describe the structures and potential energy available to tangibilize impact, and the internal geometries describe the capacity to transform the potential energy into kinetic energy within the external structure. The internal geometries describe the capacity to see the potential energy that is presenced through cohosting, to trust that the energy exists through experience, and to harmonize the engaged energy through the agreements structure
For more on the Agreements Field equations, start with this white paper
In thousands of conversations and over 4,000 survey responses from 125 countries, people consistently describe their experience of great and awful groups with some form of the vibrancy they experience in groups with greater or lesser levels of harmony
|
While many groups declare their capacity to achieve large-systems change through systems understanding in collaborative networks, our field research shows that:
- people mean many different things by these three terms, and
- people have very different capacities to engage these three elements of large-systems change
ISC has developed and tested a diagnostic framework and process for rapidly assessing the degree of a group’s Systems understanding, Collaborative capacity, And Network readiness--a Strategic SCAN
The Strategic SCAN provides a verifiable diagnostic to:
|
Explore the Strategic SCAN with these white papers on System understanding, Collaborative capacity and Network readiness
To lead with clarity, you need to know where you want to go and have some sense of how to get there. In today’s reality, this understanding brings in the complexity of a system of multiple internal and external stakeholders that influences your group, each with their own intentions and outcomes, interacting with each other over time
|
Start your exploration of Strategic Systems Mapping with this article or this book
[…] actions in improving your organizational vibrancy. This study is part of Dr. Ritchie-Dunham’s ongoing research, and is being offered at no cost to you, your organization, or participants in your […]
[…] met Jim Ritchie-Dunham and learned about Harmonic Vibrancy research when a highly regarded colleague, Terri O’Fallon, asked me to participate in a study. Terri is […]
[…] met Jim Ritchie-Dunham and learned about Harmonic Vibrancy research when a highly regarded colleague, Terri O’Fallon, asked me to participate in a study that […]
[…] what can be observed.”[1] Cartographers have provided theory-based maps for each level. Ecosynomics shows how the maps of these three levels fit together. At the 50-ft level, we can use […]
[…] While they are not all high-vibrancy groups, they all present interesting insights from an Ecosynomic […]
[…] October 16-18, 2014, the ecosynomic research and framework will be explored in the Ghanaian context at the Ghanaian Panel on Economic Development in […]