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Yes, So Easy it is to Observe
Russell ("Russ") Ackoff was a guest of honor at our 2005 Forum and returned in 2006 to deliver both a Pre-Conference session (Creativity and What Can Be Done About It) and a Weekend Conference keynote (The Biggest Mistake Managers Make). We are very fortunate to have recordings of both in our video archive, eventually to be made available through Vimeo's "On Demand" (pay per view) system. Fourteen years earlier, Clare Crawford-Mason, author and co-founder of CC-M Productions, arranged a meeting with Russ and W. Edwards Deming, for which she produced a video, "A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers" (volume 21 of The Deming Video Library, a collaborative effort with Dr. Deming). While the video runs for 30 minutes, Clare filmed far longer, with the master tapes now in the Deming Archives in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. A 90-page transcript of this session is available at this link.
In this transcript (page 3) and video, Russ suggested that "The characteristic way of management that we have taught in the Western World is to take a complex system, divide it into parts, and then try to manage each part as well as possible. And, if that's done, the system as a whole will behave well and that's absolutely false." What is missing, explains Russ, is the parts "wouldn't fit," to which Dr. Deming added, "They would not work together." Russ followed with,"Good. So it's the working together that's the main contribution to systemic thinking, as opposed to working in parts separately." Dr. Deming followed with, "Yes, so easy it is to observe, to see, to understand, and yet people do not know about it."
If you are interested in "knowing (more) about it," while exploring and dissolving unseen forces that stand in the way of leadership and teamwork in industry, government, and education, through thinking together about thinking, we invite you to join with peers at the In2:InThinking Network's 2015 Forum in Los Angeles, California, from June 10th through 14th, on the campus of Woodbury University. This year, our ever timely focus will be;
"Break the Mold: Aspire, Inspire, Achieve"
For more information, visit our 2015 Forum website or e-mail us at registrar@in2in.org. Our Forum registration fee is $400 for our Weekend Conference, with a $50 discount for registrations received by midnight, Pacific Time, on April 29th. We also offer a $200 registration fee for full-time students.
If you are not able to attend our Weekend Conference, you are most welcome to attend any of our 17 Pre-Conference sessions, all free, with the exception of a $40 material fee for session N, What We're Learning About the Brain and a $15 fee for session O, Self-Organizing the "Change Agent." Webcasting is also an option; find details at this link. A $25 discount on our webcasting offer is in place until April 29th.
Registration Deadlines
Register by Monday, May 18th to reserve our discounted room rates at the Hampton Inn
Register by Monday, June 8th to attend any of our Pre-Conference sessions
Register by Saturday, June 13th to attend our Weekend Conference
If you are not ready to register, but are likely to attend, please complete our RSVP Survey to help us with attendee estimates in our planning efforts.
For a glimpse of the excitement we offer, link here for a photo montage from our 2012 Forum. Link here for a complete list of our previous 2015 Forum UPDATES.
In2:InThinking Network 2015 Forum Team
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