HSD Simple Rules
HSD Simple Rules
What are the Simple Rules?
We agree with scientists who say that simple rules in natural systems lead to a healthy balance of consistency and creativity. In HSD, we use the notion of “simple rules” as mutual agreements that help create coherence in human systems. They exist in every human systems, sometimes in their implicit form. We call them “culture”.
“Simple rules” can be designed to help set conditions for optimal freedom for the individual and optimal coherence for the system as a whole.
How do Simple Rules inform HSD practice?
HSD Simple Rules create agreements that help coherent patterns of thought and action. As a global community, they help us move toward our goals with coherence and innovation. They inform how to design research and practice projects, work with clients and each other, evaluate the work, and connect with our communities
HSD Simple Rules help us shape the patterns that will bring our vision into reality.
Stand in Inquiry
Inquiry is the key to success in turbulent and uncertain times. That is why it is at the core of the theory and practice of human systems dynamics. You can put this belief into practice through simple practices to guide your interactions with the world and with each other.
Turn judgment into curiosity
Turn conflict into shared exploration
Turn defensiveness into self-reflection
Turn assumptions into questions
Connect with stories and impacts
We learn best in community. In our relationships of personal, organizational, and system development, we connect in inquiry and action. Our stories help reveal new patterns in new ways. Actions and their impacts help us assess and improve continually. When sharing stories and impacts, using Pattern Logic helps us see, understand, and influence the future of our world. We use what we know to contribute to adaptive capacity in the systems where we live, work, and play. In Adaptive Action experiments, this Simple Rule informs design, so that when they leave, experimenters can:
Use Pattern Logic and Adaptive Action to strengthen their communities and organizations
Share with others what they know about Pattern Logic and Adaptive Action
Search for the true & the useful
In these days of fake news and information overload, it is not always easy to find what is true. That makes the search even more important. When seeking the true and the useful, the work reflects the best principles of complexity science and the patterns of HSD. HSD work is action-oriented and relevant in a wide range of complex human systems. In each conversation or consultation, you find what is “fit for function,” to ensure that people find reliable and helpful answers to the challenges they face. In our Adaptive Action experiments, which become coaching and learning engagements, this Simple Rule informs design. Experimenters work together to ensure people apply and sustain their abilities to:
Examine data and evidence to determine its truth and relevance
Question the impact of their own and others’ assumptions
Explore broad applications of HSD ideas to create innovative responses to challenges
Find the energy in difference
Energy in complex systems is stored in differences. In physical systems, batteries, springs, and chemical barriers hold systemic energy. In human systems, difference is also key to potential change. Race, power, expertise, culture, wealth, perspectives, and innumerable other differences establish tension. Those tensions set conditions for human systems to adapt. When we are able to see, understand, and influence the differences in a human system, we increase our adaptive capacity to influence change and shape the future. This rule helps people:
Surface and resolve conflict
Respond to personal and systemic racism
Collaborate across boundaries
Lead innovative teams
Zoom in & zoom out
Complex systems depend on levels and layers of entangled relationships. Individuals experience personal complexity. Organizations, communities, and nations are driven by systemic complexity of people, policies, processes, and procedures. We know that what happens locally influences larger issues, and that larger issues shape local patterns. Zooming in, you can see the granularity of patterns that are local and personal. Zooming out, we encounter patterns of systemic significance. The simple, elegant, powerful tools of HSD prepare people to engage with all levels of systemic change, and help them to:
See, understand, and influence patterns locally to influence change elsewhere
Seek best fit between and among the parts of their systems
Use Simple Rules to ensure system-wide coherence
Give & get value for value
This rule establishes connections that are fluid to encourage flexibility of the pattern over time and adaptation for individuals and groups within the whole. Such a rule supports a sustainable system because resources (physical or metaphysical) are not accumulated unduly in any one part of the pattern. Individuals in their interactions are encouraged to both receive and distribute differences that are perceived as value and participate in coherent network-wide patterns.
Celebrate life!
These are challenging times in all parts of the world. Climate change, economic and political instability, expanding authoritarianism, natural disasters, and global pandemics create conditions for individual and collective grief and pain. In the midst of these painful patterns, individuals have the power to influence the world around them. They can support each other to transform turbulence and uncertainty into possibility for themselves and others. The goal is to continually improve our own practice and to help others:
Set conditions for groups and individuals to participate in their communities or organizations in meaningful ways
Set goals and establish simple rules that ensure engagement and coherent action toward powerful outcomes
Curious to learn more?
Discover how we use Simple Rules!
Attend to the whole, the part, and the greater whole.
One of th Simple Rules allowing HSD practitioners to engage with change patterns at multiple scales.