Unplanned futures
Nynke July 9th, 2006
Our human ability to model “reality” seems amazing. And our thinking extensions seem to deliver way beyond expectations. Verrry reuseful for creating gestalts, be those collective or individual.
If the systems we wish to create are to be more fully human or woolly mammoth, we need to self-organize in more fully humane or woolly mammothy systems to cocreate those systems. Our metaphor could also be something like:
- Spinal column, bones, teeth, tusks, nails, anus, rectum, colon, prostate gland, blood, skills, abilities and space — together being capability for building cells (integrity skeleton)
- Pelvic girdle, kidneys, bladder, all liquids (blood, lymph, gastric juice, sperm), regulation (female) cycles (awakening)
- Lower back, abdomen, digestive system, stomach, liver, spleen, gallbladder, autonomic nervous system (richness)
- Heart, upper back, thorax and thoracic cavity, lower lungs, blood, circulatory system, skin, shaggy coats (appreciations)
- Neck, throat, jaw, ears, voice, trachea, bronchial system, upper lungs, esophagus, arms (expressing our selves)
- Face, eyes, ears, nose, trunk, sinuses, cerebellum, central nervous system (balancing act)
- Cerebrum ((w)holeness)
After millenia of (re)writing history we can retrospect on retrospectives and on events leading first to post mortems, and then to retrospectives.
Why did we abandon “post mortems” in IT worlds, only to replace those with “retrospectives”?
Because death related words made it hard to market post mortems while learning from mistakes was considered essential for growth, we determined to take Fear of Death into account:
“… Fear of death seems a more common fear in our contemporary times, than it appears to have been in the past. This may have to do with our succesful health care system and increased life span. Paradoxically, these successes seem to lul many people into a sleepy denial about whether Death is going to happen to them (too). Death only happens on TV and computer screens, and the actors or toon game figures get up after the scene was taken …”
And do I appreciate all involved (including my self) that gave their time, energy and not-knowing to effectively facilitate ourselves and others learning from mistakes for transformation and renewal of systems?
Yes! 
And I am not to forget I was as convinced of learning to move forward in balanced ways, as I am now of actually looking where I wish to move forward to. Could be quite healthy in a fast changing world and not knowing everything to begin with. I am not replacing retrospectives, I intend to explicitly add vision forming.
When causing a standing wave into the future,
we also cause a standing wave into the past …
… and vv
In retrospectives emphasis is on past,
in vision forming emphasis is on future.
It is not unthinkable that in some future, explicit vision forming strategies will no longer serve systems as they can now.
Healthy integrated more fully human systems need neither retrospectives nor vision forming as separate choreographies. These become implicit on-going dances. Integrating a diversity of points of view (observer positions) supports healthy systems to not overlook needs of self, life, or others.
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