Human Current

Angie & Stacy ask: Where does wellness live? Is it in our minds, our health systems, or is it a complex system of shared responsibilities? In this episode we explore how the spread of information affects our health. How do you know when you've created a culture--and whose responsibility is it to create change? 

Public health policy scholar Michele Battle-Fisher reveals how systems thinking can bring new light to how disease, wellness and the effects of policy change spread through populations. From food deserts to "policy puffins", we learn some new things about the very real impact of chaos in healthcare, why time scales matter in measuring system impact, and why we need systems thinking education for tomorrow's policy-makers. 

Ever had trouble coming up with a single "right" answer? You're not alone. "Though we may be across the world, we breathe the same air," says public health policy scholar Michele Battle-Fisher. In this episode, interview guests and systems thinkers from our audience tell their stories of thinking outside the textbook, eureka moments, and the radical learning experiences that brought them into the systems thinking community. 

Stacy & Angie explore different perspectives on learning, and ask their mentor (and listeners), "What has been your most radical educational experience?" 

Peter Senge referred to "systems citizenship" as the leadership mandate for this millennium. So how can we all be better systems citizens?

In this episode we ask real systems citizens (practitioners and educators) at Royal Roads University in Canada how studying complexity helps them understand the world and solve real world problems.

What is complexity's "definable, deliverable gift to the world? How can we use it to influence and make impact, and even grow ourselves as people? 

Complexity shouldn't make people anxious--in fact it should make life simpler. With all this talk of emergence and working with uncertainty, it seems like there's an element of "trust the process" at work in putting complex systems theory to work in the workplace. What does that look like? In this casual conversation, Stacy & Angie ask, what does it mean to trust the process? How do you structure your attitude, mental models and workplace for emergence? How can an understanding of life as networks, and an awareness of our own value systems & mental models bring us a sense of personal mastery?

"Our personal relationship with uncertainty is fundamental to being human, yet over the last 30 years we’ve begun outsourcing it to other people. You have a relationship to those big questions."

Climate change, inequality, the rising cost of college tuition... all complex problems, but not complicated. Out of touch with the rhythms and interdependencies of our natural environment, we look to statistics and experts to help us make major decisions. Are we missing something?

In Part 2 of our interview with Diego Espinosa, we learn from a former money manager about how our addiction to certainty over the last three decades has created a whole industry of specialists who make money using statistics to sell the promise of certainty and security--and it's making us more vulnerable.

What happens when we stop listening to the certainty merchants? Can we leverage our strongest social bonds to regain resilience in an uncertain universe? What can the complex patterns of the natural world teach us about ourselves?

"Most of us are unaware of how our actions lead to self-organizing behavior." In this episode we talk with Diego Espinosa, founder of the complexity based Sistema Research, about the way information travels in ant colonies, financial meltdowns, and human social networks--and the things these complex systems all have in common: feedback loops. In a complex world where we are bombarded with false signals about certainty, how can we regain resilience?

The HumanCurrent podcast is hosted by Angie Cross & Stacy Hale. Subscribe in iTunes or listen at www.human-current.com.

Stacy & Angie imagine the workplace as a complex living system, muse on how information travels through networks, and get meta about culture and change.

Cover artwork for this week's episode: "Faberge Fractal" by Tom Beddard, sub.blue, @subblue