Introducing the Institute For Systems Intelligence (IFSI)
I have been quiet on here lately, as I turned my focus to building my start-up company: the Institute For Systems Intelligence, or IFSI to friends.
Through IFSI, my goal (and hope) is to create a space for a collective new perspective that is grounded in a better understanding of the workings of our world with all its intricacies.
I am a scientist at heart, and by training, and so everything I do starts as a hypothesis, and evolves through experimentation and observation. My working hypothesis is that:
We can all benefit if we make a habit of seeing the big picture, and being aware of how things around us are related, how they impact each other, how they impact us and how our actions impact them in return.
If we take that knowledge and collectively learn to leverage our different perspectives, skills and capabilities, we can make intelligent decisions about where to focus our efforts, how to live better, work better and create positive change.
This, for me is the essence of systems intelligence. It starts with the principles of systems thinking and integrates them into thinking habits, working processes and ways of connecting with others.
For a long time, I pondered how I can make that happen. I spent a lot of time writing and crossing off ideas, feeling frustrated, foolish, arrogant, fed up…I went through a whole range of emotions and concluded that I was being too ambitious, that I could not do it!
Let me re-write that… I cannot do it on my own!
I cannot do it on my own, but I sure can create a space, and build networks for it to emerge! A space to nurture collective intelligence, to bring different people and perspectives together, to build innovative collaborations, to make things happen.
I know I can do it because I have done it my entire life!
I first went to school at the age of five. It took a bit of negotiating from my parents to get me into school because the official age to start school in Algeria was 6. All the negotiations meant that I started about a month later than the other kids in my class.
On my third day at the school, my mum was a few minutes late coming to pick me up. She was running to the school, consumed by the guilt of being late. On her way there, she bumped into me, with other kids from my class. I had figured out who lived near my home and got them to walk home with me. From then on, and for the next six years, we formed a group and always walked home together (those were much safer times!).
Bringing people together has been a recurring theme in my life ever since, both on a personal and professional level. I organised trips, meet ups, created groups, book clubs, museum clubs, design thinking jams, directed projects, collaborations, designed partnerships, etc. etc. I’ve connected people to people, people with ideas, and ideas with ideas.
How can I channel that into a start-up?
Back to IFSI…
I have this mental image of building IFSI brick by brick, with each brick supporting the next one until a full building emerges.
My first brick was to encourage a foundational systems thinking mindset, and to take inspiration from those who use their systems intelligence to create more impact.
My next set of bricks was to create opportunities for people to meet and connect with others. So I created two types of free events. I wanted the events to feel relaxed and informal, and to create opportunities to expand one’s ways of thinking and collaborating (including my own).
Story Circle
Story Circle is a small group of individuals sharing stories — from their own experience or imagination — around a common theme. I did not invent the concept, but I tweaked it a little to fit with IFSI’s goals.
In Story Circle, everyone is invited to share what they want, any story that comes to mind. The only rule is that when you are not sharing a story, your only task is to listen. You do not need to add your opinion or critique the story, or fill the silence. You just gift your attention to the storyteller. You just listen. Your turn will come and they will return the favour.
The point of story circle is to slow down and practise careful listening, empathy and connection with others. Simple things that can easily be forgotten in today’s fast-paced world, and that can have a profound impact on how well different people can work together.
I ran a series of these: with complete strangers with diverse backgrounds, with friends and family, with teams from similar backgrounds, and groups with multiple perspectives on a common theme. I played with the focus, zooming in and out of the theme, listening, observing, learning and making connections.
I ended each session by asking : what did you learn from this Story Circle? The answers were as diverse as the participants. Someone likened it to a Salon (I had to look it up), while quite a few were surprised by how refreshing it was to just listen and not have to think of a smart reaction to someone’s point, and many enjoyed the simple act of storytelling. The nervousness and anxiety at the start of each session quickly dissipated as most (a few stayed silent the whole time) began to connect to others’ stories.
For me...a monumental change happened.
I had worked as a communications consultant for 12+ years. During all that time, I used stories as a way to communicate, persuade, change behaviour. a one-way street, from me (or my clients’ brands) to others.
But Story Circle helped me to see stories in a different light: as a way to connect people, create a common ground that paves the way for collaborative work.
One way of doing that is by using Story Circle as a way of ‘Downloading’ at the start of a workshop or project. ‘Downloading’ is the first, and shallowest mode of listening identified by Otto Scharmer and his team at the Presencing Institute.
At this level of listening, we look for information to confirm our beliefs, what we already know, and confirm that we know what we’re doing.
But I think it works in two ways: people ‘download’ their favourite thoughts and ideas as they speak, and others listen out for what confirms their views of the world and reject/ ignore the rest.
So I incorporate ‘Downloading’ time at the start of my workshops — a way to let people get those things off their chests and help them to feel listened to and valued.
I find this a better place to start than with facts or opinions.
There is, of course, a lot more to this in practice: the choice of the theme, the level of abstraction, etc. but the core idea is to start by creating some common ground and moving the conversation to deeper, more collaborative and more generative levels as the work continues.
Systemic stories
An evolution from Story Circle is a workshop that I offer as a service to teams working across different silos or functions. The workshop combines storytelling with classical systems stories -or archetypes- to develop a common understanding of the dynamics at play, and build strategies for better team cohesion, more efficient ways of working and better results. Systems archetypes are quite a big topic that I will try to write about in the near future. If this piques your curiosity, get in touch, I’ll tell you more.
The Collaboratory
A collaboratory is a space for joint exploration and experimentation around a certain theme, involving participants from multiple disciplines who may not usually work together. The aim is to leverage differences in knowledge, expertise and skills to develop a deeper and better understanding of the theme.
A collaboratory can serve as ‘sandbox’ for transdisciplinary collaboration. It offers the opportunity to test, and experiment with new partnerships and/or new ways of working at a small scale and in a safe learning environment.
My first collaboratory kicked off in July, around the theme of Health in Modern times (This post was updated 2 December 2024)
I convened an eclectic group of specialists working in multiple disciplines, including systems thinking, medicine, wellness, public health, food & agriculture, NGOs, expert patients, science, Ai and leadership.
We started by asking:
Where does health begin? Does it begin with you? Your environment? The food you eat? The people that surround you?
Who should be accountable for your health? You? The government? The medical establishment?
How about food producers, farmers, construction companies, industrial polluters, car companies? If their products/outputs impact our health, should they be part of the health ecosystem?
As we started our discussions, our differences in thinking, in conversing and in collaborating became evident. It has been a fascinating journey in which we not only learned about the topic of health from multiple angles, from experts and community-level projects, but also about how you can bring different minds to generate work that is rich, multi-layered and meaningful.
This particular Collaboratory will close on 11 December. I am still working my way through the massive amount of insights, stories and perspectives we gathered over the last few months.
It’s all still work in progress, one brick at a time. If you want to know more, stay tuned!
And if you want help setting up a Collaboratory with your teams, get in touch!
