Systems thinking is essential for anyone who wants to keep things up and running, or needs to sustain complex organizations. Situations can become complex very quickly. ToP provides systems tools and mental models that allow complexity to remain, but holds them within frameworks that show the precise points where a small intervention can make a big difference.
ToP has some of the most powerful diagnostic and leveraged systems thinking tools available in the world today.
The Social Process Triangles are the most comprehensive human systems diagnostics that strips complex systems down to their most basic form, for easy understanding. It is used for understanding global, national, regional, local, neighbhourhood and family systems, and for the complex relationships internal to organizations.
The more people that are involved in the diagnostic the more comprehensive the results will be. This can be completed in a 3-6 hour setting, and the tool is best learned through its actual use.
Wave Trend Analysis empowers groups by analyzing trends in society that are supporting or hampering the group’s mission. It can also determine societal waves that a group can ride to further its own agenda, but might also expose the group’s own ethical dilemmas.
A wave trend analysis can be completed in three hours with a group of motivated individuals.
Model Building empowers a group by putting in their hands the tool for responding to their own situation or solving their own problems.
Tri-Polar Dynamics adequately describes the underlying motivations and most drivers of human behaviour. It is scalable from the individual level to the very large system level, including large organizations and small societies.
This mental model occasions instantaneous systems insight from some, but takes several hours for others.
Rebalancing Proceses turns the imbalances in complex social systems into a quantitative and visual analysis that empowers groups by showing where energy must be put.
The elegant model generates dialogue and powerful insight and makes it clear what it really going on in a social system behind all the facade.
Once understood, this tool is used quickly by small groups and takes more time for larger groups. Allow 3 hours for the analysis.
Meta Gestalt can take the results of many workshops and combine them into one, showing the overall consensus of all groups while keeping the uniqueness of each workshop.
ToP books on systems include The International Facilitator’s Companion by Jon Jenkins, Toward the Learning Organization by Ackley, Belden and Hyatt, Transformational Strategy by Bill Staples