Integrating Developmental & Systems Thinking into Coaching & Training
Systems Thinking
"Systems Thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes rather than parts, for seeing patterns of change rather than static snapshots, and for understanding the subtle interconnectedness that give living systems their unique character."
Personal growth and transformational change doesn't happen in a vacuum.
But oftentimes, personal development programs focus solely on the individual, while team trainings focus solely on the group.
Although it is essential to acknowledge individual and group experiences, I find that we can get stuck in our biases and limiting beliefs (or groupthink) when perspectives are not integrated into the broader context of the systems they operate in.
We cannot understand nor solve complex challenges without stepping back and taking a third person, or really, a systems perspective.
For example, what is better? A non-organic-certified tomato that is produced locally by a small producer in Canada, or an organically certified one produced by a conglomerate that is imported from California?
From an economic-value perspective, we could answer the cheapest one is the best, from a supply-chain perspective: the one with the longest shelf-life, from a carbon-foot-print environmental perspective, it would be the tomato that travelled the least, from a biodiversity-protection, the one that is not genetically modified, from an aesthetic perspective: the prettiest looking one, and from a gastronomic one, the tastiest..!
These different perspectives are all true and valid in their own way, but not one could claim to represent the whole truth on what makes one particular tomato greater than another. The role of systems thinking is therefore to develop a framework that can hold space and integrate all the valid perspectives, and provide a way to give to each the most appropriate proportion of consideration.
That is why I approach personal developmental and learning as a holistic process that requires both a deeper understanding of our unique personal experiences, as well as the systems we are a part of (family, educational, professional, cultural, social, economic, political etc).
My methodology uses notions from developmental psychology (Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Robert Kegan), as well as systems thinking and theories (Peter Senge, Ken Wilber).
I also chose to do my coaching training through Integral Coaching Canada, because of their emphasis on bringing a developmental and systems approach based on Ken Wilber's Integral Theory model.
If you are curious about the benefits of integrating a systems perspective into your life, whether through coaching or DEI learning, please feel free to reach out and have a conversation with me about how we could work together!