Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life (16pt Large Print Edition)

Business & Money

Oshry, Barry

Business Culture

ReadHowYouWant

When systems thinker Barry Oshry felt dismissed and disregarded by an organization that had meant so much to him, rather than simmer and sulk, he struck back with a remarkable weapon. He wrote a letter. It was a most unusual letter, a letter to a system in whole and in parts. It was addressed to specific individuals, to leaders and members, past and present, and, in its way, it was addressed to all of us who have ever suffered indignities at the hands of our organizations. In this anniversary edition, with a new introduction and additional information and analyses, Oshry continues to illuminate system life for all of us. The Systems Letter offers valuable insights for both the oppressors and the oppressed, and offers hope and inspiration to all those who feel diminished, dismissed, and disrespected by their organizations. “A warning about the Systems Letter: Once you start, you will not be able to put it down. You will be reading the work of an organizational anarchist who understands systems better than anyone… Oshry’s Letter is written to you and to me making it all the more personal and meaningful. And one final warning: On completion of your reading, to borrow a phrase from the Systems Letter, ‘the last traces of your innocence (regarding systems) will be gone’”. W. Warner Burke Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education Teachers College, Columbia University

The Systems Letter

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

Microscope

This book is about seeing systems. It is about overcoming system blindness. It is about seeing our part in the context of the whole in ways that enable us to avoid misunderstandings and to interact more productively across organizational lines (Act One). It is about seeing the present in the context of the past, such that we can get a more accurate picture of our current condition (Act One). It is about seeing ourselves in relationship with others and creating satisfying and productive partnerships in these relationships (Act TwoIt is about seeing our systems' processes in ways that enable us to create systems with extraordinary capacities for surviving and developing (Act Three). It is about seeing the uncertainties in our system conditions in ways that enable us to move past the destructive battles of righteous position versus righteous position (Act IV).

Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life (Easyread Large)

In three parts, management educator Barry Oshry explains the phenomena of systems and leadership as experienced through his innovative Power Lab, a total-immersion experience that shows how to exert leadership in the family, the community, organizations, and the nation. The Power Lab shows how and why we repeatedly fall into systemic relationship problems, and what it takes to break out of the pattern. Once people recognize that they are system creatures, they can begin to master system processes rather than fall victim to them.

Leading Systems: Lessons from the Power Lab

Management & Leadership

Berrett-Koehler Publishers

In this extensively revised and updated edition of his classic book, Barry Oshry shows how we can transform “system blindness” into “system sight,” enabling us to live and work together in productive partnership. Based on more than thirty years of research and packed with illustrative cases and solid systems theory on human interaction, Seeing Systems provides a penetrating look at the dynamics of systems and a unique foundation for revolutionizing our understanding of system life. This new edition features an extensive new section on having the wisdom and courage to face and work with the reality of uncertainty, and a new epilogue describing how Oshry is currently using theater, blogs, and podcasts to extend his multi-pronged revolution aimed at transforming system blindness into system sight.

Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life

Seeing Systems

Social Sciences

It's well known that human beings are allergic to change. This is nowhere more true than of human beings in organizations. Organization Development initiatives, Leadership Development programs, and Business Transformation plans all founder too often on our resistance and reluctance, on the tendency of people and things to slip back to how they were before. For a long time, Systems Thinkers in general (and Power+Systems pioneer Barry Oshry in particular) have understood that the problem lies with our failure to look at the surrounding organizational structures and dynamics, at the wider picture, at the context. Barry Oshry draws on a lifetime's experience to explain the nature of the problem with our organizational structures, and the ways in which we can dissolve the problem. This book is written in play-form: a simple briefing conversation between a recently hired team member and the Chief Contextual Thinker for a Business Consultancy firm. They discuss the change initiative they are running for a key client. The conversational format allows Oshry to introduce the relevant theory clearly and in sequence, while addressing questions and misunderstandings as they arise. The result is a guide to Systems Thinking for Organizations that's as short, clever, engaging, bright, and helpful as any business book you have ever picked up. This is a story with the potential to transform any organization and it is written for anyone interested in the workings and structures of human organizations: from Board Directors and Chief Executives, through Middle Managers to interested workers. *** "Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, 'Context, Context, Context' is unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, corporate, community, and academic library Systems Thinking, Organization Development, Sociology, and Business Management collections and supplemental studies reading lists." --The Midwest Book Review, Library Bookwatch, The Sociology Shelf, January 2018 [Subject: Systems Thinking, Organization Development, Sociology, Business]

Context, Context, Context: How Our Blindness to Context Cripples Even the Smartest Organizations

Triarchy Press Ltd

Barry Oshry has a lifetime's experience of working with social and organizational systems. Here he explains how we can understand - and avoid - the "catastrophes" that continue to occur when one culture meets another - when demagogues sell us messages of superiority or purity in the face of cultural difference. Algeria Armenia Bosnia Cambodia Congo Darfur East Timor The Holdomor The Holocaust Myanmar Palestine Rwanda... He explains how the two conventional solutions to encountering the "other" - Purity and Tolerance - both exact a terrible cost on the oppressed while diminishing the humanity of the oppressors. And he offers us a third possibility, one that requires a fundamental transformation in how we see and experience one another. This transformation requires us to understand that the interaction patterns we fall into shape the way we see and experience one another. Change the pattern of interaction and our experiences of one another will change... The possibility of "Power and Love," working together and tempering one another, will emerge.

Encounters with the Other: How we continue to misunderstand, dehumanize, scorn, humiliate, oppress--and even kill other humans. And how we can stop.

A proposal for the first 'accredited' OD paradigm In Part 1 of this compelling book, veteran researcher and practitioner Barry Oshry demonstrates beyond doubt that, despite the frequent references to paradigms and paradigm shifts in the management and organization literature, there are no scientific paradigms in this field as Thomas Kuhn defined them in his landmark essay.He then makes a clear and convincing case for the Organic Systems Framework (OSF) to be recognised as a legitimate candidate for paradigm status, one from which research that extends, elaborates, tests, and applies the framework follows naturally.Along the way he sets out clearly and succinctly his theories of:* Power and Love* Tops, Middles and Bottoms* How whole systems individuate, integrate, differentiate and homogenize...(so this is the shortest and clearest account, yet, of these established and well-researched theories.)Finally, Oshry outlines the many areas of further research that would inevitably emerge if his Organic Systems Framework were to achieve paradigm status.

The Organic Systems Framework: A New Paradigm for Understanding and Intervening in Organizational Life

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Oshry, Barry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Oshry, Barry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Oshry, Barry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life (16pt Large Print Edition)

The Systems Letter

Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life (Easyread Large)

Leading Systems: Lessons from the Power Lab

Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life

Seeing Systems

Seeing Systems

Context, Context, Context: How Our Blindness to Context Cripples Even the Smartest Organizations

Encounters with the Other: How we continue to misunderstand, dehumanize, scorn, humiliate, oppress--and even kill other humans. And how we can stop.

The Organic Systems Framework: A New Paradigm for Understanding and Intervening in Organizational Life