Leading Systems: Lessons from the Power Lab [Paperback]

As described in Seeing Systems, participants are born into the Power Lab as either members of the Elite (who own everything), the Immigrants (who own nothing), or the Middles (who own a little). There is a rich texturing of the simulation, provided in detail via a number of vignettes in the book, which help us get a sense of what life is like in these differing positions in the system. And, it turns out that life presents some daunting leadership challenges no matter where one is in the Power Lab.

Through the Power Lab, and his reflections on it, Oshry has accomplished what so many experiential educators long for: He has generalized from a set of macro insights from his observations regarding the particulars of specific events. I believe that he has achieved the ideals for laboratory education that the founders of organizational development as a discipline, such as Kurt Lewin, had hoped for. Therefore, Leading Systems (and its companion volume, Seeing Systems, also published by Berrett-Koehler) occupy a very special place in the field of experiential education theory and practice, quite equivalent to the product of authors such as Argyris and his school.

By using the Power Lab's imitation of life, Oshry offers some profound insights on the dynamics of power at the level of the world stage, and I would recommend these to anyone who wants the possibility of global peace to be anything other than lofty rhetoric. In a simple, but compelling way, he shows the reader how "systems make choices" that, then, affect the thoughts, feelings, and actions of everyone who is a member of the system. So, for example, Americans living in a system that chooses "individuation" are, predictably, going to misunderstand and criticize the Chinese, who live in a system which values "integration."

When the driving principles of systems differ, it is very easy, and human, for the members of contrasting systems to begin to express contempt for the other system in general and for the people who are "stupid, gutless, corrupt, etc..." enough to live in it. Combine mutual contempt with eqivalent access to armaments and a contest over scarce resources, and you've got a near perfect breeding ground for war.

There are a lot of big ideas in this little book, and that's a real relief from a variety of books with a completely opposite construction. In addition to the book's stimulus to the mind, there are many nice touches that make the book easy to use: the author's crisp and cartoon-like illustrations, the structured reflection exercises sprinkled liberally throughout the book, and, last but not least, his embrace of the "real", the "human".

Oshry wants us to look at ourselves unromatically. In a way which is somewhat akin to Gurdjieff, Oshry wants us to understand how completely bound up we are by the systems we live in and how doomed we are to live automatic, sonambulent lives, if we don't understand the forces that are shaping our experience. But, if we do understand them, we have the power to shape and change any system we care about and any structure which threatens us. Therefore, in perhaps his most important contribution, Oshry offers us an antidote to the oppressive and disheartening social diseases of cynicism, alienation and boredom.

There are some difficulties with a book which is so intimately involved with an event. One senses that the next best thing to being there is a pale rendering of the systems insights that are available to those who take the trip to the Power Lab itself. There are many nuances of intensity and understanding that come through in the book, but were not, to me, completely accessible for one who hadn't been there.

That said, the student of systems thinking will find much to profit from in this potent little tome.

For those of us who work with other human beings - though at times, who knows - Oshry's two books make the issues about living and working with those other people readable and useable. I shared my copy of "Seeing Systems" with a colleage professor friend of mine. After reading a few chapters he told me that there was "nothing new here". The very next day he called again and said that not only had he read the entire book, but he arose having actually remembered what he read, and saw lots of opportunities to use the ideas in his university peer relations and consulting practice.

"Leading Systems", like Oshry's earlier book, makes it easier to grasp what is so complicated in system life. The stories about the "Power Lab" are in the realm of archetypes for system thinkers. Rather than telling us just how to do it - do we really need another title about leadership tips from historical figures - Oshry paints pictures filled with the feelings, confusions and revelations that many of us can relate to.

If you are looking for some erudite, academic tome, or the latest "rah-rah do it this way", or someone telling you that you just need to make it a bit more complicated, then don't read these two books. If however, you want a more simple but deep set of primers that will fill you with good ideas about your organizational context and your options - and your responsibility for what you create - read these books.