So you want to be a systems entrepreneur?

Lets get started!

Welcome to my first writings dedicated to the tools, methods and practices of being a Systems Entrepreneur (*SE).

The posts that will follow will share what I, and others, are learning about systems entrepreneurship or systems building or systems innovation. Some posts will include the reactions I am getting from those I teach in executive education settings.

We will traverse philosophy, linguistics, neuro-linguistics, cognitive science, knowledge creation, leadership, governance, collaboration, collective impact, green growth, circular economy, systems thinking, innovation, moral imagination, complexity science, psychology, decision science, wellbeing, social-ecological resilience, data science, new economics and of course magic.

The concepts “systems” and “entrepreneurs” are a natural fit. Like bread and butter. Both concepts have been with us for some time, but fused together they benefit from scale, context, application, meaning, motivation and purpose — the defining features of our greatest challenges.

New concepts spawn new language. New language exposes new realities with new dimensions. New dimensions create a new discourse. A new discourse structures a new system with new behaviour. By way of example look at fusing of the words “producer” and “user” as “prod-user” or “Supplier” and “buyer” as “supp-buyer”. New concepts, new language, new dimensions, new discourse, new system structure, new behaviour.

If entrepreneurs are able to fashion what “is” into what “could be”, I propose that systems entrepreneurs fashion what “is” into what “ought to be”.

Thus, first and foremost, systems entrepreneurs are;

§ Mind tool designers

§ Language and metaphor designers

§ Great question designers

§ Hyper-aware of their own and others frames

§ Can activate new frames

§ Can remove existing frames from play

Systems entrepreneurs, are what Bill Torbert calls post- conventional leaders, defined by a higher sense of purpose, a moral span that extends beyond immediate group and time considering distant stakeholders and far away consequences. They are double-loop learners without external help and can easily adopt different frames in different settings to facilitate cross-group communication.

Thank you for your attention. Look out for the next post…