Constructivist family therapy offers a model for the application of Maturana’s theories to practice. This paper describes key concepts of a constructivist approach and draws on family therapy to provide guidelines for applying them in an organizational setting. It offers a view of the organization as a network of conversations in which change occurs through the coconstruction of new conversations which widen or change the rational domain in which a problem occurs.

Key words: systemic therapy, family therapy, constructivism, autopoiesis, organization, problem solving, human service organizations, management, resistance to change, systems methodology.

This paper seeks to juxtapose the work of Sir Geoffrey Vickers and Humberto Maturana with a view to thinking more about the theoretical underpinnings of Peter Checkland’s soft systems methodology (SSM) and of soft systems and soft operational research more generally. The paper argues that Maturana’s ‘Theory of the Observer’ can usefully complement Vickers by specifying more precisely the nature of the cognitive structures that underpin people’s descriptions of situations, by clarifying the relationship between cognitive creativity and the historical and relational constraints that bear upon people’s descriptions and explanations, and by providing a more complete description of the dynamics that underpin individual and social learning.

Key words: Appreciative system, soft systems, theory of the observer

Applied systems-thinking involves the use of systems methodologies and concepts to facilitate intervention in social situations. In this area, a body of knowledge has been accumulated to promote informed use of systems methodology. Still, how human experience is considered and used in intervention is limited to what methodologies prescribe or what facilitators do with it. In this paper, we revisit the ideas of autopoiesis and in particular the research project pursued by one of his original authors (Francisco Varela). Following Varela’s intent to develop a middle way in science, we reflect on how applied systems thinking could take a step back regarding how human experience is integrated into intervention. We conclude the paper with a number of suggestions to make applied systems-thinking more permeable and sensitive to human experience and therefore open to compassionate thinking and action.

Key words: Francisco Varela, autopoiesis, applied systems-thinking, human experience, systems methodology.

This paper makes the case for, and calls for participants in, an interdisciplinary research program exploring the development of theatrical methods of social system modeling. It combines argumentation that synthesizes concepts from the theatre and the system sciences with results from a pilot application of some of the modeling methods discussed. Theatrical methods of modeling facilitate surprising insights regarding the impacts of emotion and other non-trivial factors on system behaviour that are difficult to address in purely computational and diagrammatic forms of modeling. While a theoretical relationship between systems approaches and the theatrical techniques discussed has been articulated elsewhere, this paper is the first to propose a more fulsome exploration of the potentialities of this relationship for systems praxis.

Key words: augusto Boal, theatre of the oppressed, theatre for living, systems theory, cybernetics, Konstantin Stanislavski, soft systems methodology, system dynamics, critical systems heuristics, enactive management.