Sustainable Self Governance

April 14, 2021

Content

Reflections from the COVID19 Pandemic

In this seminar I will offer a brief introduction to Espinosa & Walker’s approach to sustainable self-governance. In particular, I will use this approach to reflect on the Covid-19 pandemic, and reflect on the early alarms that the pandemic is raising for us, at different levels of organisation, from the individual to the global level. Based on our recent experience during the pandemic,

I will reflect, on how an individual, a business, a community, and a particular sector of the economy (the health sector) could identify ways to progress faster towards viability and sustainability in the current global crisis. The webinar is an invitation to engage in a fruitful conversation with the participants on ways to developing Stafford’s legacy on more innovative and also pragmatic approaches to sustainability and self – governance and to contribute to a better post Covid-19 society.

Dr Angela Espinosa

Angela graduated as a computer and systems engineer in 1981, and got a PhD on Organisational Cybernetics from Aston Business School, UK in 1995. She worked as the Director of the Secretariat of Information and Systems of the Colombian President’s Office (1990 – 1992) and as a consultant for major cybernetic government projects in Colombia in the 1990s. She is a (retired) Reader in Cybernetics, from the Centre of Systems Studies – Hull University, where she has taught systems and cybernetics in the MBA and the PhD programs (2002-2021). She has been a visiting Fellow in several international universities, and provided consultancy for both private and public organisations in Latin America and Europe. Her research is focused on applying cybernetics to support self -transformations towards improved resilience, viability and sustainability on businesses, communities and networks. She has published extensively books, research monographs, book chapters and papers in the European Journal of Operational Research, and other systems and cybernetics journals. Her recent book with J Walker, A Complexity Approach to Sustainability published by Imperial College Press (2nd ed.) summarises their recent work and applications. They have also co-founded and co-chaired the Metaphorum, an NGO developing Stafford Beer’s legacy since 2002.

Recent Webinars

26-Jun-2024

From systems to entrepreneurial ecosystemic organizations. Exploring Haier’s RenDanHeYi.

Emanuele Quintarelli, Krishan Mathis

How can a global manufacturer with tens of thousands of employees not just survive but thrive in turbulent times? Guided by its CEO philosopher, the Chinese white goods appliance leader went through four decades of strategy, business, and organizational reinvention, rewriting everything we knew about management. Based on years of direct collaboration with Haier, Emanuele will conversate with Krishan to explore RenDanHeYi’s ability to get rid of hierarchical control, top-down people management, centralized budgeting, organizational bureaucracy, distance from the market. They will compare the foundational RenDanHeYi’s concepts with VSM pillars to show how more and more enterprises worldwide may embrace unprecedented levels of self-management, entrepreneurial initiative, customer centricity, diffused value sharing, and ecosystemic thinking.

05-Jun-2024

The heart of the 4th industrial revolution in the brain of Viable System Model.

Rodrigo Fernández Albornoz

Many of Beer and his team’s reflections on the effective incorporation of people into the project considered prototypes for measuring audiences in real time. This view of the common good is especially critical in the main political and sociocultural dilemmas that form part of todays debates regarding the future of ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution.

08-May-2024

The Sapient Paradox as the consequence of a cybernetical bifurcation in the evolution.

Dr. Peter Robertson

Why did humankind create such a moral and ecological mess of this world, and why have we done that for only about 10,000 years? This question might be related to the Sapient Paradox, which emerged after decades of archeological and neurophysiological research.