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]

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.

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).

In this persuasively argued booklet, Barry Oshry establishes that, despite frequent references to paradigms in management and organization literature, there are no scientific paradigms in this field (as defined by Thomas Kuhn in his landmark essay on the subject – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). He goes on to make the case for the Organic System Framework (OSF) being a legitimate candidate for paradigm status. The OSF describes patterns of systemic relationship that exist at all levels and in all types of social systems – family, sports team, work unit, etc. Regardless of our designated roles or positions, we are constantly moving in and out of these relationships. He concludes by setting out three core reasons for proposing OSF as a prime paradigm candidate and outlines five broad avenues for future research.

For over 30 years, Barry Oshry has examined core truths about how we operate in large organizations through the Power Lab, an experiential programme. In this volume, he reveals the lessons he has derived from these experiences. He maintains that the next evolutionary challenge for human beings is to recognize ourselves as systems creatures, see how systems processes shape our experiences, and develop the knowledge and skills to master these processes rather than be victims of them. Drawing on his Power Lab experiences, he reveals the possibilities of systems leadership and how effective leadership can provide the basis for creating sane, healthy, effective social systems. Challenging conventional thinking, Oshry shows the limitations of consensus, the importance of unilateral action, and the restrictions that our values - such as egalitarianism, liberalism and conservatism - can place on power. He reveals how the problems we often believe are personal or peculiar to our system or circumstances are in fact systemic, limiting the possibilities of both individuals and the system as a whole -and he demonstrates what it takes to break out and elevate ourselves and our systems to higher levels of possibility. He sheds light on everything from organizational dysfunction to the conflicts that occur along lines of race, gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity.