Part of the reason is fragmentation: responsibilities and processes grow ever more siloed. Systems thinking has offered tools for a more holistic approach for over seventy years, but it has never quite achieved a paradigm shift, partly because its models can feel too abstract to apply, and hard to connect with experientially. At the same time, a shift from engagement to involvement, fuelled by fragmented attention, makes it difficult to hold people with complexity long enough to see the bigger picture and develop ownership of a system.
Across the field, complex systems are treated as things to be observed, mapped, measured or optimized, not as things to be inhabited and felt. Few seriously grapple with how people experientially come to understand a system from the inside, and how that understanding changes their capacity to act. This is where games and play become not a communication gimmick but an instrument of knowing.
How do we use play to develop the capacity to act wisely within complex systems?
We come from different backgrounds, and so we understand complexity from different angles. We are drawn to it because we believe engaging with and embracing complexity is the only way to build the wisdom to act and thrive in an interconnected world. We seek to develop organisations, communities and societies that are attuned to serve human flourishing.