AHEA 2018 Conference Red Deer, Alberta

1. AHEA 2018 ConferenceRed Deer, Alberta Sue L. T. McGregor PhD, IPHE, Professor Emerita (MSVU) McGregor Consulting Group www.consultmcgregor.com

2. KEYNOTE: Leading Together for Tomorrow: From Best to Next Practice

3. In addition to Followership… Is leadership

4. When people focus on best practice, they • Focus on the now and what is working • Tend to rely on received wisdom (some call this old thinking) • Deal with old problems and deliver tried-and-tested solutions • Use accumulated, reusable patterns, components, tools and platforms of practice, and • are heavily invested in these successful approaches.

5. Given the vagaries of the 21st century, our current Best may not be enough… • Being the bestnow may not be what we need to be the best in in the future…

6. We need Next Practice, which creates a new practiceImage source: http://mikeziemski.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/next-practice-logo.jpg

7. Best and Next Practice • “What works?” • “What could work better and more powerfully?” • Need outside-the-box, boundary-pushing thinking Best Practice Next Practice

8. Next PracticeMcGregor, S. L. T. (2012). Next practice innovations in FCS. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 104(1), 46-50. Image source: http://entint.com/transform/next-practice/ • While fully aware of conventional best practices, people striving for next practice aspire to move to new levels, directions, combinations and relationships – move outside the comfortable, familiar best-box to achieve breakthroughs in thinking and solutions, leading to the next generation of practice

9. Next practices emerge from a mobilized group of empowered practitioners who are motivated by a compelling purpose, while remaining conscious of the limits of current best practices. • These leaders have a • wide field of vision, • lively interest in the overall direction of the profession, and • are constantly scanning their environments.

10. Potential of next practices • Next practices are exemplary niche practices that hold the promise of becoming mainstream and can act as beacons, inspirations for future transitions, or both (Wals, 2010) http://www.groundswellinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/learning-our-way-out-of-unsustainability.pdf

11. I have 4 suggestions for 21st century home economics and human ecology next practice… • Complexity thinking • Integral thinking • Human condition

12. Transdisciplinarity (instead of multi and interdisciplinarity)

13. Complexity Thinking

14. Complexity thinking, especially Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), is an extension of systems theory and human ecosystem theory, two best practices with which we are very familiar.

15. Complexity Thinking con’t • Examples of a CAS, aside from families, are brains, bee hives, ant hills, bacteria, immune systems, the Internet, gardens, cities. • A CAS consists of parts (agents or people) that form a system (team or group). • That system shows complex behaviour while it keeps adapting to changing environments.

16. Complexity thinking con’t • The overall behaviour of the system is the result of a huge number of decisions made every moment by many, diverse individualagents, acting on local information, with global impact,* changing as they accumulate lived experiences. • In CAS, people are never just observers. Their presence alone influences the system, be it other agents, relationships, environments or boundaries. Everyone makes a difference – whether or not they know it or intend to

17. Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) • are complexin that they are diverse and madeup of multiple interconnected elements and • adaptivein that they have the capacity to change and learn from experience.

18. Image source: Human Systems Dynamics Institute http://www.hsdinstitute.org/resources/complex-adaptive-system.html CAS is way to think about how patterns emerge from the complex interdependencies around you. Use it to inform understanding and action as you work to influence dominant patterns in your system

19. Characteristics of CAS • There is an inherent background of chaos in all systems. CAS exist in far-from-equilibrium states, which actually enables them to adapt to changing conditions, passing from disordered to more complex stages of order. • Unlike closed systems, CAS are open systems that are intimately connected to their environments. They can develop new or change existing internal structures spontaneously in order to cope with their environments. • They contain a complex network of connections that are interconnected through a network of feedback loops. Each individual small change feeds back into the system and new things emerge. • There is a constant process of organization going on, leading to the creation of novel new internal structures and modes of behaviour. • Each CAS has its own dynamics. Because of these system dynamics, patterns emergeor arise out of the energy expended and tension developed during adaption and reorganization – all without external direction.

20. Complexity thinking con’t • Especially relevant to home economics and human ecology practitioners, complexity thinking lets us presume that a self-organizing family system (i.e., adapts, self-directs, regroups, reorganizes) increases in complexity without being guided or managed from an outside source. • This is not to say we are not needed – but our approach can change from this perspective.

21. Complexity thinking fini • helps us assume that by reorganizing, regrouping and adapting, individuals and families can change their approach to life and living. • Anything that is not constrained will self-organize. • SO… we have to help families become unconstrained and instead be self-directed rather than remaining dependent on us. To do that, individuals and families need to be free to act to address human problems as they are experiencing them in their home and life. • We need to help them find their particular system dynamic- me-power (empower).

22. Integral Thinking

23. Integral thinking… • Home economists and human ecologists have long called themselves holistic and integrated (best practice). • Holistic (Greek holos, “whole”) - a whole is a unification of separate parts but to understand the whole, it must be analyzed in its entirety rather than simply analyzing its individual parts.

24. Integral thinking • Integrated and integral have the same Latin root (integer, “whole”) but they mean different things. • Integration is a noun • unification, amalgamation, consolidation - for example, the integration of the parts into a whole • Integral is an adjective • essential, necessary, indispensable- for example, an integral part of the organization; the whole would not be ‘the whole’ without it Source: English Forums.com

25. Integrated versus integralMcGregor, S. L. T. (2010). Integral leadership and practice: Beyond holistic integration in FCS. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 102(1), 49-57. • Integrated accommodates balance, equilibrium and harmony • need to minimize tension and reduce chaos (disorder) • Integral accommodatesbalance-forming, non-equilibrium and healthy friction • respects chaos (order emerging, just not predictably) and the healthy tensions that hold things together as they evolve and emerge during chaos – these tensions provide order in the chaos Integrated Integral

26. Differences between integrated and integral fini Strives for: • certainty • order • sureness Places a lot of emphasis on harmony and stability within systems Strives for uniformity of similar things Respects: • uncertainty • disorder • unsureness Respects the creative, dynamic and evolving nature of emergent human and natural processes Strives for a sense of unity in differences (emphasizes unity as much as diversity) Integrated Integral

27. I use Ken Wilber’s approach to integral thinking, called AQAL – all quadrants, all levels. • Bottom line, an integral vision assumes people will try to touch all bases, try to respect and learn from many perspectives, as they problem pose and problem solve life’s dilemmas.

28. Four integral quadrants Image source: http://www.tanasaler.com/

29. Ken Wilber’s integral approach • It is imperative that people* learn to find the patterns that connect these four elements instead of falling back on what is comfortable and standing in just one quadrant (fragmented, technical approach to practice). Doing so respects the integral intent of valuing the order* emerging from chaos.

30. The integral lens on complex problems • Leaving out any of these quadrants (perspectives, stakeholders) yields an incomplete picture of what is going on (reality). Too much is missed, compromising your ability to deal with the complexity of life being faced by individuals and families. • A main assumption of integral thinking is that as soon as people begin looking through the integral lens, everything has the potential to come into focus. Once that lens turns and clicks,* people gain clarity and are able to make better decisions for the future.

32. Stand in all four quadrants • From an integral stance, home economics and human ecology practitioners would help people (learn to) problem solve in such a way that: mind (I), matter (IT), meanings (WE) and the web of life (ITS) are all taken into account*, or at least be aware that while acting in one quadrant, the other three perspectives exist, and consciously choose to focus on only one.

33. Integral thinking • The intent is to teach people to strive for deep clarity of their situation and the wider context by being as comprehensive and inclusive as possible. • Rather than excluding points of view, people would scan all quadrants (perspectives) and then strive to adopt all views that are essential (i.e., integral) to dealing with their current dilemma and do so by looking for things they would otherwise ignore – this is the key* integral thinking.

34. Intent of integral thinking (Fini) : • There is no right or wrong. There is a place for everything. • MAJOR ISSUE is • “How much complexity is needed to adequately understand the situation from a holistic, integral perspective?” (Ken Wilber)

35. Human Condition

36. We need more than well being and quality of life McGregor, S. L. T. (2015). Vanguard next practice for home economics: Complexity thinking, integral thinking, and the human condition. International Journal of Home Economics, 8(1), 64-77. • With respect, our standard concepts of well being, wellness and quality of life (best practices) are too limiting for addressing the pressing, complex, global issues facing humanity. • We need a new construct (a next practice) to augment the profession’s potential to achieve an integral, complex approach to practice. • I propose the human condition.

37. What is the human condition? • In the broader literature, wellness and wellbeing are usually used in conjunction with individuals and families (and communities), while the notion of condition is usually associated with all of humanity. We have been using the terms correctly. • The word condition means existing circumstances, the current state of being and modes of existence. • Humanity’s present condition reflects the totality of actions that humans have taken to date. The human condition refers to the current circumstances of a collective people. It is the positive and negative aspects of the existence of a human being.

38. Way back (nearly 40 years ago)… • when developing the mission statement of home economics for the American Home Economics Association, Marjorie Brown and Bea Paolucci (1979) drew from Hanna Arendt’s (1958) book, The Human Condition. • Arendt developed a ‘theory of the human condition,’ comprising three overarching concepts: labour, work and action. • Brown and Paolucci employed her theory when they generated the mission statement for home economics and the three system of actions construct.

39. Arendt’s (1958) theory of the human condition • Labour does not mean paid work, work does not mean to labour, and action does not mean behaviour: Instead: • labour is what people do to survive, • work is what people do beyond what is necessary to survive, in order to contribute to and shape the world around them, and • action is what people do beyond labour and work that gives meaning to their lives.

40. Connecting her three concepts • Humanity needs to engage in repetitive activities that sustain life (labour) and activities that leave behind enduring artifacts and institutions for the collective human world (work). Humans must fulfill these two former activities so that meaningful actioncan take place through the shared enterprise of human interaction.

41. Arendt in more detail

42. Arendt detail fini Labour Work Action

43. Similarity of this proposed next practice to existing home economics and human ecology best practices

44. Similarities con’t

45. Similarities fini

46. The next practice ‘human condition’ is not such a stretch!

47. Five suggested next practices: • Complexity thinking • Integral thinking • Human condition • Transdisciplinarity • Followership • Systems and ecosystem thinking • Integrated and holistic thinking • Wellbeing, wellness and quality of life • Multi and Interdisciplinarity • Leadership NEXT PRACTICE BEST PRACTICE

48. Respecting followership and using next practice-informed leadership are powerful ways to move forward together toward tomorrow.