Leadership
Leaders are systems thinkers.
Interactive learning environments can be tested with methods from the learning sciences to determine whether they make people better systems thinkers — and hence better leaders.
About
A laboratory for systems that refuse simple fixes.
The Lab sits inside Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Its staff mixes economics, engineering, the learning sciences, healthcare, executive practice, and dynamic modeling.
Structure
To change behavior, change structure.
To permanently change a system's behavior requires redesigning its institutional structure, rather than simply addressing the symptoms of a problem.
Trade-offs
Persistent problems in complex feedback systems have trade-offs, not silver bullets.
Every proposed redesign is scored on multiple attributes. A multi-attribute metric makes the weights explicit so experts and stakeholders can see what they are trading.
The method
01
Model the persistent problem
Build a system dynamics simulation of a persistent socio-technical-economic-environmental problem, then use it to find leverage on system behavior.
02
Enhance the model with information on how people actually make their decisions
Enrich the structure with insights from behavioral economics and the decision sciences, so policy is not written for a perfectly rational actor.
03
Turn it into an interactive learning environment
People who never sat in the modeling room can train in a user-friendly simulator — flying the system the way a pilot flies an aircraft.
04
Scientifically test to see if users learn
Human-subjects work asks a hard question: did the flight simulator improve systems thinking, consensus, or decision quality?
Partners
- isee systems
- International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics (ICAPE)
Intellectual property
Flight simulators and related learning laboratories are Lab intellectual property unless a commissioned agreement assigns rights differently. Models built with a client stay governed by that contract.