SenseMaking

We Made a Social System Map – Now What Do We Do With It?

Social System Mapping enables us to map, inquire into, and take wise action in a domain that we’ve previously only been able to speculate about. I’m referring to the domain just beyond our own ego-network horizons – the ecosystem that connects our own ego-networks to the broader systems we’re seeking to transform. Now that we can map that domain, we can start to make sense of and act upon that domain in ways we’ve never had access to before.

And yet, the kind of SenseMaking needed for Social System Mapping involves a mental muscle we’ve only begun to have a need for and are just beginning to develop. A muscle that entails a paradigm shift. And developing that paradigm-shifting mental muscle takes practice, repetition, frequent reminders. Ideally in the company of others.

This SenseMaking muscle can also be applied beyond Social System Mapping, to help us understand change in complex adaptive human systems. And this is actually the whole point of Social System Mapping – helping us to understand and set conditions for positive systemic transformation.

Thus a Social System Mapping SenseMaking practice is a two-fer. Two big benefits in one.