Sue L. T. McGregor PhD Professor
Mount Saint Vincent University
Halifax Nova Scotia Canada
Home Economist for over 40 years
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AAFCS is a professional association
for family and consumer scientists
and those who practice the
profession under other names: home
economics, human sciences, human
ecology.
The current tagline is Connecting
Professionals and Touching Lives.
Regarding the latter, “through its
leadership… AAFCS touches the lives
of its members and FCS
professionals enabling them to grow
and accomplish more.”
This super seminar is an example of
AAFCS’ desire to be on the vanguard
of leadership and change.
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A van is the part of a group that is
out front, in position to lead an
advance (van is short for vanguard)
Vanguard is Middle French for
avant (out front) and garde (guard)
A vanguard is the front part of any
movement
It also refers to the leaders of an
intellectual movement
Being on the vanguard refers to a
creative group of leaders who are
active in the innovation and
application of new concepts,
theories, principles, approaches
and techniques in a given field
Philosophy,
Mission, Values,
Belief System,
Perspectives
Vanguard Leadership
Theory,
Knowledge,
Content
Practice,
Competencies,
Skills
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The AAFCS Development Center says:
◦ “As
the Association moves forward in its
second century, it is committed to providing
an outstanding array of research-based
sessions through on-site conferences. Future
conferences will capitalize on the best
practices of past conferences, while
incorporating new ideas and directions that
reflect the evolution of the Association and
profession.”
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Focuses on the now and what is
working
Tends to rely on old thinking
(received wisdom)
Deals with old problems and
delivers tried-and-tested solutions
Reflects accumulated, reusable
patterns, components, tools and
platforms of practice
People are heavily invested in these
successful approaches
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Being the best now may not be what we need
to be the best in the future…
“What
works?”
Best Practice
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“What could work better
and more powerfully?”
Need outside-the-box,
boundary-pushing
practice and thinking
Next Practice
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While fully aware of conventional best
practices, next practice aspires to move to
new levels, in new directions, in new
combinations and new relationships – move
outside the comfortable, familiar best-box.
While best practices focus on past
innovations, next practices focuses on future
innovations
Next practice strives for breakthroughs in
thinking and solutions, leading to a new
practice (on the vanguard)…
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Next practices emerge from a
mobilized group of empowered
practitioners who are motivated by a
compelling purpose; they are the
leadership vanguard
They are conscious of the limits of
current FCS best practices and are
keen to push further, higher, wider,
in new directions
These FCS system-aware leaders
have a wide field of vision, a lively
interest in the overall direction of the
profession, and are constantly
scanning their environments
Philosophy, Mission,
Values, Belief
System,
Perspectives
Theory,
Knowledge,
Content
Practice,
Competencies,
Skills
Break out for five minutes and
bring ideas back to the group
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Next practices are
exemplary niche
practices that hold
promise to become
mainstream and can act
as beacons and/or
inspirations for future
transitions (Wals, 2010)
http://www.groundswellinternational.org/wpcontent/uploads/learning-our-way-out-of-unsustainability.pdf
Complexity
thinking
Integral thinking
Transdisciplinary
thinking
Human Condition
During the seminar, write down any
ideas or threads of thinking that you
hear repeatedly
(e.g., complex)
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Complexity thinking, especially Complex
Adaptive Systems (CAS), is an extension of
systems theory and human ecosystem system
theory, a best practice with which FCS are
very familiar.
1960s-70s
Family Systems
Self-Directed
Systems
1970s-80s
1980s-90s
Family Ecosystem
Human Ecosystem
Interactive Systems
Integrated Systems
1990s-2000s
Integral
Complex, emergent
systems
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A Complex Adaptive System (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.
Other examples of a CAS, aside from
families, are brains, bee hives, bacteria,
immune systems, the Internet, gardens,
cities.
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Complex adaptive systems (CAS) are special
cases of complex systems.
They are complex in that they are diverse and
made up of multiple interconnected elements
and they are adaptive in that they have the
capacity to change and learn from
experience.
they have both stabilizing and
reinforcing feedback loops (stay
on track and change direction),
 there are both multiple and
opposing causes per each effect,
 there are time delays between
cause and effect,
 they exhibit the property of
emergence, and
 there are MANY relationships,
both known and unknown, which
make the CAS unpredictable and
complicated.
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Complexity theory introduces a new set of
assumptions that can underpin FCS vanguard
leadership initiatives (next practices):
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complexity
emergence
adaptation
change and evolution
nonequilibrium
chaos (order is emerging, just unpredictably)
tensions (holding things together as they emerge)
patterns and networks
holistic, synergistic interconnections and relations
among individual and aggregate agents.
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In CAS, people are never just observers. Their
presence alone influences the system. They can
influence the other agents, relationships,
environments, boundaries.
Complexity theory proposes that in a CAS, the
agents constantly (a) act, (b) act with and (c) react
to what other agents are (not) doing.
The overall behaviour of the complex adaptive
system is the result of a huge number of
decisions made every moment by many, diverse
individual agents, acting on local information,
with global impact, changing as they accumulate
lived experiences.
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Especially relevant to FCS
vanguard leaders, complexity
thinking lets us presume that
a self-organizing family
system (self-directed,
regroups, reorganizes)
increases in complexity
without being guided or
managed from an outside
source.
Families can become selfdetermining and empowered.
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It helps us assume that people can selforganize (reorganize and regroup) and can
change their approach to life and living
Note that anything that is not constrained will
self-organize. This fact means FCS
practitioners have to help families become
self-directed, instead of remaining
dependent.
Families (CAS) need to be free to act to
address human problems, not be constrained.
They need to find their me-power (become
empowered).
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Source http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uISeCrSwfp0/TJNhC1xToZI/AAAAAAAAAFI/23dj4Fsxmrk/s1600/junglewomanhologram3.jpg
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Integrated means
balance, equilibrium
and harmony –
minimize tension and
reduce chaos
Integrated
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Integral means
emergent, nonequilibrium, balance
forming; respects
healthy tensions that
hold things together as
they evolve and
emerge – these
tensions provide order
in the chaos
Integral
Strives for:
 certainty
 order
 sureness
Respects:
 uncertainty
 disorder
 insecurity
Places a lot of emphasis on
harmony within systems
Respects the creative, dynamic
and evolving nature of human
and natural processes
Strives for uniformity of similar
things
Strives for a sense of unity in
differences (emphasizes unity
as much as diversity)
Leads to a constrained sense of
reality
Integrated
Leads to a fuller sense of reality.
Integral
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An integral vision assumes people will
try to touch all bases, try to respect and
learn from many perspectives as they
problem solve life’s dilemmas.
I use Ken Wilber’s approach to integral
thinking, called AQAL – all quadrants, all
levels.
He uses a four-celled matrix to illustrate
his integral approach. There are four
quadrants to his theory and many, many
levels. Today, I focus on the quadrants.
http://www.tanasaler.com/
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These four perspectives of life stem from the
(a) inner self, (b) the physical self, (c) the
community, and (d) the collection of world
systems. Wilber refers to these as the integral
(whole) approach to life.
It is imperative that people learn to find the
patterns that connect all of these four
elements instead of falling back on what is
comfortable and standing in just one
quadrant. Indeed, standing in one quadrant
results in an imbalanced, flat, onedimensional approach to life, living, and
leading.
Avoid viewing human problems
from just one perspective, one
part of the whole:
 IT -the scientific, physical body,
Western medicine
 WE -morality, collectively shared
norms
 I - inner-self, artful selfexpression
 ITS - web of life, complex,
global systems
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Leaving out any of these
quadrants yields an incomplete
picture of reality. Too much is
missed, compromising one’s
ability to deal with the
complexity of life.
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.
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From an integral stance,
the goal of FCS vanguard
leaders would be to help
people problem solve in
such a way that: mind (I),
matter (IT), meaning (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 realities exist.
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The intent is to teach people to be as
comprehensive, inclusive, and caring as
possible, striving for deep clarity of their
situation and the wider context.
Rather than excluding points of view, people
would strive to adopt all views that are useful
for dealing with their current dilemma and do
so by looking for things they would otherwise
ignore.
A complex world requires a complex lens on
the world in order to be as inclusive as
possible; that is the promise of the next
practice called the integral approach.
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To be as comprehensive, inclusive and caring
as possible while striving for deep, luminous
clarity of the situation.
To scan all four elements to gain integral
insights (self, science, the collective, and the
web-of-life systems)
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?”
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FCS leaders are all familiar with the idea that the
profession is interdisciplinary. This means we
work with and draw from other disciplines, within
the university system.
Solving today’s complex problems necessitates
taking down the boundaries among many
disciplines and between the university system
and the rest of the world.
Transdisciplinarity is the name for this next
practice approach to leading. It lets us solve the
problems of the world faced by all of humanity
(much more than helping individuals or family
units solve their specific problems).
Civil
Society
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emergent and complex, focused on moral
obligations and on shared, joint responsibly for
the world and each other.
Rather than just facts and information, people
would be taught to value evolving relationships
and to look for patterns of likeminded or
divergent thinking.
In this context, everything is in-formation,
changing due to the synergy (energy) created
when people jointly problem solve or ponder the
nuances and complexities of the 21st century.
The complex TD knowledge that is created is
alive, dynamic, forever changing, never static,
due to intellectual fusion.
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What counts as reality would expand from just
one discipline to include many levels of reality
(within and beyond disciplines): economic,
political, historical, social, ecological, spiritual,
cultural and aesthetic spheres of life. Knowledge
and perspectives from all of these spheres is
needed to address today’s complexity.
Solutions to these complex problems are best
solved by a meeting of the minds in the space
created when crossing the borders (trans)
between these many spheres of reality.
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In the midst of the tensions inherent in dealing
with complex issues along these many levels of
reality, order and new insights are always
emerging. Instead of understanding chaos as
disorder, FCS would teach people that chaos is
order emerging, just not predictably.
A new respect would be gained for fluctuations,
unpredictability, uncertainties and disturbances,
appreciating that novel solutions to modern day
dilemmas (multilemmas) will emerge from the
chaos (integral thinking – integration of many
perspectives).
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Instead of exclusive logic, TD uses inclusive
logic (the logic of the included middle). The
space between things is fertile, alive, in flux
and deeply dynamic. It is within these
intellectual, inclusive spaces that people
meet, engage, share perspectives, values,
feelings, information and develop
relationships.
New TD knowledge perks up and emerges,
and falls back on people as embodied
knowledge. Energy is created from people
bouncing ideas off of each other (intellectual
fusion). People learn to accept that others
have valuable perspectives, which, once
heard, can potentially be integrated into new
embodied, emergent, complex TD
knowledge
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Different world views and value orientations held
by people from many different levels of reality
may cause conflict, resulting in power struggles.
The complexity of today’s problems requires
partnerships and knowledge sharing among
experts from different academic disciplines
(natural, social and human) and from members of
civil society. They must be able to talk to each
other.
The constellation of values at play during the
solution of these human problems must be
respected, managed and led, because every
utterance will be value-laden.
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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 (next
practice) to augment the profession’s
potential to achieve an integral,
complex approach to transdisciplinary
practice.
propose the human
condition.
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The 1993 Scottsdale conference acknowledged that the
FCS profession needed to take leadership in enhancing
the human condition.
The 1995-2000 Strategic Plan for AAFCS identified, as a
core value, “a healthy environment that positively affects
the human condition.”
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The 1999 Summit on FCS in higher education recognized
improving the human condition as a core value of the
profession (AAFCS was at this summit).
The 2011 version of the AAFCS Body of Knowledge (BOK)
places basic human needs at the core; but, there is no
mention of the human condition as a related construct in
the BOK.
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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.
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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.
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In the broader literature, wellness and well-being are
usually used in conjunction with individuals and
families (and communities), while the notion of
condition is usually associated with all of humanity.
FCS followed this convention. This best practice can
evolve to the next practice of the human condition.
The word condition means existing circumstances, the
current state of being.
Humanity’s present condition reflects the totality of
actions 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 existence of a human being.
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Labour does not mean paid work,
work does not mean to labour, and
action does not mean behaviour:
labour is what people do to survive,
work is what people do beyond
what is necessary to survive, in
order to contribute to the world
around them, and
action is what people do beyond
labour and work that gives meaning
to their lives.
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Humanity needs to engage in repetitive
activities that sustain life (labour) and
in activities that leave behind enduring
artifacts and institutions for the
collective human world (work). Humans
must fulfill these two former activities
so that meaningful action can take
place through the shared enterprise of
human interaction.
Labour
Work
Action
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Complexity
Thinking
Human
Condition
Concept
FCS
Vanguard
Leadership
Transdisciplinary
Thinking
Integral
Thinking
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Complexity
Integral
Integrated
Tension and chaos
Multiple perspectives
Patterns
Empowered
Adaptive
Change
Emergence
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Holistic
Human problems
Creative and dynamic
Realities
Context
Moral
Synergy (energy)
Relationships
Systems
Innovation
Super Seminar: Using
Cutting Edge Leadership
Approaches to Transform
FCS Practice (2012)
Sue L. T. McGregor
www.consultmcgregor.com