RETHINKING BEHAVIORS

DESIGN FOR COMPLEXITY / Book Chapter in Progress

RETHINKING BEHAVIORS

Making Sense of Lewin & Guilford Today

"Researching and writing this sensemaking book, bridging emerging practice and theory, has provided an opportunity, perhaps even a responsibility to conduct a relook at various terminologies and constructs that are bubbling up as important in the context of the emerging Design for Complexity movement. Since we have been swimming in these rethinking waters for some time we did recognize that the importance of the term “behaviors” is rising. We also noted that “behaviors” was among the terms in the mix of this subject with different meanings, in different approaches, connected most often to the roots from which they sprang. 

In the literature of some approaches “behavior” has been front and center since the early days, circa 1930s-50s. In other approach literature “behavior” is a term and consideration that is seldom seen. We contemplated how to help our readers make sense of that complex picture in this compressed format.  

In our previous sensemaking book, Rethinking Design Thinking we found it useful to distinguish between inbound and outbound behaviors. In the context of design, interest in outbound behaviors is historically found under the header of being “human-centered”, with a focus on so-called users, or customers, or constituents. Inbound behavior is consideration of ourselves, the project team, the champions, the leaders, the culture dynamics, the behaviors embedded in organizational values...."

"RETHINKING BEHAVIORS 1 / OUTBOUND & INBOUND

Many of our long-tuned-in NextD Journal readers would have noticed that interest in inbound behaviors rose significantly in the design community in this decade, primarily during the Design Thinking workshop wave. As the design community backed into team dynamics and culture considerations via workshop delivery, interest in engaging around inbound behaviors was heightened as never before. (Many of the thinking engagement exercises and discussion dynamics seen in introductory Design Thinking workshops originate in and were imported from the CPS community.)

In the transition to Arena 3, organizational changemaking and Arena 4, societal changemaking some practitioners rapidly found that outbound focus was/is no longer enough to meet the demands of such work....."

"STANDING ON SHOULDERS: LEWIN / GUILFORD STORY

Much of what appears in the context Design For Complexity regarding behaviors stands on the shoulders of two notable behavior-related thought leader pioneers: Kurt Lewin (1890 - 1947) and JP Guilford (1897-1987), the former known as a Social Psychologist and the latter as a Cognitive Psychologist. Both were Scholars, Researchers, and Theorists, grounded in systems-oriented Gestalt school of psychology. Both based in the USA. 

A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Lewin and Guilford as the 18th and 27th most cited psychologists of the 20th century. Neither are routinely found in historical traditional design literature. 

Active as early as the 1930s,40s,50,60s their research and contributions proved to have numerous intergenerational practical applications in the context of organizational and societal changemaking. Operating from different psychological neighborhoods their views on behavior had numerous parallels and significant differences."

Read the full chapter on the NextD Journal site:  

This Humantific book is in progress.....Stay tuned!

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*Humantific is corporate sponsor of NextD Journal: Making Sense of Design for Complexity.