Curious Conversations with Special Guest Glenda Eoyang - Season 2/Episode 20

This episode completes our pattern of curious conversations with members of the Human Systems Dynamics (HSD) Community. We couldn’t think of a better way to end the season and podcast than inviting, Glenda Eoyang, Founder and Executive Director of the Human Systems Dynamics Institute, back as our special guest.
In our first episode, Glenda shared: the history behind HSD, why HSD matters, and advice that anyone new to and familiar with HSD can use now.
In this episode, we’ve asked Glenda to explain something many of us are curious about and that is the HSD Vision. She also shares details about the issue that’s at the top of her wicked list.
Glenda helps public and private organizations thrive in the face of overwhelming complexity and uncertainty. She is a pioneer in the applications of complexity science to human systems, and she founded the field of HSD in 2001. 
As founding executive director of the Human Systems Dynamics Institute, she leads a global network of scholar-practitioners who use her models and methods to see patterns in the chaos that surrounds them, understand the patterns in simple and powerful ways, and take practical steps to shift chaos toward coherence. Her recent clients include the Finnish Research Institute (VTT), US Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, British Columbia Ministry of Health, Oxfam International, The International Baccalaureate Organization, The Sustainability Consortium, the Association for Medical Education in Europe, UK National Health Service, and Roffey Park Institute. 
Glenda received her doctorate in HSD from the Union Institute and University in 2001, studying under Drs. Donald Klein and Kevin Dooley. There she discovered three fundamental factors that influence the dynamics of self-organizing change in human systems. This research forms the foundation for the body of work that helps individuals, institutions, and communities respond to complex change. With colleagues around the world, Glenda delivers a hybrid of education and consulting in the form of Adaptive Action Laboratories. Individuals and teams bring their most wicked problems, learn and practice human systems dynamics approaches, and leave with plans for next wise action. Groups from Vancouver to Sao Paulo and Boston to Delhi have used this method to break through apparently intractable issues. 
Her published works include scholarly articles in a variety of fields and Radical Rules for Schools: Adaptive Action for Complex Change (HSD Institute, March 2013), and Coping with Chaos: Seven Simple Tools (Lagumo Press, 1996). Glenda’s latest book, with co-author Royce Holladay, is Adaptive Action: Leveraging Uncertainty in Your Organization (Stanford University Press, April 2013). It is a roadmap for anyone who chooses to work at the intersection of order and chaos.
Glenda grew up in the Texas Panhandle, where there is more sky than ground and the wind “has been blowing for a very long time.” She lives now near the headwaters of the Mississippi River, on a little lake in Circle Pines, Minnesota. Thanks to Zoom, she engages with global partners in local action.  For more information about Glenda and the HSD Institute, visit www.hsdinstitute.org. You can reach Glenda via email @Geoyang@hsdinstitute.org.