About Peripeteia

Who we are and what makes us Peripeteia

“We are glob­al cit­izens united by the aspir­a­tion, and per­sist­ence in our efforts, to devel­op the dis­trib­uted capa­city for think­ing and act­ing sys­tem­ic­ally, so people make decisions col­lect­ively for a just, more peace­ful soci­ety and healthy rela­tion­ship with our plan­et.”

Peripeteiaeripeteia is an evolving glob­al com­munity of pas­sion­ate sys­tems think­ing prac­ti­tion­ers and insti­tu­tion­al entre­pren­eurs. We are glob­al cit­izens united by the aspir­a­tion, and the same time by the struggle, to improve the well-being of our plan­et and of our soci­ety. This urges all of us to think crit­ic­al togeth­er and to take col­lect­ive, stra­tegic action in a com­plex inter­con­nec­ted world, with inter­de­pend­ent issues, where con­trast­ing under­stand­ings, motiv­a­tions, goals and interests can often lead to insti­tu­tion­al con­tra­dic­tions, frag­men­ted value cre­ation and unin­ten­ded con­sequences caused by our actions.

The UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goal no.4 places great emphas­is on edu­ca­tion, with the UNESCO advoc­at­ing for edu­ca­tion which facil­it­ates the enact­ment of Glob­al Cit­izen­ship. The United Nations Sys­tems Lead­er­ship Frame­work and the OECD, calls for Sys­tems Think­ing in Action and for co-cre­ation through inter-organ­isa­tion­al rela­tion­ships.

We at Peri­peteia share this vis­ion, with a con­vic­tion that Glob­al Cit­izen­ship must be enacted upon by all of us, with a much needed dis­trib­uted capa­city for sys­tem­ic inquiry and applied sys­tems think­ing as the found­a­tion to real­ise the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals.

n a com­munity of prac­tice do we build and enlarge capa­city, not depend­ency, in indi­vidu­als, groups and organ­isa­tions to think and act sys­tem­ic­ally as glob­al cit­izens. We foster cap­ab­il­it­ies to make indi­vidu­al and col­lect­ive decisions with eth­ic­al, insti­tu­tion­al aware­ness, and polit­ic­al, cul­tur­al sens­it­iv­ity. We nur­ture the capa­city to stra­tegic­ally util­ise under­stand­ing of Intraper­son­al and inter­re­la­tion­ships, with appre­ci­ation of mul­tiple per­spect­ives and crit­ic­al engage­ment with unequal power rela­tions. Through a sys­tem­ic inquiry cycle do we enable our part­ners to become a resi­li­ent and effect­ive com­munity for sys­tem­ic action, to engage flex­ible with com­plex­ity and uncer­tainty, and to nego­ti­ate, co-cre­ate and enact strategies for sys­tem­ic change. As our part­ner regain their resi­li­ence to enact sys­tem­ic change, they become the seeds to grow an evolving glob­al eco­sys­tem for sys­tem­ic action, with the dis­trib­uted capa­city to change togeth­er how our story as glob­al soci­ety unfolds.

Change the way how our story unfolds …

Meet the Jugglers at Peripeteia

Barbara Schmidt-Abbey

Barbara Schmidt-Abbey

I’m Bar­bara Schmidt-Abbey. I’m Ger­man but live in Dub­lin (Ire­land) since 1991 – that’s now longer than I lived in Ger­many, so I sup­pose I’m half-Irish at this point! I’m mar­ried to an Irish­man and we have a 21-year-old son (a Sci­ence stu­dent in col­lege). I ori­gin­ally came to Dub­lin …
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Barbara Schmidt-Abbey

I’m Bar­bara Schmidt-Abbey. I’m Ger­man but live in Dub­lin (Ire­land) since 1991 – that’s now longer than I lived in Ger­many, so I sup­pose I’m half-Irish at this point! I’m mar­ried to an Irish­man and we have a 21-year-old son (a Sci­ence stu­dent in col­lege).

I ori­gin­ally came to Dub­lin to work at the European Found­a­tion for the Improve­ment of Liv­ing and Work­ing Con­di­tions (Euro­found), a Dub­lin-based tri­part­ite EU agency provid­ing know­ledge to assist in the devel­op­ment of bet­ter social, employ­ment and work-related policies. I still work there now (full­time), in my cur­rent role as Mon­it­or­ing & Eval­u­ation Officer, deal­ing with aspects of per­form­ance meas­ure­ment and eval­u­ation of the agency’s own pro­grammes (and oth­er related things). Pri­or to this role which I hold since 2007, I worked in inform­a­tion sys­tems design and devel­op­ment, web con­tract man­age­ment and sim­il­ar more tech­nic­al and busi­ness ana­lys­is roles.

I hold a BA (Dip­lom (FH) in inform­a­tion sci­ence (Ger­many (Univ of Applied Sci­ences, Cologne, 1986), a Mas­ter of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion (MBA) (Open Uni­ver­sity, UK, 2008), and an MSc in Sys­tems Think­ing in Prac­tice (STiP) (Open Uni­ver­sity, UK, 2016).

While study­ing the core course mod­ules of this STiP pro­gramme, I have developed a deep appre­ci­ation of, and pas­sion for, the value of sys­tems think­ing and sys­tems prac­tice, which pro­foundly chal­lenges the lin­ear and reduc­tion­ist approaches of dom­in­ant prac­tices we encounter in main­stream (pub­lic) man­age­ment, research, devel­op­ment, poli­cy­mak­ing, eval­u­ation and so on – and the con­vic­tion that it is crit­ic­al to share aware­ness and know­ledge about the insights from sys­tems think­ing and prac­tice as widely as pos­sible, so that we can col­lect­ively con­trib­ute towards sys­tem­ic­ally desir­able ‘design turns’ in many endeav­ours of soci­et­al and social con­cern.

My tra­ject­ory across these stud­ies and my work exper­i­ences has taken me from ori­gin­ally being firmly rooted in the realm of the ‘sys­tem­at­ic’ and onto­lo­gic­al under­stand­ing of sys­tems towards an increas­ing shift towards a ‘sys­tem­ic’ and epi­stem­ic under­stand­ing and engage­ment. This has had con­sequences for my prac­tice in mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation: whilst I star­ted out as a believ­er in ‘meas­ur­ing’ per­form­ance and ‘impact’ accord­ing to the Res­ults-Based Man­age­ment paradigm, I have become increas­ingly crit­ic­al over the years of the under­ly­ing lin­ear and reduc­tion­ist assump­tions which are at the core of cur­rent mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation prac­tices and tools (such as the log frame, man­age­ment by object­ives, and the wide­spread belief that everything, includ­ing ‘impact’ of inter­ven­tions could be meas­ured (and man­aged).

In my exper­i­ence, these approaches do not hold up con­sid­er­ing the com­plex­ity and uncer­tainty inher­ent in (social) changes. For example, research and eval­u­ation approaches hailed as ‘gold stand­ards’ such as Ran­dom­ized Con­trol Tri­als and oth­er quant­it­at­ive meth­ods may have their (lim­ited) uses, but I believe that much dam­age is being done through their some­times mind­less applic­a­tion and dom­in­ance in the ‘evid­enced-based poli­cy­mak­ing’ paradigm which still under­pins much of cur­rent eval­u­ation and social research prac­tice with­in that paradigm. How­ever, things are chan­ging – there is grow­ing recog­ni­tion of the chal­lenges of com­plex­ity and sys­tem­ic char­ac­ter­ist­ics in inter­ven­tions in the eval­u­ation field, to which I am keen to con­trib­ute in my pro­fes­sion­al prac­tice as mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation prac­ti­tion­er. Sys­tems think­ing offers a range of approaches (mind­sets as well as ‘tools’ (a range of sys­tems meth­od­o­lo­gies taught on the STiP pro­gramme) which can help us to engage more sys­tem­ic­ally in all sorts of ‘sys­tems’ and situ­ations char­ac­ter­ized by change.

Tak­ing my pas­sion for sys­tems think­ing in prac­tice to the next level, I also study (part-time) towards a PhD with the Open Uni­ver­sity (Applied Sys­tems Think­ing in Prac­tice Group). I work on the top­ic ‘Towards Sys­tem­ic Policy Ana­lys­is and Eval­u­ation at the Sci­ence-Policy Inter­face’ (expec­ted com­ple­tion in 2024). The research ques­tions I’m look­ing at include:

  • What new under­stand­ings can be gained from a sys­tem­ic explor­a­tion about the prac­tices of provid­ing sci­entif­ic or eval­u­at­ive know­ledge to poli­cy­makers?
  • What can be observed in bound­ary organ­isa­tions about the (chan­ging) role of (i) research insti­tu­tions, (ii) eval­u­ation prac­tices, (iii) com­plex­ity and sys­tems think­ing ideas, in sup­port­ing policy ‘inter­ven­tions’ (under­stood as human design and imple­ment­a­tion through pro­jects, pro­grams and policy)?
  • How can prac­ti­tion­ers in such prac­tice con­stel­la­tions make the pro­vi­sion of evid­ence and know­ledge to poli­cy­makers more sys­tem­ic / com­plex­ity-sens­it­ive?

Barbara’s pub­lic­a­tions (so far):

my social media pres­ence:

My blog: https://serendipitiesonline.wordpress.com/

Carrie Frickman

Carrie Frickman

Car­rie is a graph­ic record­er, illus­trat­or and con­ser­va­tion­ist based out of Fort Collins, Col­or­ado. Her work is inspired by inter­con­nec­tions between human­ity and the envir­on­ment and she har­nesses the power of visu­al com­mu­nic­a­tion to deep­en …
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Carrie Frickman

Car­rie is a graph­ic record­er, illus­trat­or and con­ser­va­tion­ist based out of Fort Collins, Col­or­ado. Her work is inspired by inter­con­nec­tions between human­ity and the envir­on­ment and she har­nesses the power of visu­al com­mu­nic­a­tion to deep­en and strengthen these con­nec­tions. Carrie’s cur­rent path as a visu­al prac­ti­tion­er has grown from her exper­i­ences as a nat­ur­al­ist, envir­on­ment­al edu­cat­or, sus­tain­ab­il­ity plan­ner and social sci­ence research­er. Art has always been a core pas­sion of hers and she feels incred­ibly grate­ful for the oppor­tun­ity to util­ize this strength to sup­port social and envir­on­ment­al change around the world. You can view her port­fo­lio at http://www.heartwoodvisuals.com.

Michael von Kutzschenbach

Michael von Kutzschenbach

Michael von Kutz­schen­bach is a Pro­fess­or at the Insti­tute of Man­age­ment (FHNW) in Switzer­land. He is a prac­ti­tion­er and an aca­dem­ic in the field of sus­tain­able busi­nesses. He is an acknow­ledged expert in sus­tain­ab­il­ity …
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Michael von Kutzschenbach

Michael von Kutz­schen­bach is a Pro­fess­or at the Insti­tute of Man­age­ment (FHNW) in Switzer­land. He is a prac­ti­tion­er and an aca­dem­ic in the field of sus­tain­able busi­nesses. He is an acknow­ledged expert in sus­tain­ab­il­ity, feed­back sys­tems think­ing, and organ­iz­a­tion devel­op­ment.

He stud­ied Forest and Envir­on­ment­al Sci­ences at the Albert-Lud­wigs-Uni­ver­sity in Freiburg (Ger­many) and the Nor­we­gi­an Uni­ver­sity of Life Sci­ences (Nor­way) and obtained his PhD on the top­ic of “organ­iz­a­tion­al learn­ing and inform­al social net­works”. His research interests lie in the inter­ac­tion of hard and soft sys­tems think­ing, espe­cially in the areas of organ­iz­a­tion­al learn­ing and man­age­ment for “less unsus­tain­ab­il­ity” in an increas­ingly digit­al world. He has pub­lished on the com­plex chal­lenge of man­aging sus­tain­ab­il­ity, digit­al trans­form­a­tion, and feed­back sys­tems think­ing.

In addi­tion to his research and teach­ing activ­it­ies at FHNW, he is the founder of “mvk – Kutz­schen­bach Insti­tute for Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Stud­ies” sup­port­ing organ­iz­a­tions as a sys­tems and com­plex­ity coach.

Selec­ted Art­icles and Book Con­tri­bu­tions:

von Kutz­schen­bach, M. and Daub C.-H. (2019). Entre­pren­eur­ship For Sus­tain­able Innov­a­tion – Chan­ging The Sys­tem To The Bet­ter. NBM 2019 – 4th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on New Busi­ness Mod­els, July 1 – 3, 2019. ESCP Europe Ber­lin, Ger­many.

Luthe, T. and von Kutz­schen­bach, M. (2016). Build­ing Com­mon Ground in Men­tal Mod­els of Sus­tain­ab­il­ity. Sus­tain­ab­il­ity: The Journ­al of Record, 9(5), 247 – 254.

Brønn, C. and von Kutz­schen­bach, M. (2014). Enga­ging Sus­tain­ab­il­ity – A Mul­ti­level Approach to Stra­tegic Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Chal­lenges. 20th Annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Research Con­fer­ence Nor­we­gi­an Uni­ver­sity of Sci­ence and Tech­no­logy, June 18 – 20, 2014. Trond­heim, Nor­way.

von Kutz­schen­bach, M., and Brønn, C. (2010). You can’t teach under­stand­ing, you con­struct it: Apply­ing social net­work ana­lys­is to organ­iz­a­tion­al learn­ing. Pro­cedia-Social and Beha­vi­or­al Sci­ences, 4, 83 – 92.

von Kutz­schen­bach, M., and Brønn, C. (2006). Com­mu­nic­at­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment ini­ti­at­ives: Apply­ing co-ori­ent­a­tion to forest man­age­ment cer­ti­fic­a­tion. Journ­al of Com­mu­nic­a­tion Man­age­ment, 10(3), 304 – 322.

Sascha Kress

Sascha Kress

Wel­come to our com­munity at Peri­peteia. Peri­peteia, as with so many forces for good, is an emer­ging sys­tem, cre­ated through the inter­play of life exper­i­ence, val­ues, con­cerns, pas­sions and aspir­a­tions of many people, which deeply care about our soci­ety and our plan­et.
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Sascha Kress

My per­son­al story star­ted as rel­at­ively young social entre­pren­eur, where I was con­fron­ted with ser­i­ous ill­ness in my own fam­ily, which let me deeply think about the many causes even­tu­ally lead­ing to the slow decay of the qual­ity of life, held thus far as taken for gran­ted. This sparked my interest to bet­ter under­stand the inter­de­pend­ent forces caus­ing the deteri­or­a­tion of our well-being and the same time my aspir­a­tion to explore ways to improve, what I felt was a very dys­func­tion­al sys­tem. I have been for­tu­nate to meet oth­er equally pas­sion­ate and caring people, which let me to cre­ate vari­ous social enter­prises with a focus on sys­tem­ic change, the inter­play between health, work and qual­ity of life. Sys­tems think­ing was at that time rel­at­ively new to us, but soon became an estab­lished prac­tice to bet­ter under­stand the real-world chal­lenges of our bene­fi­ciar­ies, of the people which we thought as part of the prob­lem and part of the solu­tion, with appre­ci­ation of inform­al and form­al insti­tu­tions, their val­ues, norms and goals, which informed col­lab­or­at­ively design of ser­vices and tech­no­lo­gies more in tune with the indi­vidu­al needs, as opposed to fol­low the now so com­mon scalab­il­ity paradigm. Our work became centered around sys­tems think­ing meth­od­o­lo­gies inform­ing our strategies and crit­ic­al reflect­ing on our prac­tice, while also strengthened the capa­city of our part­ners to apply sys­tems think­ing to their own prac­tice. Our approach let me to reward­ing work in dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al con­texts, with com­munit­ies, gov­ern­ments, private and pub­lic stake­hold­ers and the devel­op­ment of excit­ing part­ner­ships in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
The ingenu­ity of people con­fron­ted with ser­i­ous deteri­or­a­tion of their qual­ity of life, the rich and yet untapped cre­at­ive capa­city in every per­son in any organ­isa­tion­al set­ting, the strength and yet frag­ment­a­tion of per­son­al, of inter-organ­isa­tion­al rela­tion­ships, the need for reflec­tion, open­ness, col­lab­or­at­ive learn­ing and patience for mutu­al trust build­ing and shared under­stand­ing, has been one of the many import­ant les­sons learned for me.

Wheth­er work­ing in a social entre­pren­eur­i­al capa­city or in an advis­ory role to foster joint innov­a­tion and industry col­lab­or­a­tion in the health­care sec­tor, what I became to real­ise are deeply embed­ded com­mon chal­lenges, such as chan­ging our estab­lished ways to see the world and oth­ers, to reflect on our ingrained believes how the world works and ought to work, and the mar­gin­al developed crit­ic­al capa­city to see the world through the eyes of oth­ers. These chal­lenges I believe, pose sig­ni­fic­ant obstacles to come togeth­er, to work in a true, trus­ted part­ner­ship, which is required to under­stand the many inter­re­lated chal­lenges of our time, and to co-cre­ate strategies for sys­tem­ic change.

Peri­peteia was foun­ded on the believe and con­vic­tion, that our indi­vidu­al and col­lect­ive capa­city for sys­tems think­ing and action needs to be developed and nur­tured, which will enable us to co-cre­ate strategies for fun­da­ment­al, sys­tem­ic change. As a com­munity of prac­ti­tion­ers, or as we call them “Jug­glers”, we deeply care for the well-being of our soci­ety and our plan­et, with a shared pas­sion and ded­ic­a­tion to crit­ic­ally engage with many of the com­plex chal­lenges of our time and to explore new path­ways togeth­er for a bet­ter qual­ity of life and rela­tion­ship with our plan­et.

We are look­ing for­ward to hav­ing a dia­logue with you, writ­ing a new chapter of our soci­ety togeth­er, which will change the way how our story unfolds.