Über Peripeteia

Wer sind wir, was tun wir als Peripeteia

„Wir sind glo­ba­le Bür­ger, ver­bun­den durch die Aspi­ra­ti­on und glei­cher­ma­ßen durch die Bemü­hun­gen das Wohl­erge­hen unse­re Gesell­schaft und unse­res Pla­ne­ten zu ver­bes­sern und sicher­zu­stel­len.“

Peripeteiaeri­pe­teia ist eine pas­sio­nier­te ler­nen­de Gemein­schaft von insti­tu­tio­nel­len Unter­neh­mern und prak­ti­zie­ren­den, kri­ti­schen sys­te­mi­schen Den­kern, mit Schwer­punkt auf sys­te­mi­sches, Kon­text bezo­ge­nes Han­deln. Als glo­ba­le Bür­ger sind wir ver­bun­den durch die Aspi­ra­ti­on und zu glei­chen Tei­len durch die Anstren­gun­gen sozia­len und öko­lo­gi­schen Her­aus­for­de­run­gen zu begeg­nen. Dies ver­langt von uns kol­lek­ti­ves, kri­ti­sches sys­te­mi­sches Den­ken und kom­mu­ni­ka­ti­ves Han­deln, in einer kom­ple­xen von Unsi­cher­heit gepräg­ten Welt, in wel­cher in Wech­sel­wir­kung ste­hen­den Pro­ble­me, gegen­sätz­li­che Wer­ten, Nor­men und Zie­len, oft zu insti­tu­tio­nel­len Wie­der­sprü­chen, Frag­men­tie­rung in sozia­ler, öko­lo­gi­scher Wer­ter­brin­gung und zu unge­woll­ten nega­ti­ven Kon­se­quen­zen füh­ren.

n eine Pra­xis Gemein­schaft, arbei­ten wir part­ner­schaft­lich mit Insti­tu­tio­nen, Orga­ni­sa­tio­nen und sozia­len Unter­neh­mun­gen zusam­men, ent­wi­ckeln und stär­ken Kapa­zi­tät und nicht die Abhän­gig­keit. Durch siche­ren und fle­xi­blen, kon­text­be­zo­ge­nen Ein­satz sys­te­mi­scher Metho­do­lo­gi­en, bestär­ken wir unse­re Part­ner Kom­ple­xi­tät zu erken­nen und effek­ti­ve zu begeg­nen, oft gegen­sätz­li­che Per­spek­ti­ven, Wer­te, Regeln und Nor­men zu ver­han­deln und kri­tisch mit unglei­chen, sozia­len Kraft­ver­hält­nis­sen umzu­ge­hen. Der stra­te­gi­sche Ein­satz sys­te­mi­scher Ansät­ze wird als kol­lek­ti­ve Kapa­zi­tät, durch einen sys­te­mi­schen, akti­ons­ori­en­tier­ten sozia­len Lern­zy­klus ent­wi­ckelt, und durch kom­mu­ni­ka­ti­ves Han­deln die gemein­sa­me Umset­zung von Hand­lungs­stra­te­gi­en für sys­te­mi­sche Ver­än­de­run­gen fokus­siert. Die erwei­ter­te Kapa­zi­tät wird nach­hal­tig eta­bliert, die Insti­tu­ti­on, Orga­ni­sa­ti­on oder Unter­neh­mung befä­higt den Lern­zy­klus eigen­stän­dig in zukünf­ti­gen Pro­jek­ten und Maß­nah­men zu repli­zie­ren. Durch Befä­hi­gung unser Part­ner für sys­te­mi­sches Den­ken und Han­del, wächst ein glo­ba­le Gemein­schaft, mit kon­ti­nu­ier­li­chem Aus­tausch von Erfah­rung, den Erfol­gen und Her­aus­for­de­run­gen in der Bestre­bung sys­te­mi­sche Ver­än­de­run­gen zu rea­li­sie­ren, was zur Wei­ter­ent­wick­lung der Metho­do­lo­gi­en und deren kon­tex­tua­li­sier­ten Ein­satz führt.

Den Verlauf unserer Geschichte gemeinsam verändern…

Treffen Sie die Jongleure bei 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.