TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface to the Second Edition

Prologue: Overcoming System Blindness

Act I. Seeing the Big Picture

Scene 1. When We Don’t See the Big Picture
1 Pinball
2 The Manager of the Heart
3 The Mystery of the Swim
4 Seeing the Local Picture
5 “Stuff” Happens

Scene 2. From Spatial Blindness to Spatial Sight
6 Seeing Context
7 The “Truth” About Jack
8 Charlotte Is a Problem
9 Center Ring or Side Show?
10 Times Out of Time: Seeing the Whole
11 The TOOT Dilemma

Scene 3. From Temporal Blindness to Temporal Sight
12 The Invisible Histories of the Swims We Are In
13 History’s Burst of Illumination
14 Bart and Barb: A System Evolves . . . Perfectly
15 “Anthropology” or Mick Gets Wiped Out
16 Applied Anthropology: Unraveling System History

Act II. Seeing Patterns of Relationship

Scene 1. Relational Blindness
17 What About All the Drama?
18 The Dance of Blind Reflex

Scene 2. From Relational Blindness to Relational Sight
19 Three Patterns of Relationship
20 One Wakes, the Other Sleeps
21 The Top/Bottom Dance of Blind Reflex
22 It Takes Two to Tango . . . or Does It?
23 Let’s Declare Bankruptcy: Transforming the Top/Bottom Dance
24 The Universal Civics Course
25 The End/Middle/End Dance of Blind Reflex
26 Daniel: Mutant in the Middle Space
27 Organizations in the Middle
28 The Provider/Customer Dance of Blind Reflex
29 Overcontrol or Transformation: The Mutant Customer
30 The Unfairly Judged Professor (and the Righteously Done-to-Students)
31 Abused and Misused in the Space of Service
32 The Web of Relationships
33 How to Clean Sidewalks: It’s a Matter of Being
34 Resistance or The Sound of the Old Dance Shaking
35 How We Can See the Dance

Act III. Seeing Patterns of Process

Scene 1. Process Blindness
36 Are You Sure You Have It All?
37 Turf Warfare, Alienation, and GroupThink: The Dance of Blind Reflex Continued
38 Relationship Breakdowns in a Nutshell

Scene 2. From Process Blindness to Process Sight
39 Territorial Tops: Stuck on Differentiation
40 The Success of a Business, the Failure of Its Partners
41 Learning from Experience: A Good Second Marriage
42 Help! No Recovering Top Groups Sighted
43 Advice for the Top Team
44 Alienated Middles: Stuck on Individuation
45 Alienation Among the Middles
46 Can Alienated Middles Become a Powerful System?
47 Mutant Middle Groups
48 How to Create Powerful Middle Teams
49 Bottom GroupThink: Stuck on Integration
50 Immigrant Martha Has a Breakdown
51 Where Is Everyone? A Mutant Bottom Group
52 Power Is Managing Differentiation
53 Creating Powerful Bottom Groups

Scene 3. The Politics of System Processes
54 Huddlers and Humanists . . . Enough With Consensus!
55 Amebocytes and Slugs: The Politics of Individuation and Integration
56 The Politics of Gender
57 Or Would You Rather Be an Earthworm? Societal Implications of Differentiation and Homogenization
58 Differentiation: Inquiry or Warfare?
59 An Ode to Homogenization

Scene 4. The Challenge of Robust Systems
60 The Dominants and the Others
61 Robust System Processes
62 The Dance of the Robust System: Ballet Notes
63 A Remarkable, If Somewhat Premature Epiphany

Act IV. Seeing Uncertainty

64 The Emergence of Organizational Positions

Scene 1. Individuals in Uncertainty
65 Individuals Facing and Escaping from Organizational Uncertainty
66 A Mutant Moment in the Middle
67 Dancing in and out of the Tunnel of Limited Options
68 His Magic Consultant Card #2

Scene 2. Groups in Uncertainty
69 Groups Facing and Escaping from Uncertainty
70 How to Transform Oppositional Struggles into Multifaceted Flexible Teams

Scene 3. Facing and Escaping the Uncertainties of Existence
71 Not All Possibilities Are Possible
72 Coping with Uncertainty Through Mythos and Logos

The Next Act—Seeing More
Epilogue: A Continuing Revolution
Notes
About the Author