Chicken Sweaters

Have you ever had an experience that left you speechless? Or maybe an experience that caused so much excitement within you that you felt you were going to burst? Both those statements sum up my second weekend in October!  Over the last few days, I was at Islandwood on Bainbridge Island going through my first “intensive” while enrolled at Bainbridge Graduate Institute.   This fast-paced experience left me exhausted but hungry for more. 

The BGI intensive started right on the cusp of quarter end (aka my “work intensive”) and I went into this weekend a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to be fully present.  That worry was thrown right out the window as soon as I met the rest of my cohort, C12. 

C12 is a group of phenomenal individuals.  The intelligence, skill set and compassion of this group is nothing short of A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  I immediately felt excitement at the possibilities of what’s to come.  There is no doubt that this group is destined for great things! 

One of the first exercises we did involved mapping out some of the major milestones within sustainability.  Trends that emerged over each decade in the last 60 years became apparent.  2000-2009, the decade I was paired with, can be summed up by saying it was the age for furthering the self-reporting movement.  Entities such as corporations and governments began voluntarily reporting on areas such as social responsibility and environmental impact in the last decade of the 20^th century.   This practice became more refined during the first decade of the 21^st century.  I had the opportunity to report on the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Authored in 2006, the 700-page review states that “if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever.”  One of Stern’s biggest conclusions in the report is that “the benefits of strong, early action on climate change outweigh the costs.”   Because of my analytical mindset, this report was quite fascinating to me.  Quantifying issues with dollar figures is quite powerful and coupling the fact that this report was commissioned by the United Kingdom government has allowed its impact to reach deep.

The main theme throughout the weekend was systems analysis.  Donella Meadows defines a system as “a set of things – people, cells, molecules, or whatever – interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior overtime.” Several examples were called out and we worked through them in teams.   An incredible amount of information was disseminated (almost to the point I couldn’t fathom hearing “reinforcing loop” one more time); however two key lessons emerged for me.    

Lesson 1: The behavior of a system cannot be determined just by knowing what the elements of the system are.  When diagramming out the system it becomes easier to see what’s happening and the why behind it becomes more apparent.  This was a pivotal point within the exercises for me because it tended to make things less complex then I initially thought they were. 

Lesson 2: A good way to determine a system’s purpose is to watch to see how the system behaves.  This “purpose” of the system is not always in line with quantified goals.  How often does a problem arise within a system that wasn’t expected? I’ve spent a lot of my professional career testing changes by running simulations in order to make sure things are performing as expected.  Dissecting the parts of the system to better understand the interconnectedness of parts is a valuable tool.

Systems are everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  Systems thinking is a powerful concept that allows one to deduce the fundamental attributes of a system.   Applying these skills and principles in school and professionally will come naturally now.   

Towards the end of the weekend, we were able to work more closely with our project teams in setting clear expectations with one another and further defining the project topic we want to explore.  I’m fortunate enough to be on a team with a diverse skill set and an inherent passion for food.   We informally deemed our team name to be “Chicken Sweaters,” so you can imagine how much I’m looking forward to this experience!

This weekend left me thinking that there’s not an adjective in the dictionary that I couldn’t use to describe my first intensive.  This weekend was a time for discovery – both personally and professionally.  I never thought of myself as a visual learner but quickly realized I had been wrong in that assumption.  I never thought pure exhaustion would equate to peace and bliss.   I never thought that I could meet so many new people and yet still feel like I’ve known them all for years.  BGI is truly a transformative school that builds its foundation on a sense of community, the importance of being dynamic and the power of creativity.   I mean I’m writing a blog right now and not a paper! How progressive is that?!   

XOXOXO

Emily
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