32: The Century of the System with James Krantz

This conversation is important for anyone working in organisations, and trying to make sense of systems thinking.  Jim has been working with systems for many years and offers insights into how systems thinking evolved, why it is so important, and also why it is problematic and creates resistances.  Drawing on psychoanalysis as a ‘moral’ practice, Jim believes that unless we understand the psychodynamics and emotions that are at play when we take a systems approach, it will likely fail.  For example, he describes how systems thinking removes the option of blaming the binary ‘bad other’, which is our comfortable fall-back position in so many instances.  Applying systems thinking we are all implicated and part of the challenges, and the problems we face are about interactions between things rather than the objects themselves. Jim brings a very humanistic lens to systems thinking and it is a  privileged to share this conversation and the wisdom and insights shared. 

James Krantz, Ph.D. is an organizational consultant and researcher from New York City, where he is a Principal of Worklab Consulting, LLC.  Jim has written extensively about the unconscious in work organizations, the dilemmas of leadership and authority in new forms of organization, and the challenges involved in developing one’s leadership voice.  His Ph.D. is in Systems Sciences from the Wharton School. 

 In addition to consulting, Jim has been on several faculties, including those of Yale and Wharton.  Currently he serves on the faculty of the School of Higher Economics in Moscow.  Jim is past President of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations, Fellow of the A.K. Rice Institute, Member of OPUS and Chair of the Management Committee of the Organisational and Social Dynamics journal.