RETHINKING BEHAVIORS
- Admin
- Oct 20
- 16 min read
Updated: Oct 30
Making Sense of Lewin & Guilford Today
Researching and writing this sensemaking book, bridging emerging practice and theory, has provided an opportunity, perhaps even a responsibility to conduct a relook at various terminologies and constructs that are bubbling up as important in the context of the emerging Design for Complexity movement. Since we have been swimming in these rethinking waters for some time we did recognize that the importance of the term “behaviors” is rising. We also noted that “behaviors” was among the terms in the mix of this subject with different meanings, in different approaches, connected most often to the roots from which they sprang.
In the literature of some approaches “behavior” has been front and center since the early days, circa 1930s-50s. In other approach literature “behavior” is a term and consideration that is seldom seen. We contemplated how to help our readers make sense of that complex picture in this compressed format.
In our previous sensemaking book, Rethinking Design Thinking we found it useful to distinguish between inbound and outbound behaviors. In the context of design, interest in outbound behaviors is historically found under the header of being “human-centered”, with a focus on so-called users, or customers, or constituents. Inbound behavior is consideration of ourselves, the project team, the champions, the leaders, the culture dynamics, the behaviors embedded in organizational values.
Somewhat oddly, considering this subject of Design for Complexity, you won’t find much reference to (inbound) behaviors in the historical literature of design. In high contrast, behaviors is a term that appears in the early history of Action Research (circa 1930s-40s-forward), and Creative Problem Solving (CPS) (circa 1940s-50s-forward) both of which roll-up and appear inside various Design for Complexity approaches included in this book.
RETHINKING BEHAVIORS 1 / OUTBOUND & INBOUND
Many of our long-tuned-in NextD Journal readers would have noticed that interest in inbound behaviors rose significantly in the design community in this decade, primarily during the Design Thinking workshop wave. As the design community backed into team dynamics and culture considerations via workshop delivery, interest in engaging around inbound behaviors was heightened as never before. (Many of the thinking engagement exercises and discussion dynamics seen in introductory Design Thinking workshops originate in and were imported from the CPS community.)
In the transition to Arena 3, organizational changemaking and Arena 4, societal changemaking some practitioners rapidly found that outbound focus was/is no longer enough to meet the demands of such work.
Never just in one place, not all approaches in the emerging practice community made the shift from outbound focus to equal consideration of both, inbound and outbound. Not all Design for Complexity approaches tackle team dynamics and culture building.
The best way to understand what has happened, what is happening around behaviors in the context of Design for Complexity is to recognize two important behavior-oriented historical root streams that cascade forward. For readers making the transition from Arenas 1 & 2 to Arenas 3 & 4 and or contemplating building Design for Complexity capacity from scratch, having a sense of how behaviors are already present in emerging practice can be useful.
STANDING ON SHOULDERS: LEWIN / GUILFORD STORY
Much of what appears in the context Design For Complexity regarding behaviors stands on the shoulders of two notable behavior-related thought leader pioneers: Kurt Lewin (1890 - 1947) and JP Guilford (1897-1987), the former known as a Social Psychologist and the latter as a Cognitive Psychologist. Both were Scholars, Researchers, and Theorists, grounded in systems-oriented Gestalt school of psychology. Both based in the USA.
A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Lewin and Guilford as the 18th and 27th most cited psychologists of the 20th century. Neither are routinely found in historical traditional design literature.
Active as early as the 1930s,40s,50,60s their research and contributions proved to have numerous intergenerational practical applications in the context of organizational and societal changemaking. Operating from different psychological neighborhoods their views on behavior had numerous parallels and significant differences.
From a methods perspective: The Kurt Lewin approach to behaviors cascades early into his Action Research community approach, initially oriented towards academic contexts, and still evolving in the context of today.
JP Guilford’s approach to behaviors cascades into the early CPS (Creative Problem Solving) community methods language and its everyday application orientation, also still evolving today.
LEWIN / TOTAL LIFE SPACE / “FIELD THEORY”
The timeline helps tell the Lewin/Guilford story. Lewin wrote numerous scholarly books including “A Dynamic Theory of Personality” in 1935 and “Principles of Topological Psychology” in 1936. In the Lewin model behaviors are to be considered in the context of their environment which he depicted as “total life space” of perceptions, needs, and surroundings.
Lewin saw human behaviors as an emergent product of tensions in a “field”. Lewin's somewhat odd equation of B = f P,E) conveys his high altitude perspective that Behavior (B) is a function of both Person (P) and Environment (E). This became known as Lewin’s “Field Theory of Behavior”. He pointed out that behaviors are embedded in an affecting system that includes the psychological and physical environments.
For the purposes of this book a synthesizing Aimi Winkler noted that: “Lewin coined the term Group Dynamics in 1947. He theorized that when a group is established it becomes a unified system with supervening qualities that cannot be understood by evaluating members individually….Lewin is associated with conducting "founding research and training in group dynamics and for establishing the participative management style in organizations….He was curious as to how perspectives of an individual in relation to the group were solidified or weakened.”
Lewin’s “Field Theory” was intended to fit together with his so-called “Force Field Analysis" which was intended to sit inside the process that he named “Action Research," perhaps not the best name for it. In that process the focus is on articulating, sharing so-called “driving and constraining forces” believing that surfacing and related decision-making was the route to change.
“Field Theory” was a set of broad inbound considerations and his “Force Field Analysis” was primarily outbound in focus, a useful set of constructs with a few pieces missing.
The focus in the Lewin model was on recalibrating "driving and restraining forces", not on enabling “creative” dynamics. That restraining forces approach differs significantly from the direction of Guilford.
Kurt Lewin passed away 78 years ago in 1947 at the rather young age of 57. In the subsequent years, others built forward from what he had placed on the table.
Morphed by others over the course of many decades, in Lewin’s absence, the emphasis within Action Research has been questioned and adjusted numerous times with some versions focused heavily on research and other versions seeking to shift the emphasis and bolt on more activities related to “action”...the intended action of transformation/problem finding/accepting/solving/evolving. Multiple versions now exist.
GUILFORD / DIVERGENCE / CONVERGENCE / PROPORTIONALITY
Operating in a parallel universe, JP Guilford wrote numerous heavy-lift books including; “Psychometric Methods” in 1936, “Creativity” in 1950, “The Structure of Intellect” in 1955 and “The Nature of Human Intelligence" in 1967 . Guilford is best known for his psychometric study of human intelligence, including the distinction between divergent and convergent production which was adopted immediately into CPS process language as a foundational building block. Fleshing out the initial methodology language of CPS in the 1950s and 60s the pioneers in that community found great value in the scholarly work of JP Guilford. He became closely aligned with the CPS community.
Guilford’s massive research has informed the vast majority of thinking related exercises that still exist in many innovation workshops today. Much of his research was converted to experiential, foundational thinking exercises by the CPS community. Designed to rapidly teach the difference between divergence and convergence, those introductory exercises include; the belt, the brick, the mousetrap, the bathtub, new toy, the hurricane, homes of the future, etc. etc.
Embracing Guilford knowledge, the Journal of Creative Behavior was founded in the CPS community by Sid Parnes in 1967, and is still published.
In addition, Parnes published Creative Behavior Guidebook in 1967 containing what are considered the crown jewels of behavior-related know-how in the CPS community, at that time, in the form of an already codified learning program.
Differing from Lewin, in terms of how the group understands each other and how the interaction unfolds in groups, in the Guilford inspired CPS approach there is no magical/idealistic “when a group is established it becomes a unified system”. In the Guilford/CPS approach a group is unlikely to become “unified” without some insights regarding individual (divergent/convergent) thinking styles being present. From the Guilford/CPS perspective individual thinking style preferences expressed as behaviors tend to dominate groups.
In contrast to Lewin’s 20,000 ft. fly-over “field” view, Guilford served-up a table-top dynamics view with enormous practice implications. In that approach, team dynamics and power dynamics are mediated by making (divergent/convergent) thinking/behavior styles transparent to each other and connected to changemaking methodology. It's a systemic picture that is inclusive of both divergence and convergence.
That transparency-making tends to signal the equal value of both divergence and convergence while decoupling the hidden in plain sight shadow power dynamics that are often present and embedded in groups but not aligned with stated intentions. That shadow dynamic game is up with the arrival of Guilford inspired constructs and the deeper “field”.
The guts of Lewin’s Field Theory were also embraced and integrated into early CPS, but instead of making it a meat and potatoes, PhD level thesis, the consideration of affecting inbound context was, by the 1960s, converted to a 40-60 minute conversation around blockages to divergent behaviors in introductory CPS skill-building workshops. In any given changemaking intervention the inbound “field” is not the steak but rather a set of initial stage-setting conversations that take place prior to the kick-off of the Guilford inspired CPS methodology.
That interactive conversation would typically include experiential exercises around “Power of Habit”, “Blocks to Creativity” and “Tolerance of New Ideas” as well as detailed descriptions of Attitudinal Blocks, Behavioral Blocks, Thinking Blocks and Organizational Blocks. That would be one of numerous conversations that occur in introductory CPS skill-building but not considered a central plank in that methodology. In CPS logic there are bigger fish in the pond, so to speak.
SHARPENING / DEEPENING
It’s not that Guilford contradicted Lewin’s Field Theory or tossed out its considerations but rather that he sharpened, dimensionalized “the field” to include thinking/cognitive/behavior style preferences, a strategic and table top consideration not found in the Lewin model. In effect Guilford deepened Field Theory by adding considerations to it that directly map to methodology which directly maps to stated goals. There is no such direct systemic connection in Field Theory. After Guilford, no longer was “the field” so fuzzy.
Inbound facing, Field Theory places great emphasis on the notion that all participants in the “research” project see the problematic situation differently including the “researcher”. Today in the Guilford/CPS approach that's a ten minute conversation with the emphasis shifting to the much deeper consideration of making the thinking style preferences of the participants and the facilitator transparent. That depth does not appear in Field Theory.
In addition the Guilford/CPS model distinguishes content knowledge from process knowledge, between cocreation participants and the facilitator with the role of the facilitation leader being a process role. Learning how to lead, not from one’s personal thinking/cognitive/behavioral style preferences is a much more robust way to get at the possibility of bias, than just a conversation. This too is a deepening construct missing from Field Theory.
Similar to Field Theory, Guilford’s Diverge/Converge construct was intended to fit inside the CPS changemaking methodology which also contained numerous frameworks for consideration of external forces, today including lots of details around visualized data related to ever-evolving so-called VUCA.
In our first book Innovation Methods Mapping, spanning a period of 80+ years we did note that often the frameworks/devices for inbound consideration are not shown in the visualized process. Whether we all like it or not, the sequence of reflecting on internal “forces”, reflecting on external “forces” within a structured changemaking process has become the norm. Process models missing one of those parts would be at a significant disadvantage.
Both approaches can be found in the Think Blending going on as part of Design for Complexity. In some emerging approaches the Lewin roots are visible. In others the focus is on combining Lewin and Guilford insights building out behavioral considerations not as theory, but rather in the context of enabling changemaking capacity in the real world.
An imperfect analogy, previously cited, would again be the nested “doll” sequential evolution model. Lewin and Guilford created/tabled early “dolls”, both of which were embraced in the CPS community. In the Action Research community Lewin remained steadfast with Guilford knowledge absent.
It just so happened that as a less theoretical, more tangible construct; Guilford’s divergence/convergence had methodology and instrument/tool possibilities that are absent from Lewin Field Theory.
RETHINKING BEHAVIORS x 100 / TODAY
Lets appreciate that what the present evolution of the combined Lewin/Guilford construct looks like today and how it is being utilized is vastly different from what the initial ideas were when first tabled.* Today that nested set probably has 50-100+ “dolls” in its morphic evolution, most build-out from JP Guilford.
Changing metaphors; It has been said that the divergence/convergence construct started out as a rudimentary caterpillar and via multiple builds, across many decades became, what it is today, a full-fledged butterfly.
Along the way, numerous intense studies exploring how the Guilford construct plays out in real life helped to flesh out, in human terms, the implications related to changemaking including; out of the box and in the box imagination, openness, playfulness, rigidity, conformity, authoritarianism, messy responses, humor, rare themes, no people, controversial statements, etc. See Notes to Readers below.
Not on many designerly radar screens, many of the findings from that research remain electrifying and largely untapped.
Over the course of numerous decades, with Guilford’s construct as a building block, CPS-informed behavioral considerations blossomed in the direction of recognizing what became known as think balance, methodology balance, conversation analysis, document analysis, strategy analysis, team dynamics analysis, cognitive diversity, cognitive inclusion, cognitive privileging, cognitive bias, thinking styles, psychological safety, power dynamics, inclusive innovation strategy, behavioral ambidexterity, inclusive team dynamics and inclusive culture building. Much of that is rethinking that has already become operationalized.
ENORMOUS IMPLICATIONS
Among the most impactful insights coming from the direction of Guilford/CPS that runs completely contrary to what has been taught for decades in the graduate management/business schools is that deciding, judging, decision-making is recognized as, not the highest form of value, but rather as convergence. That one insight represents a HUGE rethink for many.
Connecting the dots, that understanding folds directly into innovation methodology which is recognized to contain by necessity, both generative/divergent and narrowing/convergent thinking. That realization folds into awareness that both thinking styles are present in the humans operating in any organization. That understanding folds into realization that organizations cannot get to psychological safety and inclusion via privileging convergent thinking. This is awareness 101 in the Guilford inspired approach but absent from the more decision and management oriented Lewin approach.
That particular Guilford/CPS insight has ENORMOUS implications that are still not widely understood in the design community, the management community or the business community but are being processed in the Design for Complexity emerging practice community and actionized into practice.
That multi-dimensional evolution and build-out is already a Rethinking Behavior x 100 and it is by necessity ongoing. In essence practice-based Rethinking Behavior is rethinking the boundaries of design and design offerings in a continuously changing world.
Truth be told: Unlike Action Research and CPS, neither Design or the later arriving Soft Systems Thinking have historically had a particular interest in engaging around or fleshing out inbound behavior related know-how. With roots in engineering, Soft Systems Thinking represents strong advocacy for looking at the behavior of the system (objects) rather than the humans within. It might not be clear from their tribal literature but the latter are relatively new kids on the block when it comes to the application of behavior/cognition related knowledge in the context of changemaking.
All of these bumpy dynamics are alive inside the still emerging Design for Complexity movement.
BIG PICTURE / THINK BALANCE
Last but not least; Among the many useful applications of the Guilford construct is analysis of proportionality, previously referred to above, also known in practice as *Think Balance. Miraculously this tumbles into the big picture concerns so well expressed in Ian McGilcrest’s "The Master and His Emissary". One cannot arrive at the proportionality conversation via Field Theory.
Oddly titled, “The Master and His Emissary” is the story of the relationship between the structure of the brain and its influence on western culture. McGilcrest unpacks the question; What kind of thinking do we have too much of and too little of?
At a time when many are questioning how the world has managed to arrive into its current fuxked-up, on-fire state, “The Master and His Emissary” serves up a deeply rooted, highly charged, hemispheric explanation, certainly worth reflecting on.
With the publishing of “The Master and His Emissary” a broad, deep perspective arrived to help us all reconsider some of what had become unfashionable in innovation-enabling circles.
The author makes a convincing case that our societal systems are heavily tilted by left hemisphere orientations, limitations, values and logics. That basic premise is wrapped in years of research and deep historical perspective spanning centuries; “The Ancient World, The Renaissance, The Enlightenment, The Modern World”, etc.
What McGilchrist is pointing out and expressing concern about is the same kind of think imbalance encountered in Arena 3 and Arena 4 work, a systemic imbalance deeply rooted in culture and education.
What McGilchrist is advocating is essentially a flip-the-script strategy. Recognizing/surfacing that presently the left hemisphere is the "Master" and the right hemisphere the "Emissary", he advocates a 180 degree flipping of that script.*See Notes to Readers below.
In previous NextD Journal posts we have written about how this balance/imbalance subject plays itself out in the context of changemaking in organizational and societal contexts, including the present imbalance of emphasis and the need to repair, regenerate the state of the world. In NextD Journal 2024 See: “Masters & Emissaries / Revisiting Hemispherics.
SYSTEMIC CONSIDERATIONS
While Lewin and “Field Theory” represents the fly-over introduction regarding behaviors, Guilford connects us via Think Balance into the forward looking considerations for the big picture universe and its overdue repair.
While the Lewin approach tends to manifest as the ‘Be Respectful to Each Other” manifesto. The Guilford inspired approach manifests as difficult-to-argue-with mechanics for constructing deliberate inclusion and for directly taking on cognitive bias, constructing psychological safety and perhaps most importantly, redesigning table-top power dynamics.
In effect, the Guilford/CPS construct brings daylight into the murky vagueness of team dynamics and cross-disciplinary collaboration in the context of changemaking.
The Lewin/Field Theory/Action Research systemic logic assumes behaviors are affected by and exist as part of a broader context. That's the Lewin “system” view.
The Guilford/CPS broader systemic logic deepens the context “field” AND positions behaviors as just one aspect of broader enabling changemaking system considerations.
That system includes not only an inclusive look at who we are and how we look/think behave in the context of changemaking but all considerations necessary to construct a purposeful systemic approach..
Two very different systems perspectives.
In reflecting on the Lewin/Guilford picture the question looms: Is the complex activity of undertaking cocreated organizational and or societal transformation in Arenas 3 and 4 the same as assuming change occurs when restraining forces are reduced and driving forces are strengthened?
Readers can decide. These are some of the complex entanglements regarding the becoming of Design for Complexity.
MIXED FRUIT
To some degree what we have in Lewin and Guilford are apples and oranges existing under the banner of “behaviors”. The upshot is that what gets created in a deliberate emerging practice combine is a hybrid mixed fruit….:-)
At the end of the day, perhaps what is most important is that Guilford/CPS provides the mechanism to give voice to the often under-represented but equally important humans engaged in changemaking. Ironically those underrepresented folks are most often generative thinkers, including designers. Bringing to bear that kind of precision is not possible in Field Theory.
We see this inclusive championing, enabling, orchestrating as among the responsibilities of a new generation of Design for Complexity leaders.
It’s also a construct that reminds us all to be mindful/careful regarding what dynamics, what value systems get folded into Design for Complexity as part of think blending.
Which underlying dynamics, from which discipline, which community, which approach do you want to be driving your train? In a complex world there are communities around with steadfast predispositions towards privileging convergent thinking. Best to find that out sooner, rather than later.
Of course not all approaches to Design for Complexity have built out extensively in the direction of inbound behavior/cognition knowledge.
Those practices that have done so, or are doing so, see this Behaviors Rethink aspect as critically important to being able to undertake the work already being encountered in Arena 3 and Arena 4. From that practice perspective, without undertaking a Rethinking of Behaviors engaging in Arena 3 and Arena 4 work would not be possible.
Others are present seeking to adapt Lewin and Action Research directionally away from academic contexts and more towards engaging in real-world problematics, sometimes using the word design and other times not. Action Research has recently been rebranded as Action Inquiry.
CLOSING
While all of that behavior related diversity and complexity is manifesting itself in the Design for Complexity movement, a spectrum of approaches to behavior is evolving.
Current Approaches:
No Behaviors Awareness Approach
Anti-Behaviors Approach
Lewin Behaviors Approach Focus
Guilford Behaviors Approach Focus
Integrated Hybrid Approach Focus
The deliberate construction of inclusion is not part of every Design for Complexity approach.
Suffice it to say that some in the emerging practice Design for Complexity community believe that Future Casting is the future of design. Some believe that Continuous Strategic Intervention linked to Think Balance is the future of design. Some believe both are necessary. There is not one unified view of Design for Complexity .
Some good news is that we all get to choose which best suits our practices, life goals and interests.
END.
EPILOGUE / GK VanPatter: The value in on-boarding some innovation history is of course to learn from it, to chalk up the lessons rather than repeat them. The complexity is that not everyone intergenerationally got all the memos on what already has been learned. Such is the complex system of systems in which we all live.
Happy to share this lesson. I once saw Edward de Bono present in person at a conference. Standing on stage drawing on a screen, Edward drew a stick figure to represent a human. Continuing to draw, he wrapped that figure in rope and drew a violin at his/her feet. He then asked the audience: If we remove the rope constraints does that make that person a violin player?
I cannot remember anything else that happened at that conference but that lesson stayed with me. Good luck to all.
( I later interviewed Edward and will republish that conversation one day soon.)
*NOTES TO READERS:
1. This chapter is not intended to be a comparison between Action Inquiry, CPS, Design and Soft Systems Thinking. We will however point out that Open Systemic Challenge Framing does not exist in Action Inquiry, Design or Soft Systems Thinking, unless it has been acknowledgingly or unacknowledgingly imported from the CPS community.
2. In our Innovation Methods Mapping book we hypothesized that individual thinking style preferences drive methodology design (Preference Projection Theory) and balance/imbalance so the builds on the Guilford model continue.
3. Knowingly or unknowingly, many of the divergent thinking exercises found in Design Thinking workshops today come directly from the work of JP Guilford via the CPS community that did much work in the 1950s-60s to convert his research into codified experiential learning exercises. There is no equivalent to that research in the design community.
4. We recognized that the book entitled; The Master and His Emissary can be interpreted as a direct hit on and challenge to those consultant folks out in the marketplace selling convergent thinking (decision-making) support as innovation and changemaking. Difficult subject.
5. The Method Analysis Template utilized in our first book Innovation Methods Mapping and in this book along with the notion of Think Balance were informed by the constructs of JP Guilford.
*Related Studies / Highly Recommended
Contrary Imaginations, A Psychological Study of the Young Student, 1966, Liam Hudson
Creativity and Intelligence, Explorations with Gifted Students, 1968, Jacob Getzels, Philip Jackson
Related Previously Published:
NextD Journal: 2024: “Masters & Emissaries / Revisiting Hemispherics, 2024
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