From transforming 'systems' to 'transforming' systems : and back again?

![CDATA[Over the course of the four decades of my professional career, I have journeyed through three 'systems ages' or waves of development as they have been called. My initial focus was on learning to transform 'hard systems' out there in the world - with farming systems as a primary concern. After a decade or so of that, I turned my attention to transforming issues of critical concern 'out there' through the use of soft and critical systems methodologies. Then I discovered that, in order to be effective at transformations of critical issues within it, I needed, as an essential pre-requisite, to first transform my own way of 'seeing' that world - my own ways of coming to know, it as it were. I have come to conclude that before we can transform any other system of interest in the material and social worlds, we need first to understand and develop our own intellectual and moral transforming system.]]