Stages and Dimensions of Systems Intelligence

Following the footsteps of emotional, social, cultural and other types of intelligence, systems intelligence offers a new perspective on how individuals act with a lesser or greater degree of intelligence within physical and social systems. First appearing in the published literature in 2004, systems intelligence has resonated with the related fields of decision making, communication and leadership, among others. However, to date, a taxonomy for considering systems intelligence has yet to be described. Building off Kegan's framework for human development and Hamalainen and Saarinen's recent levels, we offer a new taxonomy of systems intelligence and describe its stages and dimensions. We focus on the three stages of attentive, active and inspired systems intelligence, incorporating three, four and eight dimensions, respectively. This taxonomy serves as a useful conceptualization for the future development of measurement tools for systems intelligence and as a basis for understanding how individuals might transition between stages. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.