Policy makers, managers and leaders in organizations, governments and business institutions are under increasing pressure to make the right management decisions in the face of a continually changing political and socio‐economic landscape. To make matters more challenging, the complex environmental, socio‐economic, business‐financial issues that decision makers need to deal with tend to transcend the jurisdictions and capacities of any single organization. There is a multitude of difficult, long‐term global challenges ahead, almost all of which are coupled with the most pressing concerns of different countries at national and local levels. Despite many efforts to deal with these complex issues facing our society, the solutions so far have seldom been long lasting, because ‘treating the symptoms’ and ‘quick fixes’, using traditional linear thinking, are the easiest way out, but do not deliver the solutions. This paper describes the processes for unravelling complexity through participatory systems analysis and the interpretation of systems structures to identify leverage points for systemic interventions. It further demonstrates the promotion of effective change and the enhancement of cross‐sectoral communication and collaborative learning. This learning focuses on finding solutions to complex issues by applying an iterative, systems‐based approach, both locally—Evolutionary Learning Laboratory (ELLab)—and globally—Global Evolutionary Learning Laboratory (GELL). A generic framework and processes for implementing and institutionalizing ELLabs are described, and how these become part of the GELL for managing complex issues is explained. Four case studies are used to demonstrate diverse examples of the application and implementation of the ELLab approach. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Since the 1950s there have been numerous contributions proposing solutions to failures of social systems. However, we have hardly found a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to a failed social system beyond "stove-piped" academic disciplines. This paper identifies a new holistic and interdisciplinary systems engineering methodology of systems engineering for a social system through a case study of Japan's insurance industry. The new methodology is a "soft" systems-approach to accommodate goals of stakeholders in a failed social system. First, the three elements of a social system are identified. Second, the multiple viewpoint model transforms these three elements of the human activity view to a new set of elements of the Holon view. Third, a social system of the Holon view is redefined as a Socio-Critical System (SCS). Finally, the Vee Model is applied for fixing a problem in the SCS. From 2005 to 2008, massive claims-payment failures cases were found in Japan's private insurance companies. They became big social scandals. The insurance claims-payment system is a typical SCS. The Financial Services Agency (FSA), Japan's financial services supervision authority, identified, with the "unintended" systems approach, dysfunctions of the insurance claims-payment system. This FSA action, even though the authority was not aware of the effectiveness of the methodology, proved to be positive in applying the Vee Model for solving failures in those claims-payment systems.

The purpose of this study was to verify the concept of Kampo medicine epidemiologically and demonstrate the objective bases of the Kampo treatment. For this purpose, a population based survey of subjective symptoms based on Kampo medicine was conducted among 1,486 residents of Hase village, Nagano prefecture, ages 20 and older. The completion rate was 80.7% and 1,199 residents provided favorable responses. An investigation of gender differences showed a higher rate of blood deficiency among female residents, while spleen and qi deficiency were more common in males. Considering age differences, symptoms related to blood deficiency and water-dampness affected younger females, symptoms related to qi deficiency primarily affected younger males, and symptoms of liver afflictions were common in younger both genders. Among the elderly residents, symptoms of kidney deficiency were overwhelmingly predominant in both genders. Though younger people with subjective sense of health had few diseases in western medicine, most of the elderly with perceived health actually had some kind of diseases for medical treatment. Physical symptoms in the chest area such as shortness of breath correlated positively with the perception not to be healthy, and these may be regarded as both the manifestation and factors contributing to ill health. Approximately 1 out of 12 residents re-

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