If I could have one wish granted, it would be for more people in the world to adopt a Systems Thinking mindset. Here’s why:
Systems Thinking is essentially another way to say “Look at the complete picture.” Any given topic, issue, or event has multiple inputs and outputs that influence its outcome, so our ability to grasp the big picture of the many challenges we face in the world today is paramount for us to understand and deal with them in an effective manner.
I sometimes think too many of us look at various situations and current events as if we believe we can figure out the entire jigsaw puzzle by only looking at a couple of the pieces. I’m sure you can imagine how difficult that would be, if not impossible. But the more pieces you have, the better you can put the puzzle together and solve it, right? You can see different parts intersecting, and you can make the connections to the overall whole. That’s what systems thinking is: seeing the interconnection among the small pieces and then perceiving how they create the big picture.
When you don’t proactively seek to understand all the pieces of the puzzle and how they affect each other, in essence what you do is make a snap judgment based on one small part of the picture. You might pick up one piece of the puzzle and say, “Hmmm, this looks like a cat, and I don’t like cats! And, hey, this other fellow on the radio or TV says he saw that puzzle piece, and he doesn’t like cats either. I’m with him; we have to stick together, we cat haters!”
Doesn’t that sound silly?
The only way to avoid missing the big picture and to understand the complete story is to seek out all (or most) of the puzzle pieces, see how they fit together, and then get clear on what you’re really looking at.
Now, one word of caution: there will be people out there who will try to “supply” you with additional pieces that—wait for it—will make you think you still see a cat! What that means is that you must be vigilant in making sure you get high-quality, validated information to put your puzzle together. Otherwise … yup … cats everywhere.
We’re all living within systems of one sort or another, and we ourselves are a system (the human body). There are closed systems— those that don’t need any external input for their survival, and open systems—those that maintain their existence through external input.
All systems, however, maintain their existence through the mutual interaction of their parts. To manage the system optimally, it’s important to understand how its parts are connected, and how it interacts with other systems. When the parts stop interacting effectively, the entire system breaks down. We need only look around us to realize that many of our personal, civic, and corporate systems are in trouble.
Therefore, as systems thinking expert Linda Booth Sweeney has said in her excellent primer, systems thinking allows us to:
- See the world around us in terms of wholes, rather than as single events, or “snapshots” of life
- See and sense how the parts of systems work together, rather than just see the parts as a collection of unrelated pieces
- See how the relationships between the elements in a system influence the patterns of behavior and events to which we react
- Understand that life is always moving and changing, rather than static
- Understand how one event can influence another, even if the second event occurs a long time after the first, and “far away” from the first
- Know that what we see happening around us depends on where we are in the system
We, individuals, are part of a number of systems: our workplace, our community, our country, and our extended family. For you to function effectively, you need to understand the components of those systems, how they interact, what inputs exist, and the desired outputs. When we start seeing the world we live in as dynamic networks with many moving parts, we stop looking at black and white answers to complex problems.
Systems thinker Michael Goodman has written that:
An inherent assumption of the systems thinking worldview is that problems are internally generated—that we often create our own “worst nightmares” … The systems thinking worldview dispels the “us versus them” mentality by expanding the boundary of our thinking. With the framework of systems thinking, “us” and “them” are part of the same system and thus responsible for both the problems and their solutions.
Nature is an example of a complex system that has many feedback mechanisms to maintain its balance. As with any system, however, if the self- regulating feedback mechanisms are subverted or ignored, then the system can become unstable or break down.
A superior illustration of this is the human body. It’s a marvel for its automatic feedback mechanisms that regulate the proper functioning of body processes, alerting us anytime something is wrong. If, for example, we don’t get sufficient sleep, don’t eat the right foods, or experience too much stress, our bodies let us know. It provides feedback either through disease, fatigue, or other symptoms of a problem in the system.
It’s our ability to understand these complex systems—their individual pieces, how they interact, the feedback loops, the inputs, and the desired outputs—that ultimately determines our mastery of the world around us. In any given endeavor we undertake—from our jobs to our hobbies, from our spirituality and religious practices to raising our families, and even in our roles as active and informed citizens within a democracy—our ability to execute these roles effectively is enhanced by our understanding of the systems we operate within and exert influence over.
If, for example, we only look at one or two pieces of the whole, we may choose actions that don’t work in the best interests of ourselves or the larger system. This is what can happen when our understanding of the news is through “sound bites” from various television or radio shows, or from brief, high-level articles in a newspaper. These will show you one part of the puzzle, but often it’s to fool you into thinking you’re looking at a cat.
By seeing the connectedness among us, we avoid the mistake of believing our actions exist in a vacuum that is isolated from the rest of society. We clearly see how we affect others and vice versa, which helps us make better decisions about how to operate in the world and how we need others to do so as well. Furthermore, we can see how the combination of the various parts of a system working together will effectively outperform the individual pieces working alone. This is what the concept of synergy is all about: 1+1=3. Great teams of all types thrive on getting the individual components to work well together to create above-and-beyond results for the team as a whole.
In fact, one organization—The Waters Foundation—is working to introduce systems thinking principles throughout grades K-12 in schools across the country. Their stated vision is “to deliver academic and lifetime benefits to students through the effective application of systems thinking concepts, habits and tools in classroom instruction, and school improvement.” At a high level, they aim to teach children habits of a Systems Thinker and get kids started early in understanding the world in a more effective manner.
The Habits are:
- Seeks to understand the big picture
- Observes how elements within systems change over time, generating patterns and trends
- Recognizes that a system’s structure generates its behavior b Identifies the circular nature of complex cause and effect relationships
- Changes perspectives to increase understanding
- Surfaces and tests assumptions
- Considers an issue fully and resists the urge to come to a quick conclusion
- Considers how mental models affect current reality and the future
- Uses understanding of system structure to identify possible leverage actions
- Considers both short- and long-term consequences of actions b Finds where unintended consequences emerge
- Recognizes the impact of time delays when exploring cause and effect relationships
- Checks results and changes actions if needed (”Successive Approximation”)
I think these are habits both the young and their elders around the world would do well to emulate. Here’s hoping 2014 is the year more of us decide to embrace Systems Thinking in order to make the world a better place for all of us.
~Jay Kshatri
www.ThinkSmarterWorld.com
