System. We hear and use the word all the time. “There’s no sense in trying to buck the system,” we might say. Or, ” I need a better system.” It seems there is almost no end to the use of the word “system” in today’s society. But what exactly is a system? A system is a construct of different interconnected elements that make a unified whole, which together produce results not obtainable by the elements alone. Systems range in complexity, from ordered systems, such as clocks, to complex adaptive open systems such as the highly diverse and interdependent ecosystems of rainforests. A pile of rocks is not a system. If you remove a single rock, you have still got a pile of rocks. However, a functioning car is a system. Remove the carburetor, and you no longer have a working vehicle. Whether you are aware of it or not, you are a part of many systems such as a family, an organization, a society, a planet, or the whole galaxy. You are a complex biological system comprising many smaller systems. But why is it important to understand systems? The idea behind that question is that a decision you make here today could have unintended consequences in some other place or time.
Everything is interrelated, and changes that are seemingly narrow in scope can set off a domino effect that reaches far wider than ever anticipated.
On March 1, 1992, Nikola Gardovic was the first civilian war victim to be killed in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He was the father of the groom at a wedding party that was attacked. This was the spark that ignited the war in Bosnia. Nobody could have imagined the extent of the damage to come. The Bosnian civil war was part of a European political, social, and economic system. War is a system itself, made up of many other subsystems. The war in Bosnia resulted in an almost complete destruction of infrastructure and society. It created a thorough separation of Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks. The war left lasting ripple effects on the people who were directly impacted by the war, as well as the rest of Europe. A quarter of a century after the brutal civil war divided it along ethnic lines, Bosnia remains a semi-functional state whose existence depends on the European Union and NATO’s military to enforce the peace deal and exercise political influence. The 1995 Dayton Agreement that ended hostilities introduced four parallel sets of government administrations and a hugely complex system of ethnic quotas, leaving the central government with minimal powers. While it did bring the stability that everyone desired, it cemented the ethnic divisions that had destroyed the country in the first place. The system turned out to be a fertile ground for corruption and shadow influences as it allowed ethnic principles to govern the distribution of state resources. As a result, everything from fossil fuels and military property, to telecom operators and federal taxes, became a subject of ethnic separation and endless political struggle. The result of this political dynamic is that the country and society lives in an almost permanent state of existential anxiety, unable to move forward and unable to come to terms with its violent past. Despite the history of the Balkans, not many people grasped the full implications of the civil war.
Sometimes, even with good intentions bad things can happen.
In the early 1950s, there was a severe outbreak of malaria amongst the Dayak people in Borneo, Southeast Asia. To save lives, the World Health Organization decided to intervene by spraying large amounts of a chemical called DDT to kill the mosquitoes that carried malaria. They succeeded in killing many mosquitoes and significantly reducing the prevalence of the disease. However, the World Health Organization failed to see the full scope of their actions. DDT not only successfully killed mosquitoes, but it also attacked a parasitic wasp population. These wasps, it turned out, had kept in check a population of thatch-eating caterpillars. So with the accidental removal of the wasps, the caterpillars flourished, and thatched roofs started collapsing on people. If that was not enough, many other small insects were affected by the DDT, and were then eaten by geckos. The geckos developed a tolerance to the DDT but the cats who ate the geckos didn’t, and the cat population started to die off. With far fewer cats, rats took over and multiplied, and this, in turn, led to outbreaks of typhus and sylvatic plague passed on by rats. The intended cure had become worse than the initial disease, so the World Health Organization did what any self-respecting world health organization would do; they parachuted live cats into Borneo. The event was known as Operation Cat Drop.
The World Health Organization had failed to consider the full implications of their actions on the delicate ecology of the region. Because they lacked an understanding of the fundamental effects of DDT, such as its long half-life that allows it to spread through multiple levels of consumption, and the relationships among the animals of the area, they made things worse instead of better and paid a high cost for their mistake. By considering only the straightforward, first-level relationship between mosquitoes as carriers of malaria and humans as recipients of malaria, the World Health Organization unrealistically assumed that this relationship could be acted upon independently of any other variables or relationships. They considered one tiny aspect of the system, rather than the entire ecology.
The examples in Bosnia and Borneo demonstrate the incredible importance of whole-systems thinking. Systems thinking means having the ability to view things in different time scales simultaneously and thus resolving the paradoxes between them. In the real world, as opposed to the drawing boards at a World Health Organization or NATO meeting room, one relationship strand-like between a mosquito and a human, or a Muslim and a Christian, cannot be separated from the rest of the system. All of the elements are intricately tied together in a complex web of inter-relatedness. Tugging on one string of that web can pull at other components, which may not at first glance appear at all connected to the point of action.
We have to view our world in its holistic terms rather than separating the parts from the whole.
The same idea exists in all areas of organizations. Everything is interrelated, and changes that are seemingly narrow in scope can set off a domino effect that reaches far wider than ever anticipated. Adopting whole-systems thinking allows us to realize our capacity rather than our incompetencies. Unfortunately, the phrase “system thinking” is often used without a fundamental understanding of its implications, to the point where everything is a system, but nothing is treated as one. Many people say they are using a systems approach, but almost no one really is. Furthermore, popular interpretations of systems tend to use inappropriate mechanical models and metaphors. Leaders need to fully understand why our current approaches won’t work and what is different about the systems approach.
For leaders, the importance of having a systems-thinking mindset is essential if one wants to recognize new realities and be adaptive. New events are invariably systemic by nature. They are not isolated incidents that only affect a local or small part of a system. The repercussions of new events reverberate throughout the system. The ripple effect is often subtle and covert, requiring a systems mindset to be seen and understood. Leaders who develop systems thinking approaches are more flexible and divergent in their solutions. As a result, their outcomes and impacts are much less likely to lead to unintended consequences or the transfer of the issue to someone else. Their solutions are systemic and, thus, address multiple root causes instead of the apparent symptoms of a problem. Systems thinking is all about understanding how one thing can influence others within a whole. It’s the direct opposite of reductive, linear thinking, which results in siloed and marginalized outcomes when applied to a business or problem-solving context.
System thinkers are always seeking to see how parts fit within a complex whole. They look for the interconnectedness of elements within a system, and often do this instinctively. A systems thinker sees the world in a more realistic, connected way.
Just like the first image of Earth from outer space had a significant impact on our society’s ability to see the unity of our planet, systems thinking is a way of seeing ourselves as part of larger interconnected systems. Most importantly, this new perception creates a new consciousness from which the possibility of a new relationship emerges. Astronaut Russell “Rusty” Schweickart never walked on the Moon, but he was the first of the Apollo astronauts to go outside the spacecraft. In an exclusive interview with XPrize, he recalls that when Dave Scott began filming his spacewalk, the movie camera jammed, leaving Schweickart five glorious minutes with nothing to do but take in the incredible view. Schweickart describes systems thinking a view of the Earth as seen from space. The Earth, he says, “…is so small and so fragile, and such a precious little spot in that Universe, that you can block it out with your thumb. Then you realize that on that spot, that little blue and white thing, is everything that means anything to you. All of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love, tears, joy, games, all of it right there on that little spot that you can cover with your thumb. And you realize from that perspective that you’ve changed forever, that there is something new there, that the relationship is no longer what it was.”
From the movement of flocks of birds to the Internet, environmental sustainability, and market regulation, the study and understanding of complex open systems has become highly influential over the last thirty years. Organizations are complex, adaptive systems. As such, typical command-and-control approaches to running them fail to understand their nature. Most organizations have divisions and subdivisions, each with its managers, objectives, priorities, budgets, and performance management targets. As a result, people focus on the piece of the puzzle they’re accountable for, making it difficult for leaders to be able to see the entire system. Managers in each part of the organization are not incentivized to work with the other areas to help meet the overall aim. Corporate culture can mean that people are afraid to be seen to be interfering in a colleague’s domain. As such, there may be no shared vision and purpose. There is no shared “map” of the system. Not only that, but the performance targets that are often implemented in organizations can act as a barrier to systems thinking. They can bring about leadership behaviors that are counterproductive to the overarching mission.
Systems-based leadership means allowing frontline staff to develop a thorough understanding of the organization and empowering them to improve processes from within.
Systems thinking expands the range of choices available for solving a wicked problem by broadening our thinking and helping us articulate problems in new and different ways. At the same time, the principles of systems thinking makes us aware that there are no perfect solutions. The choices we make will have an impact on other parts of the system. By anticipating the effects of each trade-off, we can minimize its severity or even use it to our advantage. Systems thinking, therefore, allows us to make informed choices. Systems thinking is also valuable for telling compelling stories that describe how a system works. For example, the practice of drawing causal loop diagrams forces a team to develop shared pictures, or stories, of a situation. The tools are effective ways of identifying, describing, and communicating your understanding of systems, particularly in groups.
Creating a culture of systems thinking isn’t a quick task. It takes time to embed the knowledge and behaviors needed to make decisions and take actions that will benefit the system as a whole. With this in mind, systems thinking shouldn’t be the preserve of a select group of senior leaders. A whole-system perspective can only be achieved by developing the ability to map workflows and processes among the entire workforce. In this way, any changes to the system can start with a clear idea of the organization’s shared purpose. If the old ways of thinking don’t work, something fundamentally better suited to the task is needed, like a shift in thinking that illuminates the whole, not just the parts. One that is synthetic rather than analytic and one that integrates, rather than differentiates. An effective systems thinking perspective requires trust, curiosity, compassion, and courage. This approach includes the willingness to see multiple situations holistically. We have to recognize that everything is interrelated, that there are often various ways of solving a problem. We need to be willing to champion interventions that may not be popular. Systems thinking is about revealing the intersections, overlaps, and seeing how every action, like in the ones in Bosnia and Borneo, could have a ripple effect in the system.
