Introducing Systems Thinking for Leadership Development
by Matt Richter
As I begin to transition these blog posts toward what we can do from a leadership development perspective, it is essential to reposition, or re-posit, the actual problem. In other words, when we talk about leadership, we need to start with the context… and when we start with the context, we need to fully understand the problem (or opportunity) for which leadership is required. Why? “Because I said so” isn’t a good enough answer? Ok… then, here you go…
Let’s anchor ourselves on Rittel, Webber, and Grint’s various descriptions and applications of wicked, tame, and critical problems. Remember, a wicked problem is the kind of overwhelming situation that is so complex we have no idea what to do about it. Wicked problems demand leadership. Tame problems are simple or complicated but remain tame because we know what to do… we have the processes, the procedures, rules, and crucial resources on hand with the knowledge of what to with them. Tame problems require a prescription of good management. Critical problems are emergencies. They are catastrophes if someone doesn’t stand up, take charge, and immediately resolve them. They require good commanders. Why is this model helpful? Because it explains the essential differences of when one leads, manages, and commands. It also means the context dictates the required response. And it begins to indicate to those of us learning designers what the heck to design.
Since this isn’t a blog post about management, or even command, let’s just hone in on the wicked.
According to Keith Grint, wicked problems have interweaving root causes that may even evolve. They often have moving targets. Wicked problems are so complex that we often cannot see a solution. Or we do, and that solution is going to set off ten more problems. Wicked problems more often than not are going to involve leader and team failures. There are so many interweaving, textural aspects to the problem, that one perspective isn’t going to be enough to identify potential approaches. Wicked problems, therefore, require a systems thinking approach. Systems thinking is simply (ironically said) a way of making sense out of complexity. It is exploring the various interconnections of people, events, processes, and resources and how they all affect each other—in other words a deep dive into cause and effect.
As alluded to in previous posts, most leadership tropes ignore two very important aspects that are core to leadership in a context: That leadership—effective leadership—will lead to failure more often than not🤯. And, that any hope for long-term, sustained success coming out of the wicked problem is to take a systems perspective.
Perhaps you have identified the huge snag in my above statements. Leaders are judged on success! Leaders are not permitted to fail. In fact, a CEO who cannot solve the wicked problems of her firm will be fired pretty quickly. A coach who fails to win games will be exchanged for a winner (hopefully) at the end of the season—if not before. A politician whose tax policy leads to a recession will be voted out next round. These are simply truisms for how we judge leaders, and therefore leadership. Failure is not acceptable and is viewed in of itself as a failure of leadership, rather than an integral part of the process for resolving wicked problems. This paradoxical paradigm renders leadership as a problem solving, facilitative process inert. We cannot live with leaders who fail while at the same time, we expect them to come in immediately and solve the impossible without any form of organizational learning (see the work of Nigel Paine and his upcoming book on this very topic)—no iterative improvements, no agile expectation for growth. We expect the great to be great in one shot! This is impossible. And this expectation is why so many fail to remain in named leadership roles.
It is also a perspective that fundamentally is at odds with what we say we need from our leaders—to guide us out of those overwhelming troubles. Or, to edge us forward to those immense opportunities we cannot even see.
One of the reasons I love the Wicked-Tame-Critical Problem framework as a setup for leadership development is it really resolves the definitional and alignment problems inherent in other, more traditional frameworks. It puts parameters around the function of a leader as someone who deals with those wicked conundrums. We want leaders to come in from the dark and shed light. We want them to save the day. We want them to rescue us. We want them to make gold from nothing. In other words, we want them to come and resolve the wicked, the overly complex, the overwhelming. And there is nothing wrong with that desire—that expectation from followers and stakeholders. But we better approach how we find these folks in such a way where they can succeed.
We don’t need leadership for those problems we know how to resolve… we’ll just manage the heck out of those. And frankly, for emergencies… I really want an expert in that specific situation to boss me around and just fix it! So, leadership is about the wicked… errrr… I mean the wicked problem.
And when we are dealing with those wicked problems, when we need someone to “save us” in the traditional mindset, we are dealing with systems… broken, unknown, complex… but systems nonetheless. And complex systems require systems thinking. So, the effective leader, the effective leadership function, and thus, the effective leadership development process involves teaching systems thinking.
Ok, you say. No problem, you say. We can teach systems thinking, you say.
Well… hold your horses…
To borrow from Paul Kirschner, the great educational psychologist, complex, higher ordinate thinking skills require both context and the domain-specific expertise of that context. In other words, when we teach systems thinking, it is impossible to do so absent a topical area and a base level of competence in that domain. Why? Because without domain expertise in a specific topic it is impossible for the learner to see the connections and the applications. The learner cannot see the root causes, the cause and effects. The learner is ignorant of possible solutions. And the learner has no way of finding and then evaluating the subject matter experts who likely can help solve the wicked. Absent the context, the learner can only learn the superficial. Which is why we need to teach systems thinking in the context of what the prospective leaders do daily. Oh… if you don’t believe me… or Paul for that matter, check out this video by John Sweller, the father of Cognitive Load Theory, and his description of what can and can’t be taught outside context.
By the way, systems thinking isn’t the only skill set required for handling wicked problems. There is facilitation skills, influencing skills, managing politics, etc. We will get to the others as we continue this series. But they are all contextual, as well. They are all complex skills and need to be again, taught within a specific topical area and context.
Ultimately, when we teach in the context of what people do and are experts at functionally, we also resolve the CONTEXT problem identified in previous blogs. The bottom line is leadership is there to resolve the overwhelmingly complex issues on the table. We should expect our leaders and the leadership function to fail… regularly… and not punish for that. We should expect leaders to learn to lead within the context that they will lead in eventually. And we should begin by teaching prospective leaders how to think and analyze more systemically. They should become systems thinkers within their respective domains. So, it is ok to WANT our leaders to come in and solve the impossible, but mindset-wise, we should accept that failure is a part of the journey.
So, let’s sum up as a way of being repetitive and targeting your attention:
Leadership is the process we use to hopefully solve wicked problems.
Leadership involves failure… in other words, leaders will fail… a lot. We should expect this!
Leaders fail because they don’t (can’t) fully fathom the complex system from which they operate as they work to solve their wicked problem.
So, we need to teach systems thinking within a context to our prospective leaders.
Next… what about motivation? The leader’s and the followers?
REFERENCES
Grint, K. (2005). Problems, problems, problems: The social construction of ‘leadership.’ Human Relations. 58 (11), 1467-1494.
Grint, K. (2010). Leadership: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press, Inc. New York.
Pfeffer, J. (2015). Leadership BS : fixing workplaces and careers one truth at a time (First edition. ed.). New York, NY: Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
PWC. (2019). CEO turnover at record high. https://pwc.to/3AVWcro.
Rittel, H.W.J. and Webber, M.M.. (1973) Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences. 4, pp. 155-169.