By Matt Richter

Actually… I know I promised something on motivation… I will get to that in a couple of posts. But, I want to actually explore another topic related to what we can do as leadership development providers. And that is to teach systems thinking. I figure one can never go wrong developing thinking skills. Now, of course, systems thinking is not exclusive within the domain of leadership. We all can… and should be, better systems thinkers. So, this post is a bit of a deviation from the originally planned program. Hope you don’t mind.

Let’s start off with a very important question. Do you know how a toilet works? Don’t think too hard about your answer. If you were at a cocktail party or at the pub and someone said… “Hey, do you know how a toilet works?”, what would you say? If you are like most people, you would say that you do know. Are you like most people? I know, at least in the case of toilet expertise, I am.

If you are like most of us, you probably suffer from what psychologists, Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris call an illusion of confidence. Meaning, you have an overabundance of confidence that you know something, when you really don’t know much at all. You know essentially what a toilet does and you know there is some water, a flush-y thing, and maybe a rubber thingie, as well. (Please note that if you are a plumber… then this toilet metaphor is unlikely going to work for you!) For the rest of us, you are as expert at what makes a toilet work as much as Fido here, sitting on the toilet.

This is a simple toilet perspective looking into the tank. Don’t ask me what these things do, I have no clue. I’m like Fido, remember. But, if you are interested, here are two videos… one more simple than the other, on the inner workings of a toilet. https://youtu.be/hAxAyoSMQhI and https://youtu.be/UwoCeaHNhQk.

But, back to our show. A toilet is an example what we call a system. A system is a collection of parts and individual activities that collectively, interrelatedly, yield an outcome greater than those individual parts. In a good system, all the individual parts are needed at varying degrees for success. Take away that blue thingie, and the whole system will fall apart.

Think about your job. In your head focus on a single task you do on a regular basis. What is it? For me, I design courses on leadership. Pause this video and say your task out loud. Good. Now, ask yourself how this task fits into a bigger objective. A bigger picture. For me, as a professor at a business school, my courses fit into the emlyon executive MBA program. What bigger objective, what process, what bigger picture does your task fit into?

Pause and say it out loud.

Welcome back.

For me, emlyon’s EMBA is the system. My course is a part of that. My course is like that blue thingie in the toilet.

Your big picture is the system in your world.

But systems… all systems… are a part of bigger systems.

Your toilet is a part of the plumbing system in the house. The plumbing system is a part of the greater sewage and water systems in your town. In other words your simple system… your toilet… is always going to be a part of something– actually many things– that are bigger than what you see.

This is called a complex system. A complex systems is a great number of related, but distinct elements-– parts– simple systems– toilets– with intricate relationships and interconnections. They are hard to see… hard to define… due to the dependencies, competitions, said relationships, and many other factors we will get into later. Navigating complex systems requires one to be skilled at systems thinking.

Systems Thinking is simply how to make sense of complexity. 

The trick is we all too often don’t understand the simple system, or systems we engage in daily. We don’t understand how our part of the system fits in. More importantly we think we do, and that overconfidence can get us in trouble. Still more importantly, we neglect to see and comprehend how our simple systems fits into the bigger systems all around us. We fail to see the inputs, the outputs, the consequences, etc.

We are the horse with blinders on. We are Fido sitting on the toilet.

Which is why we need systems thinking!

SYSTEMS THINKING IS HOW WE MAKE SENSE OF THOSE SYSTEMS WE WORK IN, CREATE, OR THAT RUB UP AGAINST OUR OWN.

Systems thinking is the discipline, the holistic process we will explore throughout these subsequent posts to expand our horizons. To hopefully make sense out of the overwhelming. To see the possibilities and the threats. To explore… to fail… to learn. In the end, systems thinking, is the essence of organizational learning. It is making meaning out of seeming disorder. It is finding solutions to wicked problems.

And more… So the system makes things manageable. Complex systems make big stuff doable and possible. More more repeat…

Systems Thinking is required to analyze… to see… to make sense of what is around us… to manage the inherent complexity of our lives.

See you next time!