Systems Thinking What is a system? A system is a collection of parts or factors that interact with each other in a specific order to function as a whole. Without that order -- the way the parts are organized -- all you have is a pile of stuff, total chaos. It is the way it all fits together that makes a system bigger than just the sum of its parts. It makes a house vs. of a pile of building materials. A building system -- also called a process -- turns those building materials into the house. Why use Systems Thinking? It's no secret that the world is a complex place. The company you work in is also a complex place and probably getting more complex all the time. Because of this complexity, we tend to develop experts in particular activities and leave them in isolation -- after all, they are the experts! We react to events without seeing how these events are connected to the underlying structure (the order of the parts). When things go wrong, we tend to look around for whom or what to blame. The blaming doesn't help anything. In fact, it usually makes things worse. Systems Thinking helps us understand recurring problems in new and different ways. It expands the range of choices we have to solve our problems. Systems Thinking helps us create the story of how a system works. We begin to see it as a moving, fluid structure rather than just a set of steps. We start to see that no single piece of the system exists in isolation; each piece is affected by every other. Small, unnoticed breakdowns can have far-reaching effects on the overall system. Those effects may not be visible for months, even years. Without a clear understanding of the system, we can only guess about the causes of our problems. Without that understanding of the system, we often guess wrong. Systems Thinking is dynamic, looking at a world in constant motion. Standard thinking is static, arranging observable facts into a still snapshot and asking, "What's wrong with this picture?" or "What's out of place?" Standard thinking leads us to focus on one-time events and use one-time solutions. Problems that have developed over time are usually the result of a complex interaction of factors and variables, even though they might appear to be connected to one event, or cause, in the "snapshot" view. Solutions that only work on this closely related "cause" often create other problems or worsen the present one. In fact, many of the problems we face today are the result of somebody else's static-view solution long ago. Generally, people believe that events or problems are caused by external forces. When something goes wrong, we look for who's responsible, we ask, "Who's to blame?" The instant we assign blame to an external factor, we become powerless to change it. Here's a powerful way to find exciting new answers: ask, "How could the structure of our system have caused this?" Looking at the system as the cause can lead to leaps in discovering new ways to solve problems. And to solve them so they don't come back again. When things are not working, we can get overwhelmed by the details of the problems. Often, we can't see the forest for the trees. With Systems Thinking, we begin to look at the whole forest. We look for similarities rather than differences. Grouping details together helps us to see the larger picture. For example, knowing that a particular line in production broke down on a Thursday when it was 80 F is not necessarily useful, until we discover that 73% of breakdowns on this line happened when the temperature was higher than 80 F. That's easy to see if the line breaks down frequently. It's harder to see if there are only a few breakdowns a year. Systems Thinking gives us new understanding about how events are actually generated. It is easy to collect a laundry list of factors that may influence an event. But that list doesn't describe the way those factors interact to cause the result we experienced. For instance, in the example above, we may associate the temperature with the breakdown of the machine, but we don't yet know how the temperature might cause the breakdown. The list of factors that affect a situation is like all the building materials in a pile; only when they are connected, can you see how they make a house. Often, when using static thinking, we limit our investigation to hard facts, things that can be measured or weighed. Systems Thinking requires us to take into account soft variables (such as commitment, motivation or initiative) that can also have strong influences on the events we observe. Even if they can't actually be measured, we can quantify the influences of soft variables. We can look at what happens in a system when something like resistance to change is high and we can see the differences when resistance is low. Because Systems Thinking looks at the state of the forest rather than just counting the trees, we can use "soft measures" (such as high, low, increasing, decreasing) for soft variables that affect what we see. To use Systems Thinking, we create rough models of the systems in our lives. These models show us a bigger picture than we can see when we consider only the facts at hand. Models are a great way to test ideas and changes. They can often show us the long term problems that our favorite solutions may create. Can you think of a problem at work that has happened over and over? A problem everyone knows about and tolerates? A problem others have tried -- and failed -- to solve? It is time to use Systems Thinking. Written by Veronica Boaz (Doug Wesley contributed, James Lloyd edited) Check Point (Please complete and submit the Form below) When
you are finished Updated: July 5, 1998 |
