Systems Thinking - A Christmas Story

This is the second in a short series of articles focusing on Systems Thinking. See the first one here . A?Christmas Carol is Charles Dickens' famous moral tale on the danger of optimising for a narrow focus on short term productivity, instead of the greater good of all which ultimately sustains him. Dickens had a knack for crafting stories using characters who embodied the contradictions of his age and thus able to bring many of the moral questions to life for society to reflect upon.

At this Christmas time it is helpful to revisit Scrooge's story of redemption to see what it can teach us with respect to the institutional and business challenges of our current age. Everywhere around us we see economic, social and ecological crises crying out for collective action to address them, but our legacy institutions, organisations and management models seem unable to rise to the challenge.

Scrooge, greed and myopia

In A Christmas Carol Scrooge is a money lender focused on extracting the most he can from his clients and staff as he seeks to maximise his profits with cold indifference to the human needs of his customers and employees. This is especially true for his long suffering employee Bob Cratchit with his big family and his sick little boy Tiny Tim as they try to prepare a Christmas family dinner. The symbolism to the short term, profit/performance maximising structure of our modern world is clear.

Once upon a time Scrooge had witnessed a better way of living. As a young apprentice, Mr Fezziwick had been his employer. Fezziwig had been a warm and generous man that brought goodness and happiness to his work and to the business. Jacob Marley had been his friend and colleague but had died 7 years earlier. Scrooge receives a number of visitations from a ghost that shows him his life from a broader and more holistic perspective.

The ghosts of Christmas past, present and future help him to see his narrow myopic obsession with profit in a wider personal and societal context thereby leading Scrooge to a confrontation with his pathological ways and opening the door to his eventual redemption. Recognising the need to address the needs and enrich the interrelationships between all the customers and contributors involved in his business enabled Scrooge to lift his business to the next level. One in which he was now able to create value for his wider society and contributing towards the common good.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future

Scrooge's former colleague Jacob Marley reappears in the ghostly encounters. Marley had died 7 years previously but is now bound to a chain to which is attached the cash boxes, keys, ledgers and deeds that symbolised the priorities that dominated his life. Marley warns Scrooge that the seductions of ambition, accumulation and ego do not bring true happiness and fulfilment but only serve to lengthen and strengthen the chain of false idols that will weigh down his life and hold him back from realising his full potential.

The Ghost of Christmas Past

The ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge back to a time where he was more innocent and participated in a richer and fuller life. He sees his former girlfriend and how he lost her as his love for money and success exceeded his love for her. He sees her happily married with a family and how she disparages him at the very mention of his name.

The metaphor speaks to us as individuals and as organisations. We are all able to appreciate the needs of the wider society and areas are organisations are able to create value but instead get pulled into dedicating ourselves to success as defined by narrower siloed goals and metrics that provide us with the status and rewards we crave for. We pursue the parts but lose sight of the "whole" where the ultimate opportunity to create value lies.

The Ghost of Christmas Present

The ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge a joyous Christmas market before taking him to see the Christmas feast at Bob Cratchit's house and introduces him to plight of the seriously ill Tiny Tim. He gets to see both the joy and struggles of others as they seek to bring happiness to their world in the face of the struggles and tragedies of everyday life.

Through this imagery we see the importance of seeing other perspectives and understanding the context in which our organisations are operating in. The greater we understand what matters to the contributors or beneficiaries of the organisation the greater our ability to engage them more fully. This includes determining the constraints and enablers that shape the nature of the environment we operate in. The greater our multi-perspectival insights the greater the understanding and wisdom we will have at our disposal to confront the challenges and opportunities we face.

The Ghost of Christmas Future

The ghost of Christmas Future transports Scrooge to a scene showing his own funeral. No one mourns his loss, his possessions are being stolen and his workers are celebrating his death. Horrified at how he is despised and his death celebrated he asks to see any example of tenderness at the loss of someone beloved. He is transported to a scene showing Bob Cratchit's family mourning the death of Tiny Tim before being shown an empty grave and tombstone bearing his name. Sobbing, Scrooge pledges to change his ways. He awakes on Christmas morning a changed man committed to acting with compassion, kindness and generosity embodying the full spirit of Christmas.

The metaphor here is that the narrow self-serving actions involved in maximising shareholder value will lead to a loss of reputation as well as the loss of trust and goodwill with its customers, employees and eventually society. With no long term vision of an organisation's purpose and collective understanding of how to create value for all stakeholders the organisation risks becoming a "whole" that is less than the sum of the parts.

Now is the time for Systems Thinking

In conclusion, the moral lessons of Dickens' A Christmas Carol is an important one for our times. A myopic narrow focus on maximising short term performance leads to deprioritising the needs of other key stakeholders and eventually undermines the long term success of the organisation. If all organisations across society operate under this model than the externalities accumulate to become the systemic crises we see around us today.

A Systems Thinking approach is invaluable in providing the systemic understanding and skills required to transcend our siloed, bureaucratic models of management. Ones that can both enhance the long term performance of institutions and enable the collective action needed to address the pressing challenges of our current world.

There is therefore an urgent need for new systems thinking skills. Skills and knowledge that can aid leaders and teams to apply the best of systems thinking to the particular challenges and opportunities faced by their organisations. Shockingly there is little or no comprehensive systems thinking courses being taught at University or available through executive coaching channels.

This is a huge gap that needs to be filled. It is this need that the Enlightened Enterprise is seeking to fill through its collaboration with Professor Mike Jackson. Take advantage of learning practical insights directly from one of the world's leading systems thinking experts.?DOWNLOAD THE BROCHURE ?and check for details of?AVAILABLE PROGRAMS AND START DATES .

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