Systems Thinking – Part 3

In Part 1 of this series, I offered an overview of Systems Thinking, and discussed examples of how it can provide a better understanding of the market for gasoline, the U.S. political system, government policy questions (such as ones involving illicit drugs and abortion), and the U.S. medical system. Part 2 applied Systems Thinking to some trends that involve many of our personal choices, and highlighted how those choices can often have impacts that we overlook if we don’t think in a systemic way.

Here, in Part 3, I’ll share some Systems Thinking thoughts related to the global COVID-19 pandemic, and some applications of Systems Thinking in areas that are truly intriguing and inspiring.

The COVID-19 Pandemic

The most disruptive global event in decades has provided many opportunities to apply Systems Thinking in order to achieve better outcomes. Unfortunately, many of those opportunities were squandered, and the grim results speak for themselves.

When the virus first appeared, some societies recognized the severity of the potential threat, and swiftly acted in a communal way to mitigate risks of contagion through proven prophylactic measures such as masking, sanitation, and physical distancing. Other societies were far less united, and individuals responded to the threat in ways ranging from fearful to flippant. Highly contagious diseases can proliferate quickly when even a minority of the population is careless, as COVID-19 certainly did in the U.S.

Before much was known about the new virus, many countries enacted border restrictions in an attempt to limit the risk that travelers would bring it in. That strategy was only effective in a few places (such as New Zealand) that managed to fully isolate themselves. Other countries limited travel from only certain regions that were known to be high-risk, only to discover that the virus had breached borders through non-restricted travel. Once the virus arrived, border restrictions were completely ineffective at preventing spread. (The Washington Post published a simulator that illustrates this phenomenon nicely.)

Before effective vaccines and anti-viral therapies could be developed to thwart COVID-19, one of the most effective mitigation strategies remained physical distancing. The Ohio Department of Health released a compelling short video that beautifully illustrates the concept using a mouse-trap and ping-pong ball model.

The release of novel, safe, and highly effective vaccines against a novel pathogen in mere months was a huge accomplishment. Unfortunately, many people refused to get vaccinated precisely because they felt that the vaccines were developed too quickly—ignoring the decade of prior research into mRNA vaccines that had made the feat possible, and the abundant clinical evidence that the new vaccines were safe and effective. The system problem illustrated here is that researchers need to take into account not only the medical science issues involved in developing effective vaccines, but also the behavioral science issues in getting populations to accept the vaccines.

Even if vaccine hesitancy weren’t a problem, global access to vaccines remains a big issue. 18 months after the first COVID-19 vaccines were released to the public, a third of the world’s population still has not gotten any vaccinations, and only about 13% of the people in low-income countries have been inoculated, according to OurWorldInData.org. This means that the virus still can rapidly spread among billions of people, and mutate along the way into more dangerous strains. Indeed, we have already seen multiple waves of COVID-19 infection as new variants with greater transmissibility and greater abilities to defeat immune responses have surfaced. Until a much greater percentage of the world’s population gets vaccinated, we face significant risk that a new strain capable of infecting everyone—even the vaccinated—will initiate another deadly global pandemic.

Just 4 months after COVID-19 was first discovered, Tomás Pueyo published an article that discussed approaches that various societies could (and probably would) take to respond to the new virus. His analysis was remarkably prescient, and the outcomes in countries that followed various approaches closely matched his predictions. The article is long and detailed, but it’s well worth a read.

Systems Thinking in Guatemala

My brother, a surgeon, got involved with a non-profit organization that organizes trips in which U.S. volunteers provide free medical care for impoverished people in remote parts of Guatemala. The non-profit, called HELPS International, also organizes trips to install stoves and water purifiers, and many members of my family went on one such trip.

The stove and water purifier initiatives were inspired when the medical teams noticed that rural Guatemalans were frequently afflicted by a common set of ailments: asthma and other breathing problems from inhaling wood smoke, burns (especially among children who got too close to traditional 3-stone cooking fires), hernias from hauling large amounts of wood, and various illnesses from water-borne pathogens.

Recognizing that prevention is better than cure, HELPS came up with low-cost designs for stoves and water purifiers that could make daily life much easier and safer. Using 11 standard cinder blocks, a couple of concrete castings, some clay pieces, a flue pipe, a metal plate, and some sand, we’d construct an in-home stove in about 30 minutes. We’d construct a second outdoor stove for boiling corn in another 20 minutes or so. The water purifier, which consisted of a plastic vessel with a silver-loaded filter cartridge and a spigot—could be set up in just a minute or two.

The water purifiers greatly reduce the risk of becoming infected with water-borne diseases. The high-efficiency stoves produce plenty of heat with very little wood, protect people from burns, and safely vent fumes to the outside. Reduction in wood consumption (by about 70%) reduces strain on local forests, and reduces the need to gather and haul firewood. Time saved from wood-gathering and cooking chores has enabled many Guatemalans to undertake activities that can improve their standard of living, such as additional farming or production of handicrafts.

Systems Thinking enabled HELPS International to look beyond obvious symptoms, discover root causes, and come up with practical solutions that have made a huge difference in the quality of life for millions of Guatemalans.

(While traveling in Guatemala, I observed another, more curious example of Systems Thinking: many houses had pieces of bare reinforcing rod sticking up around the perimeter of the walls. This was a consequence of the structure of the country’s tax laws, which assess lower levies for unfinished homes than for finished ones. Many structures remained “unfinished” for many years, with no plan or intent on the part of the owners to ever build another story.)

Systemic Benefits of Cooking and Water Solutions in Other Countries

Unlike Guatemala, many other poor countries have severely limited firewood and water resources. Their inhabitants spend much of their time hauling firewood and water great distances, straining both themselves and their country’s resources. Much of the gathering and hauling is done by women, who are often vulnerable to being robbed and physically abused while far from home.?Innovative low-cost solutions can make a huge improvement in quality of life for residents of these countries.

Solar Cookers International is a non-profit organization that provides solar-powered stoves and ovens to indigent people in India, Africa, and other sunny places. Solar cookers eliminate the need for fuel, bringing multiple benefits:

• Eliminates dangers of hauling wood
• Spares distressed forests
• Eliminates smoke inhalation
• Reduces risk of burns
• Frees up time for revenue-generating activities

For water, solutions include fog and dew collectors that condense potable water directly from the air. The collectors mimic what certain beetles do in the Namibian desert: present cool surfaces to a mass of moist air, and and channel into a collection area the accumulated condensate. These collectors are being used successfully in a variety of environments ranging from humid rain forests to the Atacama desert (one of the driest places on earth). Labor and time savings are similar to those achieved by the solar cookers.

Another promising innovation, PlayPumps, serves as a reminder of the importance of considering the entire system. The PlayPump concept was quite clever: use the energy of children playing on a merry-go-round to power a well pump to supply water for the village, and cover the capital costs of the equipment though advertising on the water storage tanks. Unfortunately, the PlayPumps initiative was abandoned after flaws in the plan became evident:

• children did not turn the merry-go-round nearly enough hours per day to supply enough water
• women ended up turning the merry-go-round to pump water, expending more energy than they would with a traditional pump
• most of the tanks did not carry advertising, so capital costs were not offset
• maintenance was problematic

Such problems were traced to failure to involve the local community in the initiative, such that they would take full ownership and ensure success. More details of the case are documented in this article.

The Wood Wide Web

For decades, many people have thought of forests as little more than clusters of trees that just happen to be growing near each other. Modern timber companies often plant tracts of just one or two tree species, essentially treating them as a crop that can be harvested in a few decades. Recent work by Suzanne Simard, who grew up in a logging family in British Columbia, proves that a forest is actually a complex ecosystem that is far more interconnected than most of us ever imagined.

Using radiolabeling techniques, Suzanne discovered that trees exchange nutrients through a mycorrhizal network of fungal threads that interact with their roots. In a symbiotic relationship, the fungi benefit from carbohydrates synthesized by the trees, and the trees gain access to mineral nutrients that the fungi can “mine” from rocks and transport across the mycorrhizal network. Distressed trees can either receive assistance from neighboring trees to cope with their challenges, or give up all their nutrients for the benefit of healthier trees. In mature forests, a large “mother tree” often supports the health of numerous trees around it, and logging the mother tree can have significant negative impacts on the overall health of the forest.

Suzanne published her work in several academic papers and in her book “Searching for the Mother Tree”. She has given various interviews that can be found on the internet, along with her TED talk.

Our World is Complex, and Systems Thinking Can Help Us Achieve Better Outcomes

I hope that this series of articles has inspired you to think a little more broadly and deeply, to look beyond what might appear simple and straightforward, and to appreciate the complexity of systems and their many interdependent parts. Developing a practice of Systems Thinking can help you avoid hasty pursuit of simple, obvious fixes that often produce unexpected outcomes, and to come up with more holistic solutions that produce better outcomes.

Jim Schibler leads product management teams that deliver software experiences customers love, and he coaches professionals on job search and career management. He writes on a broad range of topics; see more of his articles at his website.

Copyright ? 2022?Jim Schibler — All rights reserved

Image credits: Untitled Mobile by Alexander Calder courtesy Widewalls.ch; Disease Spread Simulator courtesy Washington Post; Mousetrap Distancing model courtesy Ohio Department of Health; Coronavirus illustration courtesy scientificanimations.com via wikimediacommons; Hammer and Dance illustration courtesy Tomas Pueyo; 3-stone fire courtesy TZPartners.wordpress.com; Solar Cookers courtesy Vandana Rahul Janak; Dew Harvest array at Satapar courtesy Girjasharan; Fog Fence at Atrapanieblas en Alto Patache courtesy Warko at Flickr.com; [email protected]; Wood Wide Web illustration courtesy Suzanne Simard.