Thinking in Systems: Gravity is NOT a Force!

Our daughter had a "junk food problem"... We couldn't stop her from gobbling down cookies, candies, ice cream, chips and other ethnic Indian snacks that are full of refined carbohydrates deep fried in seed oils. We were worried how this habit was going to impact her overall health. Moderation was hard... Self-control and self-discipline was just not sustainable. But, we eventually fixed it - the ability to think in systems helped me out. But first, what is 'Systems Thinking'?

I was once asked to explain what 'Systems Thinking' is in a couple of minutes during a job interview. That question usually gives me a chuckle - I've lost count of how many times other "systems thinkers" have debated what 'systems thinking' actually is. Well, it is NOT a single pattern of thought - there are several aspects to it. There are books that explain them and so I'm not gonna go into the details here.

But, the paradigm shift of 'thinking in systems' can be compared to going from Newtonian Physics to Einsteinian Physics. That is not a simple change - Einstein threw out Newton's theory root & branch and gave a completely different perspective and explanation for our universe. Gravity is not a force - Einstein proved that over 100 years ago with his General Relativity. Gravity is just the curvature of spacetime due to matter and energy. In curved spacetime, masses follow geodesics - straight paths. Time is also relative - it can run fast or slow. This is a completely new explanation about our universe.

But, many of us still continue to believe and act as if gravity is a force and it doesn't make any difference to us - we can play a game of baseball or drive a car without any issues. But, when we have to launch & operate a GPS satellite, we have to accept the counter-intuitive fact that time actually runs faster at those altitudes (as Einstein explained). GPS satellites therefore need continuous time corrections without which Google Maps would be erroring out by at a rate of about 10 kilometers each day!

The complexity around us is growing rapidly. Hasn’t COVID-19 opened our eyes to the complex inter-dependencies across industries and nations? Stephen Hawking predicted that the 21st century will be century of complexity. He is right - it is high time we moved away from our traditional management methodologies and learn how to navigate or dance with complexity. That's why the ability to think in systems is critical for a leader in the 21st century. Systems Thinking gives us that paradigm shift needed to provide completely different explanations to understand our "reality" and stay viable in a highly dynamic environment. As Russell Ackoff, one of my favorite Systems Thinkers put it,

“It is in the nature of systemic thinking to yield many different views of the same thing and the same view of many different things.”

Before we go back to my daughter's junk food problem, I'd like to quote another profound insight from Ackoff:

"In a system, the best way to treat a problem is seldom where the problem appears"

As Ackoff taught us, problems are just abstractions - they only exist inside our heads. No problem lives in isolation in a complex system. Problems are extracted from reality by analysis - almost any problem exists as part of a set of interacting problems which some call as a "mess".

With this insight, I started expanding my "system" boundary from my daughter to its (her) containing "system", our home. It became obvious that my daughter's "junk food problem" isn't a real "problem" in isolation. There was no point blaming my daughter's "behavior" and "lack of discipline". We needed a systemic dissolution.

Both me and my wife noticed that we also have put on weight over the years. We are the ones that buy and stock up the pantry with "junk food". Another key insight from systems thinking is that "fixing" part of a system in isolation is counterproductive & sometimes could even be destructive to the whole system. So, we realized that we are all in this together.

As a result, our pantry changed, our food choices changed and our overall lifestyle changed - one small change at a time. I started with some experiments, made some mistakes and learned a lot in the process. My wife joined me in the journey and so did my daughter. More about that story in this old blogpost, which talks about management by means vs management by results.

With a continuous glucose monitor, I learned more about my body - what foods spikes my blood glucose and what doesn't. With a sleep tracking device, I experimented with many variables to see what helps me sleep better. After multiple experiments (which are still continuing) & feedback loops that gave me "aha" moments - with food, exercise, sleep, stress and how they are all deeply interconnected, I lost over 40 pounds!

But, that is the least of my 'wins' now. I'm much more happier, healthier, peaceful and more productive, and my entire family is also happier and healthier. We didn't "solve" my daughter's "junk food problem" but we dissolved [1] it away. Wholesome food keeps her satiated for longer and there is no "junk food" at home to eat in the first place. She is learning how to make good choices about food & how to cook. As James Clear put it,

"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

Am I perfect now? Absolutely not - but, I'm focussed on the 'means' and chasing continuous improvement. Do we sometimes make exceptions to our lifestyle and strict food choices? Absolutely! For example, we eat outside (which sometimes still doesn't sit well with our stomach) with friends, colleagues & during travel. Well, we have to live our life - but, we make sure that we don't fall back to our old lifestyle! Again, as James Clear elegantly put it,

During this journey, I also understood how today's nutrition "science" and medical "science" in general suffers from?analytical reductionist thinking. As Marion Nestle, a New York university nutritionist, elegantly articulated:

"The problem with nutrient-by-nutrient nutrition science is that it takes the nutrient out the context of the food, the food out of the context of the diet, and the diet out of the context of the lifestyle."

Analytical thinking underpins what our schools & colleges teach - analytical sciences, like physics and chemistry. What is a lab after all? Removal of the environment ??. Don't get me wrong - scientific reductionism is extremely powerful and has tremendously benefited humanity since the dawn of enlightenment. But, it can be very misleading when applied to?complex systems?- like humans, corporations and societies.

The same fundamental insights from 'thinking in systems' that I used at home are also applicable at work - leaders have to be aware of the systemic forces at play in their organizations. More on that in a future blogpost. But for now, I'll end with the wise words of Albert Einstein:

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

a thought provoking question from Margaret Wheatley.

“???? ???????????????? ???? ?????? ?????????????????????????? ?????? ???????? ???? ?????? ???????????? ???????? ?????????????????????? ????????, ?????? ???????????? ?? ?????????????? ?????? ?????????????? ???????????????? ???? ???????????? ????????????????????????????????, ?????? ???????? ????, ?? ?????????????? ???????????????? ???? ???????? ?????? ???????? ?????????? ?????????? ?????????????”

Notes:

1. Solution: Use scientific research, experimentation, quantitative analysis, and optimizing techniques vs. Dissolution: Redesign the system that has the problem or its environment in such a way to eliminate the problem.
2. Thanks to my daughter for the artwork above (Title: "New Perspectives")!