The Truth About Systems Thinking

Several years ago I had a manager tell me I was the best systems thinker he knew. At the time I thought that's a nice compliment but didn’t really know what it meant. Since then I’ve called it out as a strength of mine anytime anyone asks. I had heard the term ‘systems thinker’ before, but I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about or understanding it. In my mind it meant understanding systems - that is, recognizing how different things or ideas are related and therefore, have the potential to impact each other. In an effort to build on my strengths last year, I signed up for a 12 week course on Systems Thinking to actually learn what it is and maybe find out why it seemed to come so easily to me.

Systems Thinking > Systems + Thinking

The first thing I learned is that my understanding of systems thinking wasn’t quite right. Systems thinking is even broader than I had originally thought. Systems thinking is just a way of thinking - about anything. I believe my original understanding is probably more what most people think when they hear the term ‘Systems Thinking.’ This misalignment is likely because 1) I was taking each word in the phrase separately to determine meaning, instead of the combined totality of its meaning (i.e. Systems Thinking > Systems + Thinking); and 2) Systems Thinking is most often used when thinking about the most complex and interconnected systems - but what I learned is that it can be applied universally.

The second thing I learned about Systems Thinking is that it is actually innate (research of children using systems thinking). Our human mind actually does basic systems thinking naturally, all the time. However, you only get better at the things you practice and pay attention to, so not everyone is great at systems thinking. In our ever more complex world, systems thinking is becoming an increasingly valuable skill.?

Systems Thinking provides a framework and a discipline to consider problems and find creative solutions. The world does not work in a cause and effect manner. There are typically multiple reactions, potentially even some unintended, from every action. Consider the example of trying to eradicate malaria from Borneo simply with DDT. The country ended up dealing with even more destructive unintended consequences for years. Don’t let something similar happen to you.

Here are 3 things Systems Thinkers do really well:

1. They are aware that they are Systems Thinkers: they are aware of their own biases, can recognize bias in others, and they practice systems thinking constantly.
2. They can break down complex things to gain the right level of clarity: they use the basic building blocks of systems to describe the systems and the challenges or issues in those systems.
3. They consistently seek feedback: because of #1 above, they know their version of reality is not necessarily the only version or the whole version, so they seek additional information and perspectives to ensure the system they are describing is as close to reality as possible.

In the series of blogs I will post over the next few weeks, I’ll discuss the value of systems thinking, the basics of how to be a great Systems Thinker, and go into some details around the rules for describing systems. I hope by sharing some of what I learned over the last year, I can help make you all better Systems Thinkers, and we can bring more clarity to the complex issues we are all facing.