Unlocking Business Vitality: The Living Systems Thinking

In my article, "The Path to Life-Centered Companies" , I delve into how Living Systems Thinking can infuse vitality into businesses.

What does Living Systems Thinking bring to the table is concrete ways to think (and as a consequence to act) differently. Let's explore some examples from the corporate landscape:

• CSR Manager's Presentation to the Executive Committee (Excom)

One Monday morning at an Excom meeting, the head of CSR presents her 5 year roadmap. It's a safe bet that the roadmap will show an action plan for climate change in the first few years, followed by the action plan for biodiversity and then water conservation. Regeneration? There's already so much to do on sustainability, we'll see later when we've completed all the projects planned!

Applying Living systems Thinking, you don't segment subjects, you understand the whole and the interrelationships between them. The links between climate, biodiversity and water are inextricable. It is more than likely that an action plan on one subject will have consequences for the others.

The way to look at this is through the “Territories”, because all impacts are local. By considering the territory as a whole, you can see the interrelations between climate, biodioversity, water, nature, communities,…and the associated potential for the territory and the company to co-evolve together.

• Product Manager's Service Development

I've been developing and launching new products and services for 30 years, so I'm familiar with the recipe I was taught: first you carry out market research, segment customers by profile, study their needs, define and launch new services that meet those needs and then sell them.

Applying Living Systems Thinking, we don't think like that at all: we understand the singularity of the customer and the latent potential associated with it, and we look for ways to help them express this singularity even more in the service of their role in the living systems in which they are embedded. This research requires us to develop our own capabilities: we co-evolve together, like living systems evolve together.

This Living System Thinking changes everything: The aim of developing a product is not to sell, but to move the customer towards the potential linked to the expression of their singularity.

• Problem-Solving Team

"We have to solve this problem!" says the manager. No sooner said than done, all the data surrounding the problem is collected, analyzed and dissected. A brainstorm is organized to come up with ideas to solve the problem and an action plan is put in place. I've facilitated hundreds of workshops of this type myself.

Problem solving is obviously useful in many situations. Applying Living Systems Thinking, there is another way of seeing the situation: instead of starting from the problem to be solved, we start from the latent potential. In concrete terms:

1/ We take a much more global view of the situation by looking at all the systems involved in the “problem” and the relationships between these systems,

2/ We take into account the singularity of each of these systems

3/ We look for the evolution that would allow us to tap into a potential that has not yet manifested itself.

When you get used to this way of thinking, the dynamic changes completely: it's no longer "Gee, another problem to solve!" but rather "OK, what's the gift hidden behind this problem that allows you to go and find a new order of potential?" In my experience, this often ends up with a new capability being developed or a new role being taken on.

• Inter-Company Partnerships

Hands up those who have never had such an experience: 2 CEOs have lunch together, shake hands, and then send an email to their teams with the words: "Thank you for partnering together"! And the teams wonder how to deal with this and often end up with just a transactional agreement (I give you this, you give me that) between the 2 companies.

Applying Living Systems thinking, we first think in terms of the singularity of each system and the latent potential associated with it. The 1st question is not: "What will I be able to get from this partnership? but "How can I help the partner to manifest its potential by expressing its singularity even more?" and "How can this partner help me to express my own potential and singularity even more? ". A partnership must enable an order of potential to be realised that neither of the other 2 could do alone.

I could give much more examples where applying the Living Systems Thinking really changes the lens you see your day to day work through. This is very powerful because it allows us to reconsider our role within the company in the service of living systems, whether human or non-human.

And that's a lot more exciting than doing the same thing over and over again, like on a hamster wheel, and solving problems that came up from solving the previous problems!

And what about you, with which lens do you see the world?