We are the System!

In this two-part series, we will be exploring first "Systems Thinking" and second how it is nurtured by the path of "Selfless Leadership".

"Good Thinking, Good Products"

This slogan of Toyota clearly depicts the essence of how learning organizations should look like! The quality of our thinking determines the quality of our products which add value to people's life. New ways of thinking are needed to navigate the complexity that cannot be solved only by the reductionist paradigm. The reductionist approach is a reasoning process which is used to describe things by focusing on parts and analyzing their properties in isolation.

But, the reality, the world is too complex and interconnected. We need to elevate our thinking from seeing the parts to seeing and understanding the whole system. This new awareness about the whole and how the different elements in a system influence each other is called Systems Thinking.

Peter Senge defines Systems Thinking as

The four key concepts of Systems thinking are

• Holistic
• Emergence
• Non-Linear
• Relational

In this age of data, knowledge is plentiful and readily available at a single click or a voice command. But, how everyone perceives really matters. Systems thinking is how we maintain a balanced emphasis on the subjective models and assumptions as on the objective inquiry that we are engaged in. The key aspect of systems thinking is well explained in a sentence by a cartoon character Pogo.

"We have met the enemy and he is us"

The heart of Systems Thinking is the inclusion of subjectivity and it needs eyes which are capable enough to see beyond subjective assumptions and accept the present state. How we see the world creates how we act in the world!

It requires us to see through our illusory self which is bounded by biases and other limiting beliefs.

So, what do we have to do to shift our ego-centric view of the world to wholeness?

There comes for our rescue "The Selfless Leadership" path!

In her book "Selfless Leadership - A Complete Guide To Awakening The Servant Leader Within", Kat (Katrijn) van Oudheusden guides us with the four key elements of insights path to Selfless Leadership.

Let's dive deep into these four insights in the next article of this series and realize that

"The sense of separation is an illusion and We are the System!"

- Till then "Awakenings" will continue...

Links to know more about Selfless Leadership,

LinkedIn: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/katrijnvo/

Website: https://selflessleadership.life/