Why thinking about systems is always such a downer…

At The Curiosity Society , we often encounter situations when great organisations doing amazing work feel overwhelmed. Systems they are trying to improve can feel like a cobweb of complexity, and doing something about changing them – like drinking an ocean with a spoon. It is fairly easy to despair over the state of the world, layers of injustice and the intersectionality of it all.

Systems thinking forces you to not think in binary terms. It makes you understand issues holistically. It’s the classic yes, AND - which means, inevitably, more permutations, multitude of possible scenarios and just very many variables. The more we comprehend the interconnectedness of it all, the less in control we feel. This is unpleasant. Negative emotions like this aren’t something we seek out, in fact, we actively avoid them. This is just biology at work.

Then, when a system is failing, it is much easier to try to ‘assign’ the blame to one factor. You now feel like you understand cause and effect and all cognitive dissonance is gone. You feel like you understand what’s going on – that’s better! Trying to comprehend the myriad of ripples and interconnections is actually just hard work.

Let’s have a look at an example.

Inflation is ‘bad’.

Without thinking systemically, it is relatively easy to track inflation to a generic root cause: excess money circulating in the system (increased demand), with limited supply of goods will inevitably raise prices of these goods. This is likely caused by the different stimulus packages during COVID that were injected into the economy. That’s it - we’ve got the culprit! The thing, though, is that one man’s culprit is another man’s saviour. Many people absolutely needed the cash that the government provided in order to make it through COVID. So maybe it is an acceptable trade off in the end? Who knows? Who is the judge? What are we comparing to what? So many questions…so little control! And we haven’t even touched on diminished supplies playing into those same dynamics! What about all of the other contributing factors? Ughhhhh! Can I just go back to linear, patterned, rules-based tasks now?!

In the brilliant words of Mariame Kaba: 'hope is a discipline'.

Hope, in our mind, is the only solution to this complexity. And it is to be practiced consistently and tirelessly.

We think here are some things that can help:

1. ? ? Take a longer view whenever you can by expanding the time horizons in which you view your problem space. The detail might be blurry, but the hues can come through if we lift our eyes off the immediate path we are walking on.

2. ? ? Start acknowledging uncomfortable truths by staying away from rationalising what doesn’t seem or feel right. Yes, jumping to “cause-effects” will help with the cognitive dissonance, but the situation will remain the same and the larger conditions that hold the problem in place will not be acknowledged, leaving you no chance of affecting them.

3. ? ? Learn about the problems you are working on as much as you can - research, team up with others who are experts in aspects foreign to you, and patiently expand your systems map.

4. ? ? Once you understand the problem better, see where you can influence a positive tendency or stop exacerbating a negative tendency and just focus on adopting that behaviour. Make a point of coming back to this in a year or so and see if you now know even more and can expand your area of influence.

Here’s to hoping, diligently and ferociously!