The Art Of Thinking In Systems: Improve Your Logic, Think More Critically, And Use Proven Systems To Solve Your Problems - Strategic Planning For Everyday Life

by Steven Schuster

2.“Just put a Band-Aid on it and we’ll come back to it later.”[xviii] The problem with putting a Band-Aid on a problem is that it may serve to mask the symptoms while the problem continues to infect the organization.

3.“We need the budget finalized before the end of the year!”[xix] When budgets are involved, linear thinking is usually at work. Budgets cause us to make choices based on money rather than whether an idea is actually the best one. Once we add a fixed deadline into the mix, we couldn’t be farther away from systems thinking.

4.“We must respond right away!”[xx] Panicking and trying to come up with an immediate solution causes us to rely on linear thinking, as we are in a rush. Calmly analyzing the situation would be a more systematic way of thinking.

5.“Who cares?”[xxi] Being apathetic instead of being curious, creative, and imaginative in searching for solutions often means an organization is stuck in a rut and won’t be able to break through and effectively solve problems.

6.“We need more information.”[xxii] This may sound like it fits with systems thinking, and there are times when it does for sure, but if an organization thinks gathering more data will solve the problem by itself, then linear thinking is more at work. The people have to be willing to examine the data and then be willing to act on it.

7.“You are overthinking things.”[xxiii] This means that we are trying to take a complex problem and break it down into small pieces. If someone accuses you of overthinking things, it probably means that you are disagreeing with their point of view. Systems thinking requires us to stretch outside of our comfort zone, and not everyone welcomes that.

8.“Forget the rest of the organization, we have to take care of ourselves.”[xxiv] Linear thinkers often come up with win-lose solutions in order to be certain their needs are met. This is kind of the dinner table mentality. If you want seconds of dessert, you might hurry to eat so that you can go back for more before someone else eats it all. It also happens in schools when teachers know there is limited money to spend on supplies in the school budget, so they rush to get their requests in first, hoping that the money will be spent on their classrooms instead of others’. Systems thinking would try to find win-win solutions instead.

9.“We don’t want any conflict.”[xxv] Some people would rather keep the peace at all costs, even if it is a hindrance to getting to the root of real problems and concerns. This reminds me of my extended family coming over for a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. We avoid discussing politics at all costs because we know it will cause tensions to rise. Luckily, in our case, we aren’t avoiding solving problems over the dinner table like some organizations do when they avoid conflict. We are simply trying to ensure that everyone will get up from the table still speaking to one another.

10.“We will do it this way.”[xxvi] Often, people in positions of authority rely on this linear way of thinking by imposing their individual will on the entire organization. This can stymie creativity and innovative thinking, as well as a collaborative effort to solving problems. This reminds me of times when I was asked to complete a survey or evaluation, or serve on a committee to study a problem in my teaching career. I would put in the time to give my thoughtful comments and reflective analysis, only to find that those in administrative positions would go against the recommendations of the majority in favor of doing what they had intended to do all along. I found myself wishing if that was going to be their approach, they would just do it without asking the rest of us to waste our time giving input in an exercise in futility.

Keep in mind that systems:

Are always greater than just the sum of their parts. Have interconnections that often function through the flow of information. Have a function or purpose, often its least obvious component, that is typically the most critical factor in setting a system’s behavior. Have a structure that contributes to the system’s behavior, which is shown

as a group of events over time.

Stock A stock serves as the base of every system. Stock may be physical, like an amount of money, inventory, or information, but it does not have to be. Stock can also be feelings or attitudes that people hold. Stocks are not static. They change over time based on the impacts of a flow. Stocks are sorts of snapshots in time, showing a current view of the changing flows in the system.

Flow Flows are the actions that impact a system. A flow might be a success or a failure, purchases or sales, deposits or withdrawals, or growth or decline.

How are stocks and flows related in systems?

If there are more inflows than outflows, the level of stock will increase. If there are more outflows than inflows, the level of stock will decrease. If the amount of outflows and inflows is equal, the stock level will remain at its current level and will be unchanged (this is called dynamic equilibrium). The level of a stock is increased if its outflow is decreased or its inflow is increased. Stocks provide a sort of security barrier in a system, since they serve to delay the initial shock that may affect a system. Stocks preserve the ability of inflows and outflows to remain independent.[xxix]

We can draw a few conclusions about stocks and flows from our simple example: The level of the stock will always rise if the total inflow is greater than the total outflow. The level of the stock will always decrease if the total outflow is greater than the total inflow. If the total outflow is equal to the total inflow, the stock level will not change. It will stay in a state of dynamic equilibrium.

Our mind has a tendency to focus more on stocks than flows. When it does focus on flows, it seems that inflows are more easily concentrated on than outflows. That means that we may sometimes forget that there is more than one way for us to get our stock to the level we desire.

Flows can change very quickly if we want them to. It is easy to eat a big bowl of ice cream or go for a run around the neighborhood in a matter of minutes. However, stocks react much more slowly. Our weight doesn’t instantly drop or rise. It takes time. In a system, stocks usually change slowly. They can act as the buffers or delays for the system. They are the keepers of a system’s momentum. They reveal a great deal about why a system behaves the way it does.

Understanding a system’s momentum can give you an opportunity to steer it toward the positive outcome you are hoping for. Just by the nature of stocks being present in systems, inflows and outflows are allowed to be independent from one another, and even out of balance with each other. People continually observe stocks so they can decide the action they need to take in order to adjust the level of stocks and ensure that they are in acceptable ranges. Systems thinkers are always studying this feedback.

When a system displays a behavior that is consistent over time, it is highly likely that there is a mechanism that is working to control and create that behavior. The mechanism works through a feedback loop. Seeing a consistent pattern of behavior over time is the first signal that a feedback loop might exist.

No matter what the feedback loop does, the inflows and outflows to and from the stock are determined by the level of the stock itself.

There are two feedback loops responsible for producing dynamic behavior: a reinforcing loop and a balancing loop. Understanding how these two loops work is a cornerstone of systems thinking.

These feedback loops shift dominance over time. Dominance is a key concept of systems thinking. During the period that one loop dominates another, the dominant loop has a more powerful impact on the system’s behavior.

Ask

yourself three important questions:

Are the driving factors likely to act as predicted?

If the driving factors act as predicted, would the system react as expected?

What is the guiding force behind the driving factors?

When a system is policy resistant, everyone pulls in different directions and works hard to keep the system from moving too far away from their individual goals. What ends up happening is all of that effort keeps the system in a place that no one really wants it to be — motionless, and often stuck with the status quo.

Changing the interconnections has a bigger impact on the system.

The most successful way to overcome policy resistance is to find a way to unite the goals of all of the subsystems. A unifying goal that everyone can work toward is a powerful one, indeed.

When individual actors and subsystems lose sight of the guiding goal of the system, or when the system lacks a clear and unifying overarching goal, there will be a power struggle and competition of sorts as everyone tries to pull the stock of the system closer to their own narrow goals. Policy resistance can result as everyone devotes a lot of time and energy to trying to pull the system in multiple directions at once. The outcome is often the system being stuck in a place that no one really likes.

If everyone could let go of their own individual goals in order to redirect their efforts and energy toward the larger and more important goals of the system as a whole, great things can be achieved.

Ultimately, the goal and standard a system has set for itself begins to decline based on that negative perception. Often, the actors in a system will respond by saying things like: We did as well as could be expected, given the circumstances. Everyone else is struggling too. Excuses begin to be made, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How to fix the drift to low performance?

There are two ways to combat the erosion of goals and expectations. The first is to maintain standards that are absolute no matter what happens in terms of performance.

The second way is to set goals that are tied to the best performances from the past. This makes the perception of what is possible in terms of performance more positive. When poor results occur, they are viewed as a temporary setback that the system is able to overcome, allowing it to get back on track to a better performance. Now the reinforcing feedback loop is trending positive and encouraging actors to work harder to achieve better results. So if you temporarily despise yourself because of that extra donut, remember the day when you ran two laps on the track instead of one and move on.

The balancing feedback loop can’t keep up and overcome the negative reinforcing feedback loop. If you have ever reached the point where you were afraid to say or do anything at all because you were convinced it would only lead to another

fight and make things worse, then you know exactly how this works.

When we allow our standards to be impacted by our current bad performance and negative perception of it, we are setting our systems up for failure as we allow them to drift toward low performance and take our goals and expectations right along with them. In order to combat this, we need to keep our standards steadfast despite dips in performance and expect that we will rise to meet them. If we do this, we can flip the script and start drifting toward better performance. Just keep in mind the wisdom of Scarlet O’Hara, “tomorrow is another day.” In our case tomorrow is another day to stick to our absolute standard, remember our best performance and move our lives to higher and better levels.

In terms of systems, escalation is a reinforcing loop that is created when actors try to compete to get ahead of one another. Escalation can be a good thing when it is connected to achieving a positive goal, like an advancement in technology or finding a cure for cancer. It can speed up the whole system toward reaching the goal.

One way to break free of the escalation loop is to intentionally reduce your system’s stock or performance and trying to influence your competitor to do the same. This can be risky, as the competitor may opt to not follow suit, but it can be effective if you can withstand the advantage your competitor will have in the short run.

The other way to end the escalation is to negotiate a disarmament with your competitor. This requires a big change in the structure and design of your system, as you need to create

new balancing controlling loops that will help to keep our competitor in check. Disarmament agreements aren’t easy to come by, and they come with their own set of challenges for both actors, but in the long run, they are definitely better than being stuck in the escalation loop.[xlvii]

The best way out of this trap is not to step into it in the first place. But if you find yourself caught in an escalating system, you can take yourself out of the competition by unilaterally disarming and breaking the reinforcing loop, or by negotiating a new system.

It is human nature to try to attribute multiple events to the same cause.

The four horsemen

The first horseman is criticism.

contempt.