Systems thinking in the workplace

Last week I posted about dipping my toe into systems thinking, and I wondered aloud how far a systems approach could find a practical application in the workplace. By a curious synchronicity, that very day a LinkedIn post led me to an article in the Harvard Business Review on this very subject.

The article (by Ludmila Praslova) is titled "Today’s Most Critical Workplace Challenges Are About Systems," and it argues that too often we blame errors or nonconformities on individual failure when the real problem lies with the design of some system. Of course this is a commonplace in the Quality business, but I was thrilled to see the point made by someone coming from another area of specialization. What particularly caught my eye, though, was that Dr. Praslova explains exactly why this is so hard to do.

Her article starts by reviewing several distinct cognitive biases that make it easy for us to see the trees but hard to see the forest. And in fact this problem is something that Donella Meadows says is true of systems in general: it is always easier to look at individuals and events than to look at stocks and flows and long-term behavior.*

Praslova's next step is to identify several techniques which we can use during a problem-solving exercise to help us see past the trees to the forest. These techniques include:

"Diversify the collective cognition in leadership." Praslova argues that the true value of diverse leadership is very specifically to appoint members to leadership who think differently. If everyone thinks exactly alike, the chances of seeing anything more than a superficial view of things are dramatically reduced.**

"Integrate contextual thinking into forms and procedures." This should be straightforward. Since it is easy to forget about context or the impact of systems, it helps to build reminders into the forms and procedures you use. If Question 3 specifically asks about the context in which a failure occurs, you'll remember to check the context. Likewise if your 2 x 2 x 5 Why analysis requires you to ask how a problem could have been caught or prevented, you'll take those topics into account during your root cause analysis.

"Address the stress." Praslova points out something we all know but forget too quickly: too much stress makes you take shortcuts in your thinking, and one of these shortcuts is regularly to stop looking at context or systems.

"Invite broad input." This makes the same point as the advice about diverse leadership. When you bring in people who see a problem from different angles or perspectives, you necessarily get a better and more complete view of what is going on. And the more complete your understanding, the greater the likelihood that you are incorporating a critical systems perspective.

"Appoint a systems champion." And of course, if you want to make sure to take a systems perspective into account, make sure that someone on the problem-solving team has the specific task to ask system-related questions.

Will these techniques guarantee perfect problem-solving? Obviously there is no such thing as a perfect process. But each of them addresses one way that a systems perspective can slip past us. Taken together, they are bound to help.

I still want to invite readers to contribute any further insights they have about how to apply systems thinking to the design and implementation of management systems. But I was delighted to discover this article just as I was writing last week's post.   

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* See for example her Thinking in Systems, pp 2-4, 87-91, or 147-149.  

** One logical consequence of this insight is that it is more helpful to look for diversity of thought than to check a list of demographic categories or to look good to external parties. To be clear, this does not mean that demography is never relevant. But if your leadership is demographically diverse and nonetheless all think exactly alike, it won't help you much.