On June 4, at Saybrook University in San Francisco, an introductory 4-hour presentation on a valuable systems thinking method will be offered through the Bay Area Society for Organizational Learning. This introduction will be followed by a 2-day workshop in July
Why is Systems Thinking important? It helps you see interconnections and interdependencies, and ultimately manage complexity better.
What can it help you with in today’s increasingly complex organizational settings? It helps you anticipate unintended consequences, make changes that stick, and manage multiple levels of complexity.
A recent 2010 study by IBM of 1541 Global CEO’s identified “complexity… as their primary challenge; and, a surprising number of them told us that they feel ill-equipped to succeed in this drastically different world.” (www.ibm.com/CEOStudy)
If CEO’s are feeling the pressures of complexity at their level, imagine what the Directors, Program/Project Managers, individual contributors are feeling down in the trenches? With outsourcing, off-shoring, and right-sizing as cost-cutting strategies, teams are distributed across continents, time zones, cultures, languages, operating paradigms , processes/procedures, and leadership norms. The thinking and management practices that have created the organizations of today are no longer sufficient to deal with these levels of complexity, brought on by the pressure for ever-increasing monthly and quarterly results through these cost-cutting strategies.
Einstein said:
The thinking that created today’s problems cannot be the thinking that will also solve them.
Most of today’s leaders have advanced through the ranks using the traditional, linear thinking that made the Industrial Age of the 20th century so successful. Divide and conquer; optimize the parts; ensure quality control and consistency. Because teams were more often co-located, it was easier to work out problems that arose between the parts.
It is a different world now from 50, 30, even 10 years ago, with global interconnectivity, parts being built in distributed locations and then brought together for assembly, social networking becoming marketing tools, 3-4 generations of employees working together (each generation with its own set of values and drivers for success).
Systems thinking is valuable because people at all levels and backgrounds can work with a complex issue, find leverage points for change, and create actions to support moving the system toward a desired future state. In systems thinking you consider the parts of a system, the interrelationship between the parts, and the whole that is created by the combination. What is often missed in traditional process improvement efforts is the interrelationship between the parts, and the beliefs and assumptions held by the members of the system about how it could, should, and would operate, if only . . .
The method of systems thinking to be offered June 4th uses the stories of the system to evaluate the current situation and future opportunities. This method maps the underlying structures that drive system performance, the interrelationships between those structures, the beliefs and assumptions driving people’s actions, the leverage points for change, and creates an action plan to resolve the structural tensions and breakdowns, generating the desired system of the future.
Join us June 4th in San Francisco and bring a complex issue you are dealing with to explore.
