Sunday, December 22, 2013

Senge's 11 Laws of Systems

The pop-culture application of systems thinking and chaos theory is described as the Butterfly Effect -- how tiny variations can affect giant and complex systems, like weather patterns. The term "Butterfly Effect" suggests that wing movements of a butterfly might have significant repercussions on wind strength and conditions throughout the weather systems of the world, and theoretically, could cause tornadoes halfway around the world. The implication? The prediction of any large system's behavior is virtually impossible without accounting for a multitude of tiny factors -- surely too many to account for -- any one of which might have a minute but significant effect on the system.

Understanding systems, their interactions and changes allows leaders to establish and maintain a focus on process and to achieve organizational strategy.

Peter Senge is an influential systems thinker. Based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Senge is the author of many books and articles that address systems thinking and organizational learning as core values of a leadership system framework for change and transformation.

In The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Senge suggests 11 laws of systems that support that essential understanding:

1. Today's problems come from yesterday's solutions
Leaders are happy to solve problems, but don't always think about intended and unintended consequences. Too often our solutions strike back to create new problems.
     
2. The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back
Humans have a stubborn tendency to bully our way through tough situations when things are not working out as we would hope. We charge ahead without taking time to think through solutions to find better alternatives. Sometimes we solve problems; more often, especially in the current environment, we find ourselves up to our ears in more problems.

3. Behavior grows better before it grows worse
Short-term solutions give temporary improvement at best but never eliminate fundamental issues and problems. These underlying problems will make the situation worse in the long run.

4. The easy way out leads back in
Leaders often have a few quick fixes in their "quiver" of solutions that have brought quick and easy success in the past. Too often, the easy way out is retrofitting these fixes to any situation without regard to the unique contexts, people and timing.

5. The cure can be worse than the disease
Often, the easy and familiar solution is not only ineffective but addictive and dangerous. It might even induce dependency.

6. Faster is slower
At the first taste of success, it is tempting to advance at full speed without caution. Remember that the optimal rate of growth or change is far slower than the fastest growth or change that is possible.

7. Cause and effect are not always closely related in time and space
We are good at finding causes, even if they are just symptoms unrelated to root causes.

8. Small changes can produce big results - But the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious. 
The most grand and splashy solutions -- like changing company policy, vision, branding or tagline -- seldom work for transforming change. Small, ordinary but consistent and repetitive changes can make a huge difference.

9. You can have your cake and eat it too -- but not all at once
Rigid "either-or" choices are not uncommon. Remember that this is not a dilemma if we change our perspective or the "rules" of the system.

10. Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants
As a leader, you can fail to see the system as a whole at your peril.. This flaw in perception and vision often leads to suboptimal decisions, repeated tasks, lost time and energy, and maybe even losing followers.

11. There is no blame
People and organizations like to blame, point fingers and raise suspicions about events, situations, problems, errors and mistakes. Sometimes we even believe the blame we throw around. In reality, we and the cause of events, situations, problems, errors and mistakes are part of the system.

Understanding system thinking and principles is essential to transforming our care processes. In fact, it is the foundation of leading for change. W. Edwards Deming first pointed out the need to understand the system in post-World War II America. Deming stressed that learning must be emergent, designing out the system aspects that are wasteful, suboptimizing and unnecessarily redundant. To improve performance, the system has to change because the system drives 95 percent of any organization's performance. He also said that any improvement that does not involve human system change methods was doomed to failure in the short-, mid- and long-term; you cannot implement a new system in an old environment and anticipate success. The key to achieving the necessary human mindset change lies in curiosity: Ask questions, learn by doing, observe and think about what could be. Deming's messages fell on deaf ears in the U.S. post-war boom. Thinking did not change, and thinking must change for the system to change.

Key Systems Thinking Concepts
Explore systems thinking concepts through the mindmap of key systems thinking concepts, below.

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