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SYSTEMS THINKING: WHAT, WHY, WHEN, WHERE, AND HOW? - ARTICLE. 

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SYSTEMS THINKING: WHAT, WHY, WHEN, WHERE, AND HOW? - ARTICLE. 

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The article explains the systems thinking approach in very broad terms. Systems thinking is not just a collection of tools and appropriate methods - it is a kind of philosophical approach. Systems thinking is sensitive to the complexity of the environment around us. Systems thinking activity requires looking at the complexity of systems. One must be aware that every interaction is part of something larger and is meant to serve as a part in a holistic sense.

This kind of thinking is first based on observation of events and or collection of data, it can be in the quantitative sense, and then there is a qualitative study of the topic in question to notice some kind of thinking paths or patterns. This approach allows us to get to know the topic under study in a broader and deeper sense, we do not focus on a narrow view of one element but on a holistic knowledge of the topic. If we look more broadly at the subject we can invent more possibilities, for example, to solve the problem.

A systems thinking perspective emphasizes the importance of curiosity, clarity, compassion, choice, and courage. This approach involves a desire to understand situations more comprehensively, recognizing our interconnectedness and the complexity of challenges. It acknowledges that there are often multiple solutions to a problem and encourages advocating for interventions that may not be widely accepted. This mindset fosters a holistic view, enabling individuals to engage with complexity and drive meaningful change, even in the face of resistance.

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If you're reading The Systems Thinker®, you probably have at least a general sense of the benefits of applying systems thinking in the work-place. But even if you're intrigued by the possibility of looking at business problems in new ways, you may not know how to go about actually using these principles and tools. The following tips are designed to get you started, whether you're trying to introduce systems thinking in your company or attempting to implement the tools in an organization that already supports this approach.

What Does Systems Thinking Involve?

TIPS FOR BEGINNERS

It's important to remember that the term "systems thinking" can mean different things to different people. The discipline of systems thinking is more than just a collection of tools and methods - it's also an underlying philosophy. Many beginners are attracted to the tools, such as causal loop diagrams and management flight simulators, in hopes that these tools will help them deal with persistent business problems. But systems thinking is also a sensitivity to the circular nature of the world we live in; an awareness of the role of structure in creating the conditions we face; a recognition that there are powerful laws of systems operating that we are unaware of; a realization that there are consequences to our actions that we are oblivious to.
Systems thinking is also a diagnostic tool. As in the medical field, effective treatment follows thorough diagnosis. In this sense, systems thinking is a disciplined approach for examining problems more completely and accurately before acting. It allows us to ask better questions before jumping to conclusions.
Systems thinking often involves moving from observing events or data, to identifying patterns of behavior overtime, to surfacing the underlying structures that drive those events and patterns. By understanding and changing structures that are not serving us well (including our mental models and perceptions), we can expand the choices available to us and create more satisfying, long-term solutions to chronic problems.
In general, a systems thinking perspective requires curiosity, clarity, compassion, choice, and courage. This approach includes the willingness to see a situation more fully, to recognize that we are interrelated, to acknowledge that there are often multiple interventions to a problem, and to champion interventions that may not be popular (see "The Systems Orientation: From Curiosity to Courage,"V5N9).

Why Use Systems Thinking?

Systems thinking expands the range of choices available for solving a problem by broadening our thinking and helping us articulate problems in new and different ways. At the same time, the principles of systems thinking make us aware that there are no perfect solutions; the choices we make will have an impact on other parts of the system. By anticipating the impact of each trade-off, we can minimize its severity or even use it to our own advantage. Systems thinking therefore allows us to make informed choices.
Systems thinking is also valuable for telling compelling stories that describe how a system works. For example, the practice of drawing causal loop diagrams forces a team to develop shared pictures, or stories, of a situation. The tools are effective vehicles for identifying, describing, and communicating your understanding of systems, particularly in groups.

When Should We Use Systems Thinking?

Problems that are ideal for a systems thinking intervention have the following characteristics:

The issue is important.

The problem is chronic, not a one-time event.

The problem is familiar and has a known history.

People have unsuccessfully tried to solve the problem before.

Where Should We Start?

When you begin to address an issue, avoid assigning blame (which is a common place for teams to start a discussion!). Instead, focus on items that people seem to be glossing over and try to arouse the group's curiosity about the problem under discussion. To focus the conversation, ask, "What is it about this problem that we don't understand?"

In addition, to get the full story out, emphasize the iceberg framework. Have the group describe the problem from all three angles: events, patterns, and structure (see "The Iceberg").
Finally, we often assume that everyone has the same picture of the past or knows the same information. It's therefore important to get different perspectives in order to make sure that all viewpoints are represented and that solutions are accepted by the people who need to implement them. When investigating a problem, involve people from various departments or functional areas; you may be surprised to learn how different their mental models are from yours.

How Do We Use Systems Thinking Tools?

Causal Loop Diagrams. First, remember that less is better. Start small and simple; add more elements to the story as necessary. Show the story in parts. The number of elements in a loop should be determined by the needs of the story and of the people using the diagram. A simple description might be enough to stimulate dialogue and provide a new way to see a problem. In other situations, you may need more loops to clarify the causal relationships you are surfacing.

Also keep in mind that people often think that a diagram has to incorporate all possible variables from a story; this is not necessarily true. In some cases, there are external elements that don't change, change very slowly, or whose changes are irrelevant to the problem at hand. You can unnecessarily complicate things by including such details, especially those over which you have little or no control. Some of the most effective loops reveal connections or relationships between parts of the organization or system that the group may not have noticed before.
And last, don't worry about whether a loop is "right"; instead, ask yourself whether the loop accurately reflects the story your group is trying to depict. Loops are shorthand descriptions of what we perceive as current reality; if they reflect that perspective, they are "right" enough.

THE ICEBERG

The Archetypes. When using the archetypes, or the classic stories in systems thinking, keep it simple and general. If the group wants to learn more about an individual archetype, you can then go into more detail.
Don't try to "sell" the archetypes; people will learn more if they see for themselves the parallels between the archetypes and their own problems. You can, however, try to demystify the archetypes by relating them to common experiences we all share.

How Do We Know That We've "Got It"?

Here's how you can tell you've gotten a handle on systems thinking:

You're asking different kinds of questions than you asked before.

You're hearing "catchphrases" that raise cautionary flags. For example, you find yourself refocusing the discussion when someone says, "The problem is we need more (sales staff, revenue)."

You're beginning to detect the archetypes and balancing and reinforcing processes in stories you hear or read.

You're surfacing mental models (both your own and those of others).

You're recognizing the leverage points for the classic systems stories.

Once you've started to use systems thinking for inquiry and diagnosis, you may want to move on to more complex ways to model systems-accumulator and flow diagrams, management flight simulators, or simulation software. Or you may find that adopting a systems thinking perspective and using causal loop diagrams provide enough insights to help you tackle problems. However you proceed, systems thinking will forever change the way you think about the world and approach issues. Keep in mind the tips we've listed here, and you're on your way!
Michael Goodman is principal at Innovation Associates Organizational Learning

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Systems Thinking: What, Why, When, Where, and How? - The Systems Thinker

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f you're reading The Systems Thinker®, you probably have at least a general sense of the benefits of applying systems thinking in the work-place. But even if you're intrigued by the possibility of looking at business problems in new ways, you may not know how to go about actually using these principles and tools.

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The Role Of Systems Thinking In Organizational Change And Development 

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The Role Of Systems Thinking In Organizational Change And Development 

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The article talks about the advantages of using systems thinking in organizational change and development. Special attention is given to feedback loops Balancing and reinforcing feedback loops help organizations adjust as they learn about the connections within their systems. Causality refers to how different parts influence each other. By understanding these relationships and feedback loops, leaders can gain a clearer view of the system. A skilled systems-thinking leader will set up and communicate multiple feedback mechanisms to their employees, enhancing overall understanding and adaptability in the workplace. I find it useful that the article emphasizes the importance of interconnectedness in business management. Awareness of the coherence of the system as a whole and the connections between the elements of this system positively affects the functioning of the entire organizational strategy and can give a competitive advantage. I think that such knowledge of interconnectedness supports cooperation and encourages creativity.

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Council Post: The Role Of Systems Thinking In Organizational Change And Development

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Through systems thinking, a number of core concepts and practical tools can be applied to better understand the complexity of each organization.

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Tools for Systems Thinkers: The 6 Fundamental Concepts of Systems Thinking 

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Tools for Systems Thinkers: The 6 Fundamental Concepts of Systems Thinking 

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In this article I found an interesting text on causality. It is seeing how one thing or process interacts with another in a dynamic, constantly evolving system. It is the science of how decisions made affect outcomes on many levels and how those outcomes affect subsequent decisions. I believe that awareness of causality is particularly useful in manufacturing operations. Employees responsible for streamlining the production process should familiarize themselves with this issue, how decisions made, such as increasing production, will affect the amount of post-production waste and its management. The results of the activities and the interactions and interconnections of the processes can be studied, and based on these studies, further steps can be taken.

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Tools for Systems Thinkers: The 6 Fundamental Concepts of Systems Thinking

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In this series on systems thinking, I share the key insights and tools needed to develop and advance a systems mindset for dealing with…

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Emergence: One of the Sacred Cows of Systems Thinking 

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Emergence: One of the Sacred Cows of Systems Thinking 

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The text talks about emergence. This is a phenomenon that says that the results of activities together of individual parts of processes are more visible than the processes themselves. I agree with this statement, although it is not exactly a positive phenomenon. I see it as a kind of injustice. Just as an anthill consists of the work of hundreds of thousands of ordinary worker ants, we humans only see the final result in the form of a large anthill. If we translate this into business-every company consists of more or less processes that interact and fulfill duties to form a single whole. Taking into account the social factor- observers may overlook the contribution to success of serial employees and reward only CEOs and managers with praise. Speaking of this phenomenon in purely systemic terms, the systems and processes that make up the whole must work together effectively to ensure a positive overall whole is built. The task of the oversight body is to monitor and take action if parts of the system are not effective enough.

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The discussion of emergence is always one that gets tempers roiled in the systems thinking community. Indeed, it is one of a few of what I call "sacred cows" (or common, unquestioned tropes) of the ST community that are important to reconsider.

We won't discuss all of these sacred cows in this blog, but instead focus on emergence or the common trope that the whole is more than the parts, which is never true.
Emergence: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
For more detailed and scholarly work on this topic read an excerpt here.

In a recent thread in the systems thinking community, one of the members asked me to provide a replacement statement or metaphor for the common understanding of emergence and I did. He responded with a question that I thought was simple but very important.

"How is the following statement useful or practical? 'The whole is precisely equal to all the stuff that is part of it'

An Example
The whole exhibits qualities that are not always "visible" in the parts. We call this emergence. For example, in foraging ant colonies we see a form of intelligent behavior at the colony-level even though no individual ant is "intelligent." So intelligence in these systems is an emergent property. But that intelligence isn't a mystery and isn't "more" than the whole, it is contained in the whole in the simple rules. One rule in particular explains it, which is that ants will not cross a pheromone trail. The collective dynamics (multiplication) of that rule yields intelligent behavior at the colony level. That simple rule (along with others) governs the interactions (relationships) between ants. When we mathematicians and scientists say that the whole is more than the sum we mean it literally as sum (+ or addition). It is more than the sum (additive) because it is dynamical and multiplicative or sometimes exponential. But we don't mean that equalities no longer apply. The whole still equals what it is made up of (which includes relationships!). We can model and experiment on these systems and we can actually dampen the intelligence by dampening the interaction rules. There's a direct connection between these interaction rules (which are part of the system) and the emergent properties.

And this is important... for 2500 years when it came to marveling over birds and fish and ants, we assumed it had to do with leadership or something. It wasn't until we saw the rules governing interactions that the problem was solved in the 1980s. Without focusing on the simple rules, emergence remains a mystery to be filled with many fantastical explanations. By seeing the connection to the simple interaction rules, it becomes yet another of nature's lovely and elegant evolutionary solutions.
Understanding is practical
Let me first say that as a scientist, understanding itself is the most useful and pragmatic goal. So, just making the statement more accurate is practical enough, because it helps us to better understand system behaviors we might characterize as "emergent." Also, because we are talking about deeper ideas in ST which, as was mentioned earlier, are threshold concepts, this particular insight is even more important and practical because it is theoretical in nature. Kurt Lewin was fond of saying, "There's nothing more practical than a good theory." I agree with him, despite the lament of my graduate students. As a replacement for the ever popular but inaccurate statement, "the whole is greater than its parts" (which is never true) it's a vast improvement. So, that should suffice: it increases understanding. Or alternatively, it decreases misunderstanding.

But, there is far more that lurks beneath this seemingly banal statement. Indeed, a deep understanding of systems thinking itself swims beneath the surface. Again, in comparison, lurking beneath the statement "the whole is greater than its parts" (which is never true) is a dark quagmire of misunderstanding that takes us further and further away from the very purpose of statements of science made for public consumption and understanding [and a mantra at our research lab], simplification with fidelity! So, let's take a deeper look at the abundance that this new statement affords us...
Like Garlic for mysticism
The second practical contribution is that it wards off mysticism, which in our current climate of religiosity is quite important. The statement "the whole is greater than its parts" creates a tiny sliver of an opening that folks, if they wanted to, could drive a really big mystic truck through. Sometimes without even knowing it. Because there is something not in the parts that shows up in the whole, there is suddenly the impression that something meta-physical, mysterious, or mystical is going on. Perhaps God? A higher power? Chakras? Or, crystal harmonics? But the truth is emergence doesn't mean that something mysterious is going on (unless mysterious simply means "we don't know" or "we don't really have the computing time and power to figure it out"). But nothing truly mysterious is going on. There are just qualities of the whole that are not seen in the parts. That's all. That's what emergence means. There are qualities of the whole that are not seen in the parts. It doesn't say anything about we don't need to look at the parts, or one couldn't deduce, retroactively, from the parts why those qualities emerge. It does sometimes mean that it would be difficult to predict from the parts what will emerge. But either way. There's no mystery. We know that the behavior of the whole is coming from itself. Not from anywhere, or anyone, else. It is simple and sound: what goes into the left side of the equation is balanced (equal to) what goes into the right side of the equation. The parts and the whole are equalities. They are different versions (reductionistic and holistic) perspectives on the same thing: All the Parts = Whole.
If something is part of the whole isn't it a part?
The third thing this statement does is quite simple but also sublime. It forces us to take a critical look at how we perceive things. In particular, what we call parts. Parts are parts if they belong to the whole. Alternatively, you could say that something is a part if it is contained by the whole. Here lies an important distinction because for hundreds of years, we've been arbitrarily deciding that something is part of the whole only if it is structural. This leaves out all the dynamical things that are also part of what makes up the whole-the relationships (a.k.a, interactions, connections, links, etc). So let's take a metaphorical equation and see how people contort and get tied up in knots about emergence:[1]

Here's a truism about parts/wholes and emergence:

IF, The Whole = All its structural AND relational parts

THEN, emergence is something we see in the whole that wasn't immediately clear to us but nevertheless was there, in the parts.

Here's a contortion that occurs when we arbitrarily conclude that the relationships that are literally part of the whole system, are not "parts":

IF, The Whole = Only its structural parts

THEN, emergence is something that wasn't in the parts but it was in the whole. Where could it have come from then?

The answer seems obvious doesn't it? The emergence is a product of the interactions (which could be quite enormous and complex). In the first example, the onus is on us to perceive things more accurately. In the second example, the onus is on us to solve a mystery that isn't really there. The mystery is one of perception. If we remove the relationships from consideration as parts then of course there is going to be a mystery byproduct to be solved.

We should think of the whole as equal to the parts because whatever belongs to the whole is part of it, a priori. The equation of parts and whole is equivalent. If it is not, then something went wrong. Something is amiss. But just because the equation has not been balanced does not mean that we need to invent mysterious or mystical causes. It more than likely means that we are missing something or have left something out. That something is almost always relationships (a.k.a., interactions, connections, links, edges, etc).

Metaphorically speaking, this is not unlike a conceptual conservation of energy law. Energy does not disappear. If it appears to have disappeared we are guided by the better judgement that it went somewhere. Likewise, wholes are not more than their parts. If it appears that they are then we are guided by our better judgement to look more deeply or to consider that our mental models are wrong.
Relationships exist
This brings us to the fourth important thing the statement does for us pragmatically. It causes us to truly embrace relationships and the short shrift we have given them. Relationships are not merely lines between things, they are things in and of themselves. They are physical, they are parts, and they belong to their wholes. Here again, we suffer from our own thinking errors. We see a structural part (a component) and we know that if we zoomed into that part, we would see that it is a whole made up of many related parts. If we then zoomed into one of those parts, we would see the same. And if we continued to drill down we would eventually realize that every structural part is reduced to relationships between relationships. Because every structural part is reducible to relationships between parts, we must confess that the relationships are things. Therefore, we should end the oppression of relationships and grant them thing status.

In practical terms, this means that in a complex network made up of nodes and edges, all of the edges are nodes, too. And, all of the nodes (which means all of the edges) can be wholes made up of successfully smaller related parts. Add boundary conditions for each of these identified nodes and relational-nodes and add perspective and you have a universal theory of systems thinking. Not bad for a little statement.

That the whole is greater than the sum of the parts will only hold true if the relationships are not considered as parts of the whole. And that's precisely the point. Relationships are part of the whole. Thus, it's nothing more than a trick we are playing with definitions in our mind. A circular argument.

We cannot think at all without distinctions--that's right, and that is inevitable--but the specific distinctions we choose to recognize are NOT inevitable; and we can learn to choose ones that are more in alignment with how things actually are, rather than the way we want them to be.

It has to do with DSRP structure (constant) versus Information (variable).

I would definitely call it bias to say that my poem at time(t+1) means the whole is greater than the parts because I didn't expand my worldview to include what was added to the system between t and t+1. That seems like confirmation bias in fact, because I want to prove my flawed emergence hypothesis.What else could it be called to ignore something other than bias?

And, I would go further and call it denial to say that because I make distinctions universally, therefore when I make erroneous distinctions it isn't bias.

This line of thinking is very dangerous and leads to all kinds of erroneous errors in judgment. Imagine if we didn't have the conservation law of energy how much understanding of the universe would be lost! The idea that the whole is precisely equal to its parts is analogous in ST to this law in many ways. It makes it so, *no matter how confusing/perplexing the system is* it simply cannot be the case that the whole < parts. Therefore, pay more attention; look harder...because you are definitely wrong if that is the solution you are arriving at (i.e., "it must be that energy disappeared!" is equivalent to "it must be that the parts> whole!"). Both are catastrophically wrong.

In short, the statement, 'the whole is precisely equal to all the stuff that is part of it' is simple and seemingly banal, but it is also sublime. It provides us with sound theoretical footing upon which to build practical understanding of systems thinking itself.

The whole never is, never has been, and never will be less than its parts because relationships are parts of the whole. And by the way, who would want to live in a world where it was? No predictability! Empirically, not the world we currently live in. Thankfully, nature has not adopted our biased, circular logic. Also, emergence is a valid scientific concept but it has nothing to do with the parts being more than the whole. That is a popular misconception of science born of taking statements scientists make out of context or interpreting them from a novice point of view.

It says to us "if my conclusion is that the 'whole<parts' then I am definitely missing something and need to keep looking because the whole always exactly equals the parts. I MUST be missing something."

In the same way that the conservation law tells us that "if my conclusion is that energy has suddenly appeared out of nowhere or disappeared mysteriously, then I need to look harder, because energy is neither created nor destroyed. I MUST be missing something."

[1] It is clear that what people are attempting to explain is that the emergent property of a system can't be understood by looking at only one part, but must must be understood by looking at all the parts together. But it is also clear that most folks leave relationships out of the definition of parts. The essential problem is this: IF Relationships are PART of the whole, then by definition they are PARTS of the whole. Therefore, the whole is always exactly equal to its parts. Funny story. I actually spent my doctoral days traipsing the planet interviewing folks and eventually tracked down that this little "error" is entirely derivative of a period when physicists arbitrarily decided to identify "parts" ONLY as being structural (rather than dynamical/relational). At that moment in time, the die was cast and today we have many misleading and confusing explanations that result from that entirely arbitrary and less-than-logical decision.

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Emergence: One of the Sacred Cows of Systems Thinking

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The discussion of emergence is always one that gets tempers roiled in the systems thinking community. Indeed, it is one of a few of what I call "sacred cows" (or common, unquestioned tropes) of the ST community that are important to reconsider.

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How To Apply Systems Thinking To Business Leadership 

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How To Apply Systems Thinking To Business Leadership 

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The dynamic environment requires leaders to take a comprehensive approach to managing people and requirements. The holistic approach to tasks and work organization that Systems Thinking proposes can significantly improve efficiency and comfort overall. I incredibly like the mention of building a company culture. Building such an entourage helps strengthen employee ties and unleashes the pent-up energy in people, resulting in proposing new ideas and overall company growth. I believe that companies should provide employees with access to submit proposals for change and new ideas. This systems thinking approach opens up a wider field of vision on the part of the management body.

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Council Post: How To Apply Systems Thinking To Business Leadership

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By looking at how parts of the whole function together, leaders can uncover hidden relationships, anticipate unintended consequences and develop sustainable solutions.

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How systems thinking enhances systems leadership

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How systems thinking enhances systems leadership

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The article discusses the connection between systems thinking and leadership. It highlights that effective leaders must understand complex systems and how various elements influence each other. Systems thinking helps leaders see the bigger picture, allowing them to make better decisions and adapt to changes.

Key points include the importance of recognizing interdependencies, fostering collaboration, and encouraging feedback. Leaders who embrace systems thinking can create environments where team members feel valued and empowered. Ultimately, this approach can lead to more innovative solutions and improved organizational performance. Overall, it emphasizes that good leadership involves navigating complexity with a holistic mindset.

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By Catherine Hobbs and Gerald Midgley
Systems leadership involves organisations, including governments, collaborating to address complex issues and achieve necessary systemic transformations. So, if this is the case, how can systems leadership be helped by systems thinking?

Systems leadership is concerned with facilitating innovation by bringing together a network of organisations. These then collaborate between themselves and with other stakeholders to deliver some kind of service, influence a policy outcome or develop a product that couldn't have been achieved by any one of the organisations working alone.

Recognising that a network of organisations can achieve something that emerges from their interactions involves a certain amount of implicit systems thinking. After all, the classic definition of a 'system' is an identifiable collection of two or more parts that has properties, or achieves outcomes, that can only be attributed to all of the parts interacting, not any one of the parts in isolation. These properties or outcomes may be intended ( eg., a service, policy or product), unintended ( eg., contributing to climate change), or both.

However, systems thinking, when pursued explicitly, involves much more than just recognising that a network of collaborating organisations is a system. It helps leaders review a wide range of opportunities for change by encouraging them to question the existing system - the boundaries of it, different perspectives on it, the relationships within it (and between it and its wider environment) and how the parts cohere into a system with particular emergent properties, achievements or impacts. Any or all of these forms of questioning could be relevant to addressing a complex issue and achieving a transformation.

Through systems thinking, leaders can generate deeper insights, guard against unintended consequences and co-ordinate action more effectively. Various systems thinking approaches exist. They can help guide (but should not dictate) processes of deliberation to improve complex problematic situations and develop more desirable futures.

Although each individual systems thinking approach has its own strengths and weaknesses, the true power of systems thinking comes from exploring the unique context at hand and designing a bespoke programme that draws on the best of many approaches. Principles and methods may be borrowed from one or more of the available approaches and creatively combined. Some of these are discussed below.
How to question assumptions
Decision-making is inevitably based on underlying assumptions about the boundary of the issue at hand, and therefore what purposes should be pursued and what values are relevant. Systems thinking can be used to surface these assumptions and consider alternatives. A number of approaches address this, including:

Boundary Critique, or who and what should count?

By asking who and what should count early in a project, conflict and marginalisation (of both people and issues) can be identified and addressed. Understanding power relationships helps people decide which subsequent systems approaches are going to be most appropriate for policy or service design.

Critical Systems Heuristics, which offers twelve boundary questions.

Questions such as: 'who or what should benefit from the service, and how?' and 'what should count as expertise?' help guide reflection on what the system currently is, and what it ought to be. They support people in thinking about motivation, decision-making power, sources of knowledge, and legitimation. The full set of questions can be found in a blog post by Gerald Midgley on Critical Back-Casting. The questions can be phrased in plain English, and can therefore be answered by 'ordinary' citizens as well as policy makers. They are particularly useful in multi-agency settings when there is a need to rethink governance.

How to explore wider contexts
Although it can seem overwhelming to explore wider contexts, there are established approaches that help with mapping the bigger picture and thinking about strategic responses:

The Strategic Choice Approach for joined up decision making and handling uncertainty.

There are four phases of strategic choice:

1. shape people's understandings of the multi-dimensional problem;

2. design several packages of possible policy responses;

3. compare these packages; and

4. choose between them.

This helps people think about uncertainties and contingencies. It also offers a tool to visualise multiple interacting areas of policy or practice, the options available, and how compatible they are with one another. Thus, policy or service packages can be assembled that address a range of economic, social and environmental challenges.

The Viable System Model for assessing the responsiveness of an organisation or multi-organisational network to a changing world.

An organisation has an environment, comprised of all the changing economic, social and ecological needs, demands, opportunities and threats that the organisation might have to respond to. The Viable System Model looks at how an organisation responds to its environment in terms of operations ( eg., service provision), coordination, management, intelligence about the future, and strategic oversight. The model can be used at multiple scales, so, where appropriate, relationships between local, regional, national and international systems can be visualised. It can be used to diagnose problems in existing organisations and networks, or to design new ones. Although the visual representation of the model can look complex at first, it is widely applicable and can yield powerful new insights.

How to engage people
Systems thinkers need to welcome a variety of stakeholder and citizen viewpoints, and account for them in designing or refreshing policies, services or products. Common approaches include:

Soft Systems Methodology, offering visual techniques for exploring different stakeholder perspectives.

This involves four main activities:

1. 'rich picture' building, to get a visual 'map' of people's perceptions of a complex problem;

2. identifying possible transformations that could be pursued from different stakeholder perspectives, and visualising the actions that would be needed;

3. reflecting on the options and asking what kind of transformational approach is likely to best address the problem situation; and

4. finding accommodations between stakeholders to agree the most desirable and feasible way forward.

Soft Systems Methodology helps stakeholders learn collaboratively about complex situations and generate better mutual understanding of their different viewpoints on desirable and feasible change.

Community Operational Research for citizen-engaged transformations.

Community Operational Research is about working participatively with local communities. It draws on several systems thinking approaches, including those discussed above. The focus is on meaningful community engagement in setting agendas for transformation and acting on those agendas. This work resists the top-down design and implementation of policy in favour of co-design and co-production with multiple stakeholders, communities and citizens.

Implications for systems leadership
All of the above are design-led approaches. They can aid us in thinking and acting more systemically, and they generate 'on the ground' insights by cultivating collective intelligence. Most of the approaches can be used in workshops, either bringing stakeholders together, or working with separate groups when power relationships make that more appropriate. Since the onset of COVID-19, many such workshops have been moved online.

If informed by these kinds of systems thinking approaches, the systems leadership practice of the future could be more exploratory, design-led, participative, facilitative, and adaptive - addressing complex, multi-faceted ecological, social, cultural, economic and personal priorities through the deliberate adoption of a process of shared endeavour. It could also help leaders better tackle the single-organisation or single-department 'silo' mentality that so often threatens to undermine systems leadership.
Questions for readers
What has your experience been in using systems leadership and systems thinking to address complex problems in government or other organisations? Do you have additional methods, tips or experiences to share? Do you think that useful distinctions can be made between the terminology of systems leadership and systemic leadership?

To find out more:
This blog post is adapted from the following resource, written for and published by a branch of the UK Government:
Hobbs, C. and Midgley, G. (2020). How systems thinking enhances systems leadership. National Leadership Centre, London. (Online): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/926868/NL-thinkpiece-Systems-Leadership-HOBBS-MIDGLEY.pdf (PDF 340KB). This also provides references for all of the approaches described.

In addition, the format of this National Leadership Centre think-piece was based upon three of the five operational principles around 'what matters?' drawn from Catherine Hobbs' Adaptive Learning Pathway for Systemic Leadership. For a fuller account of the Adaptive Learning Pathway and summarised descriptions of more approaches ( eg., strategic assumption surfacing and testing, metaphor, Cynefin, causal loop mapping, interactive planning, lean, and vanguard), see Catherine Hobb's (2019) book: Systemic Leadership for Local Governance. (Online): https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783030082796?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxfrNgcmR7wIVDSIYCh0-yQKuEAQYAyABEgIvUPD_BwE; and, her blog post Adaptive social learning for systemic leadership.

Biography: Catherine Hobbs PhD is an independent researcher located in North Cumbria, as well as being a Visiting Fellow at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. She is a social scientist with experience of working in academia and local government, with a focus on developing multi-agency strategies in transport and health. She is interested in developing better links between the practice of local governance and scholarly expertise in order to increase capacity to address issues of complexity through knowledge synthesis. She is also interested in the potential of applying and developing a variety of systems thinking approaches (in the tradition of critical systems thinking), with the innovation and design movements in public policy.

Biography: Gerald Midgley PhD is Professor of Systems Thinking in, and Co-Director of, the Centre for Systems Studies in the Faculty of Business, Law and Politics at the University of Hull, UK. He also holds Adjunct Professorships at Linnaeus University, Sweden; the University of Queensland, Australia; the University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Mälardalen University, Sweden; and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He publishes on systems thinking, operational research and stakeholder engagement, and has been involved in a wide variety of public sector, community development, third sector, evaluation, technology foresight and resource management projects.

Tags Author tags Boundary critique, Catherine Hobbs, Gerald Midgley Community operational research, Critical systems heuristics, Leadership, Soft systems methodology, Strategic choice approach, Systems leadership, Systems thinking, Viable system model

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How systems thinking enhances systems leadership

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By Catherine Hobbs and Gerald Midgley Systems leadership involves organisations, including governments, collaborating to address complex issues and achieve necessary systemic transformations. So, if this is the case, how can systems leadership be helped by systems thinking? Systems leadership is concerned with facilitating innovation by bringing together a network of organisations.