Description
Book SynopsisThis book provides a framework to help managers go beyond simply fighting fires every day, offering the tools to address the underlying causes of recurring problems and deliver long-term solutions.
The most obvious part of any problem is the pain it causes. The desire to end the pain and find a solution – any solution – that will make it go away now is usually so great that it blinds managers to the underlying systemic cause of the problem. The result is that we ‘solve’ the problem today and then it comes back again tomorrow or next week, again and again.
We are only addressing the symptoms but never understanding the cause – like picking the flower heads off weeds but not digging them out at the roots.
Schaveling and Bryan offer the insights and tools managers and leaders need to achieve a longer term and more effective approach by stepping back and analysing the system as a whole. And at the heart of any system are human beings – notoriously short-term and pain-averse creatures who will behave in whatever way minimises pain today even at the expense of pain tomorrow.
They show how to detect the behavior patterns that have become engrained in the organisation and which underlie complex situations so that root causes of problems can be identified. Once the system responsible for the problem is understood smarter decisions can be made to devise interventions that solve the core problem instead of wasting energy fighting the symptoms.
Table of Contents1. Making better decisions using Systems Thinking
2. What is systems thinking?
Looking at the whole picture
Unintended side effects
Uncover the underlying dynamics
Looking below the surface of the lily pond
Reacting
Adaptation
3. The evolutionary heritage
Reacting
Two systems
Theory of reality
Compression of data
Groupsize
4. Good management: dealing wisely with dilemmas
Time dilemma: Do you make short- or long-term choices?
Scope dilemma: Do you choose a narrow or a broad scope?
Awareness dilemma: do you choose to face the facts or take refuge in fantasies?
Dealing with dilemmas: leadership and wisdom
Leadership
What should we understand by wisdom?
Dealing wisely with organisations
5. A systemic view of organisations
Reinforcing effects: why do things get out of hand?
The Pygmalion effect: higher expectations lead to higher performance
Exponential growth
Balancing feedback: why things don’t budge
6. Impatient managers create chaos
The effects of time delays
Systems thinking and time delays
What are our steering criteria?
7. The Value Creation Model
What is the Value Creation Model? Why, What, How
Creating value with distinctive competences
Internal and external developments
The strategic function typology
8. The value creation model in action
Laboratory for bakery ingredients
Employment agency for surveillance duties
Public agency
Dealing wisely with your reinforcing loop
Pitfalls
9. What has been done when the work is done?
The current situation
The vision
And what do you do next?
10. Driving forces that generate and sustain patterns
Genetic disposition and system
Our early years and system
Our tribe and system
The rational system
Vision
Reality check
11. Two driving forces in depth: Mental models and Team learning
Mental models: what are the dominant mental models?
Team learning: which group dynamics play a role?
The results of our dive into the lily pond
12. Looking under the surface of the lily pond: Applying systems thinking in six steps
Going under the water level: assessing reality and the driving structure
Step 1: tell the whole story
Step 2: describe the behaviour over time in graphs
Step 3: formulate the focusing question and your scope
Step 4: identify archetypes or fixed patterns
Step 5: increase your understanding by looking closer at the driving forces
Step 6: planning an intervention
13. Pitfalls of short time horizon
Fixes that backfire
Shifting the burden
14. Pitfalls of not looking far enough around you
Escalation
Success to the successful
15. Pitfalls of fear of facing reality
Drifting goals
Limits to growth
16. Pitfall of a combination of short time horizon and not looking far enough around you
Accidental adversaries
Not building trust
17. Pitfalls of a combination of short time horizon, not looking far enough around you and fear of facing reality
Growth and under-investment
Tragedy of the commons
18. Adaptive leadership
Sit still
Know the value creation model of your organisation
Don’t think you can make the system perfect
Sometimes you have to begin a new system or organisation
Think holistically: keep the whole system in mind
Make an honest assessment of the situation
Discover the hidden assumptions; verify if everybody is discussing the same subject
Bring the whole system into the room
Look for actions with leverage; don’t use a bigger hammer
Ask yourself the questions of the system thinker
19. Systemic Pitfalls in Cooperation; The pitfalls from a bird’s eye view.....
The Value Creation Model
Fixes that backfire
Shifting the burden
Escalation
Success to the successful
Drifting goals
Limits to growth
Accidental adversaries
Growth and underinvestment
Tragedy of the commons
The patterns from a bird’s eye view on 1 A4
References
Annexe: Language of systems thinking
Variables and causal relations
Causal relations: same and opposite
Looping technique
