What is systems thinking? Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence each other within a whole. That definition and many similar ones are found on the Internet, but do we know what it looks like in action? I found it confusing in many cases because these same resources state that a systems thinking approach is the opposite of breaking a larger system into its parts to be analyzed and / or improved. In my opinion, using a systems thinking approach in an organization is a balance of both.
I’ve read a lot about tearing down these functional areas as if they were some kind of barrier that gets in the way of a systems approach. I will disagree with this and will state that we simply need to work with them differently. I fully agree with the need for these teams, but the information it contains must be openly available to all other teams and the means of communication must be directly available.
In each business we have a product, service, solution, etc … to provide someone and in many it is important to have the experience organized in functional teams within the organization. These functional teams must be in place for organizations to provide important pieces such as expertise, accountability, and responsibility. Building a culture of relating these functional teams to systems that are part of a larger system and promoting collaboration between these systems is how you would describe how to bring your organization to a systems thinking approach.
A systems approach provides many things, from efficiencies and cost savings to feedback loops and product improvements. It can even have a positive influence on morale.
After recent discussions on systems thinking, I was looking for an example of an organization that uses a systems approach effectively. What I realized is that the human body is not only a great example of many things working together for a common goal, but we study and teach on this subject recognizing each of these parts as systems that work together.
If you were to search for the human organism and write down the highlights, you would probably write something like skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, and so on. Do you see the common factor?
Now keep that thought and let’s see the human body as we see our own organizations. Imagine a standard organization chart with organ systems divided into each system (nervous, muscular, digestive, etc.), then into the organs themselves (heart, lung, liver, etc.)
From atoms to molecules and organelles that form cells that form tissue that leads to organs that form an organ system and result in an organism.
If the body worked vertically, it probably wouldn’t work, much less what it is today. The body maintains our functional groups which allows for experience, responsibility and accountability; but it still has many interworking systems.
Note that when we talk about the functional teams that make up the body, we refer to them as systems. The body has 11 major organ systems, but what cannot be shown in a standard organization chart that represents the body is the overlap of these systems. Almost all major organs of major systems have other organs of other systems connected to them. Note that I said there are 11 “main” systems. Choose your belief here, but whether you’re a fantastic evolution or a genius creator, the need for interworking systems was obviously not overlooked. I listed a few organs that belong to your organ system, but what happens when I ask you where the hypothalamus resides? It is a gland, let’s say its functional area is the endocrine system, but its function is to be responsible for the activities of the autonomic nervous system. This happens to us every day, right? Your software developers are not writing software to develop software.
We have decided that with the organization chart of the human body, so to speak, you need a system to link the system, hence we have what is known as the neuroendocrine system. This is found over and over again throughout the human body where functional areas overlap. The muscular and skeletal systems work so closely and depend on each other for optimization of movement and support that we have a musculoskeletal system. Genius, right?
The musculoskeletal system is not a completely new functional area of the business with new management, etc … Consider instead that it is a space where representatives of both systems come to collaborate on their ideas of how to achieve the common goal and then return to their own system.
In addition to not addressing the dependencies of multiple functional areas to optimize the result, silos cause other problems in the organization. Regardless of what your functional area is, it is better than the others, right? If you are an installation technician, you could meet your goals if development had it together and if you are in development, your product is fine if only the installers were smart enough to implement it.
We have to break down these silos and interact. Every decision made on a functional system will change the overall system. If your change is not matched and / or offset by other changes, the result has changed. What a standard organization chart (silos) does not do is help us identify where a problem is or visually instill the idea that what one does has a greater consequence for the common goal. As an example, let’s say you have hypoglycemia.
Well, hypoglycemia is a condition that occurs when your blood sugar (glucose) is too low. Now you have double vision, a racing heart, nervousness, tremors, sweating, etc … Every system is reacting. If you take medications to rectify symptoms without understanding the true cause, it could damage your pancreas or make other systems work harder to counteract the new effects without curing the problem.
Hypoglycemia can be caused by medications or alcohol, so it could be the fault of the mouth. If not the mouth, maybe the digestive system in general because it does not break down carbohydrates or goes back in that functional system to the pancreas because it does not produce insulin. Maybe it’s the bloodstream and maybe it’s that the liver and / or muscles aren’t storing glucose properly. It is quite possible that it is a problem of the digestive system, but unless we understand how the systems overlap, it is possible that he has simply replaced his director of digestion when in reality the problem could have been any of the circulatory, muscular systems or endocrine.
Similarly, defects in muscles and bones can be the result of neurological problems, metabolic or vascular disorders, nutritional imbalances, etc. do.
The body has 5 vital organs which are the brain, heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas. Scroll up if you have to, but I’ll just tell you that the blocks are red and each one resides within a functional system. That ?! Isn’t the brain taller than the bones? All these systems work together and because of this, the information uses the nervous, muscular, circulatory and other systems to share information where they overlap and transport it to another system with which it interacts. If you put your hand on a hot surface, the body reacts by sending signals to other parts of the body. Your muscles contract to move away, notify your brain of the incident, your blood pressure rises as you breathe more heavily, your pupils dilate, and you begin to release hormones like adrenaline.
Many systems in the body simply worked together to notify, react, and rectify, and they did so by communicating within interworking systems rather than all information leaving the critical areas and returning from the same point where it left. The good news is that you still have your hand on a hot surface waiting for that single point of communication to be available.
Any living organism is amazing, but remove any system or even manipulate it without proper communication with others and if it is still alive, you have just caused cancer.
To do this, an organization needs to instill a culture of collaboration and team building so that vital organs can work together while the functional manager acts as a servant leader to keep their experts focused, trained, and with the tools they need to do what. what do you need. do.
With all the communication the body has, it can provide you with the proper nutrients and is not only healthy, it becomes self-healing when the unknown arises. Shouldn’t your organization be self-healing?
