The systems thinking approach: the framework for developing a human resource management system
The concept of systems thinking as one way of helping people to improve their organisation is not new. The study of systems thinking was popularised in the late 1950s through the work of a group of scientists who came to be known as ‘The Fathers of General Systems Theory’. However, the real roots of the study of systems thinking come from the study of biology in the 1920s.
This study of biology focused on examining the natural world and the living systems that made up that world. This approach began to challenge what was referred to as ‘analytical thinking’, which was commonly practised as an acceptable form of problem solving. In using analytical thinking, the accepted practice was to:
examine the situation to be solved,
break the situation up into its component parts,
then identify which part or parts needed to be improved in order to solve the problem, and
make the necessary changes to eliminate, overcome or rectify the problem.
Once scientists began to examine the world through the lens of ‘systems thinking’ things began to look a bit different. Many of the accepted techniques for solving problems began to be questioned. As a result, a new set of scientific laws governing a system began to emerge. Stephen Haines described this new approach thus:
‘Its major premise was that such laws, once known, could serve as a conceptual framework for understanding the relationships within any system, and for handling any problems or changes encompassed by that system. Consequently, the theory emphasized the value of viewing a system as a whole, of gaining a perspective on the entire ‘entity’ before examining its parts.’1
The irony of this new approach to examining the laws of nature, from a holistic perspective, is that it is merely an examination of the world as it is. The world is full of systems. Let’s look at a few obvious examples:
In your library, you have many examples of systems –a filing system, a telephone system, a payroll system, etc.
In the space where you are sitting reading this book, there are systems at play – a cooling or heating system, an electrical system, a lighting system, a construction design system, etc.
In our bodies, we have a series of systems at play – a skeletal system, a muscular system, a circulatory system, a digestive system, a neurological system, etc.
Our communities operate as systems, our counties, provinces and states operate within a nation system and our nations operate within a global system.
The Earth functions as a system and is part of a solar system.
Systems are all around us. In fact the world as we know it is made up entirely of systems within systems within systems. This is the very design of the world and our universe, as we know it. If this is the way the world functions, then perhaps there are some lessons that we can learn from it and apply to our own organisations, our own communities, our own families and our own lives to make them function more effectively.
One of the characteristics of an operating system is that we only seem to become conscious of its existence when it is not working as it should. When a light comes on when we turn the switch, we don’t really think about it. If the light does not come on, we notice it very quickly. The same can be said for a computer, a toilet, a vehicle or the food service system at a restaurant. When the system does not work as it is supposed to work, it catches our attention and we really notice it. Then we try to fix it.
If we use the technique of trying to examine the system by breaking it down into its component parts and then working on the parts independently, we are using analytical or linear thinking. By contrast, if we try to examine the system as a holistic entity, conscious of how the parts of the system work in an integrated fashion, and then identify where the successful integration fails to provide the desired results, we are applying systems thinking.
We firmly believe that we are all born as natural systems thinkers, because that is what it takes for a person to survive in a world of systems. As a result of the influence of parenting and educational practices, we are taught to become good problem-solvers. This reinforces the analytical approach as we try to solve the problems we face. To test this theory out, take a look at your own job description. Odds are that there is a section in it that states that you are expected to have ‘good or excellent problem-solving skills’. Very few job descriptions will indicate that ‘good systems thinking skills are required’.
The above comments cannot be generalised worldwide. There are many cultures such as Asian, African and many indigenous or aboriginal cultures around the globe that have always interacted with their world by using and applying systems thinking. This may be linked to the fact that their ancestors were very intentional about how they observed, interacted and coexisted with nature. They understood and valued the system’s evolution of the seasons and the interplay with the natural elements of earth, wind and water, which helped them to appreciate how the parts were connected and inter-related. They never lost this natural way of looking at the world. The use of analytical thinking or linear thinking seems to be most prominent in North American and some European cultures.
What we have discovered over the past twenty years of working in the field of organisational improvement using the principles of systems thinking is that for most of us, we have had this natural capacity for systems thinking neutralised through our early childhood development by our parents and this has been further reinforced through our educational and formal learning period by our teachers and professors. If we really wish to develop a sound understanding of how our world and its systems function, we need to reprogram or rewire our thinking processes, to rekindle our natural systems thinking capabilities. For some, this re-tooling of the way we think can be a challenging adjustment. However, the benefits are worth pursuing.
Here’s a thought for reflection – if we are skilled in problem solving, then do we see the world around us as a series of problems waiting to be solved? What if we used systems thinking as a tool? Would we begin to see the world as a series of interconnected systems and begin to look for ways to ensure that these systems worked well together?
There is one point that needs to be made very clear here. In advocating the value of using systems thinking, it is not our intention to denigrate or minimise the value of analytical or linear thinking as a valuable problem-solving tool. There is a point in applying systems thinking where some choices need to be made about the best course of action to follow to bring about the desired change. That is exactly where these problem-solving skills are critically important. It’s important to realise that these two thinking skills – systems thinking and analytical thinking – are necessary for dealing with the types of complex problems facing many organisations today. As stated in Chapter 3, the rules of the game have changed. That calls for new skills. Let’s examine some of the theory, background and skills related to the ‘science of systems thinking’.
A brief history of the science of systems thinking
We don’t want this to be a technical book about systems thinking. Instead, we want to be able to synthesise and distil the complexities of science into some primary concepts that anyone can use to enable them to run their organisations better. For us, the capacity to successfully apply these concepts is more important than to be able to successfully pass a test or exam about the history of this field of study.
In presenting any historical perspective, it is recommended that one try to maintain some degree of chronological integrity, so that it is easy to follow the evolutionary process that unfolded. However, for this topic, we think it is valuable to intentionally deviate from this accepted practice.
In 1990, Peter Senge wrote a book entitled The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.2 This book became a best seller very quickly and today, almost twenty years later, it is still referred to regularly. Over a million copies of have been sold and it was revised in 2006. In 1997, Harvard Business Review identified it as one of the seminal management books of the past 75 years. Its popularity is no doubt partly due to the fact that every organisation has an intense desire to become a successful learning organisation. Who would want to become a ‘non-learning organisation’?
Senge was and still is a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has also developed a very successful consulting practice and provides support for large multinational corporations throughout the world. He also established Pegasus Communications Inc. (www.pegasuscom.com) as an organisation that provides a steady supply of written materials and learning opportunities for people around the world who are interested in the subject of systems thinking. He is also the founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning (www.solonline.org).
The Fifth Discipline presented the five key disciplines that Senge believes are vital dimensions for any organisation that truly wants to be able to learn and progress towards their ideal future state. These are:
Personal Mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience and of seeing reality objectively.
Mental Models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalisations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.
Building Shared Vision involves the skill of leaders who can unearth motivating, challenging shared ‘pictures of the future’ that foster genuine commitment and enrolment of staff rather than compliance.
Team Learning starts with ‘dialogue’, which is the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine ‘thinking together’ that allows a group to discover insights not attainable individually. This discipline also involves learning how to recognise the patterns of interaction in teams that undermine learning. This discipline is vital because teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organisations.
Systems Thinking is a conceptual framework, a body of knowledge and tools that has been developed over the past fifty years (now seventy years), to make the full patterns of life in an organisation clearer and to help us see how to change these patterns to make them more effective.3
Although each of these disciplines is important on its own, their true potential is maximised when they are united, using ‘the fifth discipline’ – Systems Thinking. The fifth discipline brings all of the other disciplines together in a holistic, integrated way where each reinforces and supports the other, yielding true synergy.
In the consulting field, there are far too many examples of organisations that have attempted to initiate one or more of these disciplines as independent initiatives. The results are not pretty nor are they encouraging. There are still too many leaders of organisations in search of ‘the silver bullet’ that will resolve all of their problems. Here’s a news flash – There is no silver bullet! Successful organisations have achieved their success through the rigorous practice of installing all five of these disciplines within their organisations over many years of concentrated effort, tempered by a huge dose of patience. That’s why these are called ‘disciplines’ – because they have become tested practices that are habitual. In today’s society, we claim that we don’t seem to have the time to develop disciplines. That’s why we spend so much time ‘chasing the latest fads’ in the hope that they will provide quick, simple solutions to our very complicated problems. This doesn’t really seem to be a very realistic approach does it? Yet it is still the prevalent model for many.
The importance of patience and perseverance was highlighted for me many years ago when Wayne Widdis, a consultant colleague, made reference to the ‘427/809 Rule’ during a workshop programme that we were co-facilitating. In this rule, 427 refers to the Wright Brothers’ attempts to achieve flight of a machine heavier than air. Their 427th attempt was the one that is recorded in the history books, marking the date in December 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, when they successfully achieved their goal for the first time. Very few of us have much information about the other 426 attempts – yet we unknowingly salute their patience and persistence every time we step on a commercial aircraft. The 809 refers to Thomas Edison’s attempts to develop a light switch to go along with the incandescent light bulb that was invented earlier. He was looking for a way to be able to turn on a light without having to be next to the light – a very useful concept when entering a dark room. Think about his patience and his persistence, along with his 808 unsuccessful attempts, when you turn on a light at home tonight.
It seems important to mention the work of Peter Senge at the outset of this discussion of the history of systems thinking because for many people he brought the concept into the spotlight. He popularised the ideas of many others who had studied and written in relative obscurity for so many years. This significant contribution enabled him to bring many of the principles of systems thinking together in one book. The title of the book was a critical trigger too, because everyone wanted to be a part of a ‘learning organisation’, and explains why so many people bought copies. In working sessions with clients, I frequently ask for a show of hands of those who have a copy of this book on their bookshelf – the number is generally quite high. When I ask how many of them have actually read the whole book – or even major sections of it – many of the hands come down. If I ask those who still have their hands raised if they are actively practising the five disciplines, almost all of the hands come down. Putting these practices into action and making them true disciplines within an organisation is difficult.
When I first discovered Senge’s book and had a few opportunities to participate in workshops conducted by him and his team of consultants, I found the concepts to be sound and valuable. However, I also found the specific practices to be very difficult to apply. They seemed to be too technical for me and required the development of some complex diagrams that showed the various ways in which different aspects of an organisation interacted – in either an effective or an ineffective way. This looked and felt like the way that an engineer would dissect an organisation. This is only my perception, but in fact it was close to reality, because that was Senge’s background – he was a very successful engineer and taught this discipline at MIT. I couldn’t fault him for that. The flaw was in my ability to decipher the concepts and practices so that I could embrace the skills and make them personal disciplines. I needed something easier to understand and simpler to apply. I suspect that I wasn’t alone on this point, based on the informal polling that I experienced when asking workshop participants about their own experiences.
The result of my frustration in learning how to adopt the five disciplines was highlighted by the fact that I already had a good grasp of the first four disciplines. I had been working on all four of these areas for many years as I developed my professional skills as an executive leader, as a consultant, and as a facilitator and instructor of many professional workshops and courses. Despite my new skills, I found that we still had trouble getting all of the parts to work together – and I couldn’t understand why.
At that time in my career, from 1986 to 1992, I held positions as the Senior Consultant for Organizational Change and then the Executive Director within the Staff Development Division of the Public Service Commission for the Government of Saskatchewan. The Public Service Commission provided human resource services to all of the various departments within the government. Our Staff Development Division was responsible for the ‘organisational learning function’ within the government. This is why the concept of a learning organisation was so important to me, even though I was struggling to put some of Senge’s concepts into practice.
At that time in my career, I had been working in the public sector for more than fifteen years. One of my greatest frustrations and disappointments during this period was my lack of success at helping the various government organisations I had worked with to develop the practices of good strategic planning to guide their future growth and development. Colleagues continually commented: ‘We can’t do strategic planning within a government environment, because things are so political and our political leaders are susceptible to being replaced suddenly due to the elective process’. This answer never satisfied me – in fact it only further reinforced my belief in the need for good strategic planning and decision-making. As committed public servants, we needed to be able to provide continuity and stability when the politics of the business of government tended to create confusion and unrest.
As I researched various models and approaches to the skills and practices of strategic planning, I discovered that virtually every model I attempted to apply was unsuccessful within the public sector environments in which I was working. It appeared that each was designed for use in a private sector setting, which had several unique characteristics. Despite these distinctions – such as a profit motive vs. a service motive, a business case attitude vs. a public need attitude – I also understood that the two sectors shared much in common. I was therefore perplexed about our inability to be able to successfully apply the concepts of good strategic planning.
As is so often the case in our lives, I was fortunate to bump into an individual at that specific time who would help me to sort out this dilemma and find a sound solution to my problem. As that wise old proverb states:
I first met Stephen Haines at an international conference on ‘Change Management’ in Toronto. He was one of several workshop speakers and I was very impressed with his style, his approach and his message about how we could be more successful at implementing major corporate changes within organisations. I ultimately hired Steve to assist with the creation of a government-wide performance management process for the thousands of staff employed in the departments that made up the Government of Saskatchewan. One evening we got into a deep discussion about our inability to successfully introduce strategic planning within the government. This conversation led us much further over the next year and ultimately ended in the creation of the first prototype of a strategic planning model that we continue to apply with clients today, more than twenty years later.
We experimented with this model for several years and field-tested it extensively with a variety of government departments that shared a desire to establish a more strategic way of planning and creating their own future. Through this testing, we made a series of refinements and improvements, based on client feedback. We also researched fourteen other popular models that were in common use around Canada and the USA, looking for areas of commonality and areas of difference. We wanted to know what was working and what was not – and why that was the case, in either situation.
The model that we created and applied seemed to work with my internal government clients as well as Steve’s private sector clients. I had also tested it with several not-for-profit community organisations and professional associations. We were surprised at the results – across all three sectors – but were unable to figure out why it was working.
As we continued to assess the results in our respective circles of work the reason finally became clear. The approach was working because we had designed it as a generic model that was not industry or sector specific. In fact it was a ‘natural model’ that reflected the realities of what life was like in a ‘real organisational system’. As a graduate of the US Naval Academy, Steve recalled some of the lessons from his courses on General System Theory and General Systems Dynamics. This reminded me of the insight I had regarding my undergraduate Psych 101 classes, many years later, when I was faced with a real world organisation situation involving several disgruntled individuals – ‘Now I get it! Now I know what the professor was saying – and I only wish now that I had been more attentive when he was outlining those concepts with us’.
This discovery led Steve down a path of digging out his old textbooks and delving deeper into the science of systems thinking. He did the vast majority of this research and I benefited from his experience as we worked together to implement some of the new lessons with my own internal clients.
The ultimate outcome of this investigative work was the discovery that in our innocent ignorance, we had actually developed a strategic planning model that emulated many of the core principles of systems thinking. Each of us was a systems thinker, in a natural way, and we were not even aware of it. The research only validated what we intuitively knew – even if we couldn’t actually explain it well or substantiate it scientifically.
Stephen Haines continued his study of this fascinating field and he has subsequently become a recognised expert in the consulting field for his knowledge of the primary concepts of systems thinking, as well as his expertise at helping client groups to apply these concepts to enable them to run their businesses better. He has also written extensively on this topic and all of his works are available through Systems Thinking Press, in San Diego, California (www.SystemsThinkingPress.com). In 1990, he and I co-founded the Centre for Strategic Management, which was recently re-branded as the Haines Centre for Strategic Management. (www.hainescentre.com), which he operated independently until 1992 when I left my position in the public sector and began my own consulting practice, along with Steve, within the Centre. Over the past eighteen years, we have continued to play the role of ‘interpreters and translators of scientific theory’ and convert it into practical tools that leaders, managers and front-line staff can use to make their organisations and their work teams more successful.
This story of how I became involved in this work now brings us back to the point where we started to talk about the history of the evolution of the science of systems thinking.
The fathers of general systems theory
Steve Haines provided a good summary of the early stages of this field of study in his book The Complete Guide To Systems Thinking and Learning:
‘To better understand systems as the natural order of life on earth, we must look at the nature of the system itself. In the 1920’s, biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy and others proposed the idea of a general theory of living systems that would embrace all levels of science, from the study of a single living cell to the study of society and the planet as a whole. They were seeking to reveal these secrets and generalizations in order to create a recognizable standard of scientific principles that could then be artfully applied to virtually any body of work. Out of this study came a scientific application called the General Systems Theory.’4
The group that came to be known as ‘The Fathers of General Systems Theory’ included: Ludwig von Bertalanffy, a biologist-philosopher from Vienna, who taught and conducted research in Austria, Britain, Canada and the USA; Anatol Rapoport, who was an applied mathematician and philosopher; Ralph Gerard, who was a physiologist; and Kenneth Boulding, who was an economist. Rapoport, Gerard and Boulding all worked together at the University of Michigan. Together, this group of four biological and social scientists founded the Society for General Systems Research in 1954. They toiled in relative obscurity for many years and their work faded in the mid-1970s, as society became fixated on the mechanistic methods of large-scale production processes. Their groundbreaking work was considered by many to be ahead of its time. Consequently, the real benefits of their theories and their research have only begun to be well understood and practised in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Over the past twenty years there has been a resurgence of interest in this field – and most of this momentum was spearheaded by the early writings of Peter Senge who almost single-handedly made ‘systems thinking’ popular again. Since then there has been a surge in the numbers of researchers, theorists, academics, authors and consultants who have worked to unravel the mysteries of this complex body of science. Included in this more current group of systems thinkers are Buckminster Fuller, Fritjof Capra, Jay Forrester, Gregory Bateson, Peter Drucker, Peter Senge, Russ Ackoff, Meg Wheatley, Dianne Ackerman, Mitchell Waldrop, Cliff McIntosh and Eric Trist.
In 1972, Geoffrey Vickers provided one of the best descriptions of the General Systems Theory in layman’s terms in his book General Systems Thinking:
‘The words “general system theory” imply that some things can usefully be said about systems in general, despite the immense diversity of their specific forms. One of these things should be a scheme of classification.
Every science begins by classifying its subject matter, if only descriptively, and learns a lot about it in the process … systems especially need this attention, because an adequate classification cuts across familiar boundaries and at the same time draws valid and important distinctions which have previously been sensed but not defined.
In short, the task of General Systems Theory is to find the most general conceptual framework in which a scientific theory or a technological problem can be placed without losing the essential features of the theory or the problem.’5
The real challenge facing so many of the proponents of this theory of looking at the world around us as a system is that of capturing the interest of the average layperson, so that he or she can better appreciate, understand and apply some of the principles of systems thinking with a greater degree of regularity.
Here are three different examples of what I mean. In 1983, Mark Davidson wrote:
‘Everywhere, we are involved with immensely complex systems that authorities call counter-intuitive, because these systems do not necessarily behave as common sense leads us to expect. And everywhere, we are faced with a set of problems that authorities call a problematique: a veritable Rubik’s Cube in which the solution of one facet by itself can actually be a step backward from overall progress.
We have abruptly entered a new history, an era that demands a science and philosophy of synthesis.
We need – all of us – a new way of thinking…
We need, in short, an uncommon sense of interactive relationships within and between wholes. Not just the occasional holistic insight that some of us experience in one realm or another as we muddle through life, but a total vision of the holistic landscape.’6
Thirteen years later, in his book The Web of Life, Fritjof Capra wrote brilliantly about the need for a new paradigm – a deep ecological shift – in our collective thinking as a society. He describes the interconnectedness of stabilising world population once poverty is reduced worldwide, the extinction of animal and plant species because of the impact of massive debts of Southern Hemisphere nations, and the scarcity of resources, degradation of our environment and expanding populations that are leading to the breakdown of local communities. He also addresses the lack of strong political and corporate leadership and willingness to address these issues.
‘There are solutions to the major problems of our time, some of them even simple. But they require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, our values. And, indeed, we are now at the beginning of such a fundamental change of worldview in science and society, a change of paradigms as radical as the Copernican revolution. But this realization has not dawned on most of our political leaders. The recognition that a profound change of perception and thinking is needed if we are to survive has not yet reached most of our corporate leaders, either, or to the administrators and professors of our large universities.
Not only do our leaders fail to see how different problems are interrelated; they also refuse to recognize how their so-called solutions affect future generations. From the systemic point of view, the only viable solutions are those that are “sustainable”. The concept of sustainability has become a key concept in the ecology movement and is indeed crucial. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute has given a simple, clear and beautiful definition: “A sustainable society is one that satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations.” This in a nutshell is the great challenge of our time: to create sustainable communities – that is to say, social and cultural environments in which we can satisfy our needs and aspirations without diminishing the chances of future generations.’7
Now, here we are near the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Over the past few years, we watched with excitement as Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth received an Academy Award from the US film academy and he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in fighting the war on global warming. This honour acknowledged his work in delivering many public presentations around the globe as he shared his message about the many ways in which we are doing so many things to prevent us from achieving sustainable communities and a sustainable world. But this is not a new message. He said many of the same things when he was in public office as the former US Vice-President. But few people of influence paid attention to his messages at that time. This perhaps explains why he called his presentation an ‘inconvenient truth’ – although we may not like to hear the message, science has backed up many of his claims and fears, making it both factual and uncomfortable.
Slowly, we are finally beginning to get the message that von Bertalanffy and his colleagues outlined so many years ago. The world is a system. We as individuals are systems. Our organisations and businesses are systems. Our communities and our nations are systems. And they are all interconnected. So, perhaps we should begin to apply the principles of systems thinking to sort out the ways in which we are impacting the world, as we know it – while we still have the opportunity to achieve sustainability.
Summary
We outlined that although we often ‘talk about systems’, many of us do not have a real awareness of how the world operates and functions as one large, integrated system, made up of millions of subsystems.
We provided a brief overview of our own experiences as we stumbled into the field of systems thinking and how its concepts and theories finally began to make sense to us.
We provided a brief summary of the evolution of the science of systems thinking, based upon the work of the Fathers of General Systems Theory.
We outlined some recent global examples of how our future depends to a great degree on our ability and our readiness to begin thinking and living in ways that respect and perpetuate the principles of systems thinking, in order to achieve a sustainable world for the sake of future generations.
The ART of People Management
A – Attention
Before we can learn to live our lives from a systems thinking framework, in harmony with nature, we must first learn about the approach and discover ways to integrate these new concepts into our organisations, into our communities and into our own personal lives.
This is merely a case of learning to adapt our habitual thinking approach from an analytical one to a systems one, the latter being ingrained at birth and then slowly de-programmed by the teachings of our parents and our educational systems.
R – Results
Remember how difficult it was to reach a critical mass for society to finally begin to think about recycling and improved practices at using water and energy more wisely, as a move towards creating a sustainable environment? Major change takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of patience and persistence.
Keep trying until you achieve the results you are seeking – the 427/809 Rule.
1.Haines, Stephen, G. (1998) The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Systems Thinking and Learning. Amherst, MA: HRD Press, p. v.
2.Senge, Peter M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc.
4.Haines, Stephen, G. (2000) The Complete Guide to Systems Thinking & Learning. Amherst, MA: HRD Press, p. 5.
5.Vickers, Geoffrey (1972) ‘A Classification of Systems’. Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research. Washington, DC: Academy of Management Research.
6.Davidson, Mark (1983) Uncommon Sense: The Life and Thought of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Father of General Systems Theory. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher Inc., p. 22.
7.Capra, Fritjof (1996) The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. New York: Anchor Books by Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., p. 4.