The first meeting begins with a “post-mortem” on the latest launch crisis. The team members tackle the issue with enthusiasm, jumping in with their own perspectives of what went wrong and why. At first the meeting seems to be going well, since everyone is obviously engaged in solving the problem. But as the meeting progresses, you start to feel like the group is spinning its wheels. The stories begin to resemble a jumble of personal anecdotes that share no common elements: “Well, on project X, we tried doing something new, and this is what happened…” or “This reminds me of the time when we implemented process Y and we were carrying spare parts in brown paper bags…” Lots of interesting stories are being exchanged, but they do not seem to be leading to a common understanding of the root causes.

The Storytelling Trap

Stories can be a powerful tool for engaging a group’s interest in a problem or issue. The specific details about people and events make it easy for most people to relate to stories, and they often provide a firm grounding in the day-to-day reality of the situation. But storytelling’s strength is also its Achilles heel: when we remain at event-level storytelling, it is difficult to generalize the insights to other situations, and so the solutions are often situation-specific. Without a deeper understanding of why something happened, the most we can do is find ways to react faster to similar events in the future.

FROM EVENTS TO VISION: STRUCTURED PROBLEM-SOLVING

By using a modified version of the “Vision Deployment Matrix,” a team can look at a particular problem under study from different perspectives. The “Current Reality” and “Desired Future Reality” columns allow you to differentiate between diagnosis of the current situation and proposed solutions for the future

Storytelling at Multiple Levels

One way that managers can move beyond event-level storytelling to a deeper understanding of an issue is to use a modified version of the Vision Deployment Matrix (see “Vision Deployment Matrix: A Framework for Large-Scale Change,” February 1995). In particular, applying the first two columns of the matrix (“current reality” and “desired future reality”) to a particular problem can provide a framework for both analyzing the current situation and designing an effective, long-term solution (see “From Events to Vision: Structured Problem-Solving”).

The matrix distinguishes between different levels of seeing and understanding a situation. The “Events” level captures stories about specific incidents or events that indicate a problem. The next level,“ Patterns,” expands the time horizon. At this stage, the team might ask, “Are these individual events or stories part of a larger pattern that has been unfolding over time?” Next, the “Systemic Structures” level looks at the structures that might be producing the observed pattern of behavior. Since those systemic structures are usually physical manifestations of deeply held mental models in the organization, the “Mental Models” level prompts the team to surface them. Finally, at the “Vision” level, the group considers how the vision of what the organization is creating might be influencing those mental models.

Analyzing a problem or situation from multiple levels can be useful in several ways. First, it forces us to go beyond event-level storytelling, where our ability to affect the future is low, to a perspective that offers greater leverage for creating systemic change. Second, the matrix provides a way to distinguish between different ideas and experiences (e.g., “Does this story illustrate a problem situation or a prevalent mental model?”). Finally, when the conversation does jump from events to specific systems to assumptions and so on, the matrix can provide a coherent framework for mapping everyone’s contribution in real time.

Using the Matrix

By filling in the matrix around a particular problem or issue, the team members can work together to raise their understanding from the level of events to patterns, systemic structures, mental models, and vision. For example, in the product launch situation, the team started with stories of a particular launch failure. After some discussion, the team discovered that the proper tests for verification were never conducted. But instead of going further into the details of why that process was neglected, the team can ask questions designed to draw the stories up to the patterns level, such as, “Was this indicative of a pattern that happens on all products?” Additional stories can then be used to establish whether that is indeed a pattern.

The next step is to identify the underlying structures that may currently be responsible for such behavior. In this example, the test and verification efforts all relied on a central group of people who were chronically overused by all the products under development, hence verifications were rarely done to the level specified. When the group tried to understand how engineers could justify skipping such an important step, they revealed an implicit mental model: “not knowing there is a problem and moving forward is better than knowing there is a problem and moving forward.” In short, the division had been operating according to an “ignorance is bliss” strategy.

To understand where this assumption came from, the group asked, “What is the implicit vision driving the process?” The most common answer was “to minimize unwanted senior management attention.” In other words, no one in product development wanted to have problems surface on their “watch.”

Although this team focused on the “Current Reality” column, they could also fill out the “Desired Future Reality” column by asking what kinds of new structures might be needed to prevent these problems from happening in the future.

Guiding Questions

The following set of questions can be used to guide conversations as a team moves among the different levels of perspective. In looking at current reality, it may be easier to start at the level of events (since that is where stories usually begin) and work your way up the levels. When mapping out the desired future reality, however, it may be better to begin at the level of vision and go down to the other levels so that your desired future reality is not limited by the current reality. Having said that, it is likely that in actual meetings the conversation will bounce all over the place. The main point is to use the matrix to capture the conversation in a coherent framework.

Current Reality

• What are some specific events that characterize the current reality?
• Are those specific events indicative of a pattern over time? Do other stories corroborate this repeated pattern?
• Are there systemic structures in place that are responsible for the pattern? Which specific structures are producing the most dominant pattern of behavior behind the current results?
• What mental models do we hold that led us to put such structures in place? What are the prevailing assumptions, beliefs, and values that sustain those structures?
• What kind of vision are we operating out of that explains the mental models we hold? What is the current vision-in-use?

Desired Future Reality

• What is the espoused vision of the future?
• What sets of assumptions, beliefs, and values will help realize the vision?
• What kinds of systemic structures are required (either invented or redesigned) to operationalize the new mental models and achieve that vision?
• What would be the behavior over time of key indicators if the desired vision became a reality?
• What specific events would illustrate how the vision is operating on a day-to-day basis?

By elevating the conversation from events to systems structure and beyond, this simple tool can help managers make clearer sense of their own experiences, and use those experiences to formulate more effective solutions to the problems at hand.

Daniel H. Kim is co-founder of the MIT Center for Organizational Learning, and of Pegasus Communications, Inc. He is a public speaker and teacher of systems thinking and organizational learning.

The post From Event Thinking to Systems Thinking appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

A shared commitment to act toward a compelling goal.

Why do I like it?

• First, it emphasizes that strategy is about action – not about analyzing, forecasting, writing papers, filling out forms, compiling spreadsheets, but about action.
• Second, it speaks of a shared commitment – the kind of commitment that management needs so that they continue to act as a team, even when things get tough.
• Third, it recognizes the importance of a compelling goal – the objective, that, when realized, brings vision into reality.

I recognize that the statement makes no declaration about what the goal should be or about what actions should be taken, but I ask that you ride with that gap for the moment — all will be revealed in due course. I also recognize that are many ways of building a shared commitment to act and of defining a good strategy. Scenario planning, which I will focus on, is just one of them.

Gods, Gamblers, Grinders, and Guides

All organizations have their own dominant beliefs, and top managers have their own styles. Some people believe, for example, that it is possible to predict the future (if not in general, then at least as far as their own organizations are concerned); others prefer to believe that the future is uncertain and that the journey into the future is one of exploration. As regards style, some leaders exercise very strong control, while others seek to empower those in their organizations (see “Four Leadership Styles”).

Strong, controlling leaders who believe they can predict the future are much like gods: Not only do they know what they want, they know best, too. You don’t have to read Homer to learn that any mortal who incites the wrath of an angry god soon has an uncomfortable time. Such leaders need no tools and techniques to formulate a strategy: They know. From time to time, they might actually be right.

Strong, controlling leaders who are less certain of their powers of prediction often behave like gamblers: They place a bet that the future will evolve in a certain way and, if it does, fine; if it doesn’t, well, let’s throw the dice again and see what happens a second time. Gamblers, too, need few tools and techniques, but they might like some financial analyses to give them a feel for the odds.

Empowerers who believe they can predict the future are convinced that, somewhere out there, the “right” strategic answer exists, if only they can find it. These are the grinders, managers who are forever grinding away on more analyses, more research, more numbers. These people love tools and techniques, with their five forces, their value chains, their PERTS, and their SWOTS.

In many cases, the most successful leaders may be those empowerers who choose to serve as guides: They seek to carefully steer their organizations through the uncertainties that the future will inevitably bring. How can they steer the safest course? Well, to do so, they need a map. The problem is that no such map can be found, for maps exist in space, not in time.

It is in this last arena that scenarios can help, for scenarios are stories describing how the future might evolve. Scenarios therefore do a similar job in time to that done by maps in space. But because the future might evolve in many ways, there are many possible scenarios, each of which represents one possible view of what might happen over the next five, 10, or 20 years. Importantly, the emphasis within each scenario is not on the internal aspects of the business, but rather on the external context in which the business might operate; robust scenarios depict the future in terms of politics, economics, sociology, demography, technology, and industrial structures.

By imagining what such a future might be, you can test whether or not a particular strategy for your own business will be beneficial, should that future indeed come to pass. And by explicitly recognizing that there might be several different futures, any one of which might happen, you can test your strategy against each and see if some strategies are more robust than others. In essence, scenario planning is a form of simulation: It is the business manager’s equivalent of the jet pilot’s flight simulator. The scenarios project you and your organization into the future, and provide a realistic, rich context in which you can examine whether or not particular strategies – the development of new products, the entry into new markets, or whatever – are likely to be successful.

Scenarios also serve to heighten your understanding of risk, so that when you put your strategy into action, you will be much more aware of how changes in the external environment are likely to impact your business. Then if you notice that the world is in fact evolving in a direction for which your strategy is less appropriate, you will be able to change course easily and quickly, far more so than your competitors, who may not have noticed what is going on, or, if they have, may continue for some time in a state of denial.

But how does scenario-based strategic planning – to give it its full name – actually work?

Scenario-Based Strategic Planning

Scenario-based strategic planning comprises two principal activities:

• First, the development of a small number of scenarios – say, up to five – each of which describes a different view of how a future world might look.
• Second, the agreement on a strategy – a set of actions that the organization is committed to take.

As indicated by “Scenario Development and Strategy Formation,” the process of scenario development is divergent and strives to embrace as broad as possible a view of how the future might evolve, in order to encompass the future’s inevitable uncertainties. This is done through a series of group workshops, supported by research, and the gathering of expert opinions. The purpose of the scenarios is to provide a series of backdrops against which different strategies can be assessed. Questions such as “Should we enter the [whatever] market?”, “What are the risks of making [whatever] investment?” and the like are tested against each of the scenarios. Participants assume that, yes, they do enter that market, and that, yes, they do make that investment, and then imagine that they and their organization are projected into each scenario 10 years into the future. They can then assess, using “projected hindsight,” whether or not those decisions were “good” or “bad.” By exploring various decisions against each scenario in this way, team members can then determine that set of decisions that they collectively feel most comfortable taking now and therefore converge upon an agreed strategy.

The following pages describe the process in more detail. First, we need to introduce and define three terms that have a special role in scenario planning: worlds, levers, and outcomes.

Worlds. A world is a comprehensive description of the context in which a business operates. Worlds are therefore described in terms of (often long!) lists of adjectives and adjectival phrases, describing all aspects of the world of interest, including the political, social, economic and regulatory structures, nature of market competition, technology, and all the rest.

SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT AND STRATEGY FORMATION

The process of scenario development is divergent and strives to embrace as broad as possible a view of how the future might evolve, in order to encompass the future’s inevitable uncertainties. The purpose of the scenarios is to provide a series of backdrops against which different strategies can be assessed. By exploring various decisions against each scenario in this way, team members can then determine that set of decisions that they collectively feel most comfortable taking now and therefore converge upon an agreed strategy.

The most familiar world is today’s world, and an important part of the scenario planning process is to come to a shared view of just what it is. Different people see different things, and some lively workshops can be run focused on describing today’s world. Ultimately, any description of today’s world must pass the Martian Test: If the description were e-mailed to a group of Martians approaching Earth, on stepping out of their saucer, they must be able to recognize where they have landed.

If today’s world is defined in terms of a long list of descriptive phrases, then, by definition, a different world must have a different list. A major milestone in scenario planning is to generate a small number of different worlds – three to five is usually sufficient – that have self-consistent descriptions. These worlds should be significantly different from one another, and from today’s world.

Some of the different worlds might appear favorable, others harsh; some may appear to be relatively likely, other less so; some might be desirable, others positively repulsive. At the moment, though, such issues aren’t important; all that matters is that any different world must be believed to be, in principle, possible.

Levers and Outcomes. Levers represent the actions and decisions that managers can take. For example, managers can determine product range, target markets, staffing levels, skills, investments in infrastructure, level of R&D, location of manufacturing sites, amount spent on advertising, and so on. At any time, each lever has a setting – the numeric amount associated with that lever.

Outcomes represent the commercial results of the organization: levels of sales and profit, reputation, share price, market share, staff morale, and so on. At any time, each outcome has a numeric value.

Fundamentally, the job of strategic management is to determine the levers and assign their settings, so as to generate desirable outcomes. As every manager soon learns, however, levers are not directly connected to outcomes; there simply is no lever to allow managers to directly control profit, market share, or share price. Rather, the levers that managers can actually pull are only indirectly, and sometimes rather loosely, coupled to the outcomes, and managers act in the belief – or hope – that by cutting costs here and increasing staff there, shareholder value will be increased. To make matters worse, time delays occur before any change in a lever setting begins to take effect.

This process is, as we all know too well, very complex. A powerful tool in taming this complexity is system dynamics modeling. This kind of simulation goes far beyond the typical spreadsheet and can handle loosely coupled variables, time lags, and feedback loops. (For a more complete definition of system dynamics, go to http://www.systemdynamics.org.)

The Rules of Innovation

Many people feel that inventing new worlds is difficult, fearing not only that they lack the expert knowledge, but also – and far worse – that they just don’t have the imagination. In fact, inventing new worlds is easy and a lot of fun, provided, of course, that you do it in the easy, fun way – and that is to borrow from the techniques of innovation.

Briefly, two of the key rules that make innovation deliberate, systematic, and safe are:

• Rule No. 1: Don’t try to leap directly into the unknown – start from something or somewhere you know well.
• Rule No. 2: New ideas are best generated not by waiting for lightning to strike, but by challenging assumptions and asking, “How might this be different?”

A simple but nonetheless startling example of these rules in action is the familiar nine dots puzzle (see “Nine Dots Puzzle”). There are two questions:

• How can you join all nine dots with four straight lines, without taking your pencil off the page?
• And if that is too easy, how many different ways can you find of joining all the dots with just one line?

Most people tackle the first question by picking up a pen and drawing various alternatives; they usually don’t even know where to start with the second question. But then most people don’t know the two rules of innovation. Picking up a pen, drawing, and trying to solve the puzzle by trial and error breaks the first rule – you’re leaping into the dark. The first rule says “Let’s understand all we can about the nine dots.” There are nine, they are in a square array, they are an inch or so apart, and they are about a quarter-inch square. The second rule says, “Challenge the assumptions.” Is the shape the dots form a square? What would happen if the dots weren’t an inch apart? They might be a mile apart or close together. But if they were close, I could wipe a felt-tip pen across all nine at once. So, if they’re an inch apart, I need a thick pen – maybe a paint roller. Ah yes, that’s it, a paint roller. And the puzzle is instantly solved.

Inventing New Worlds

The easiest way of inventing new worlds is therefore to apply the two key rules of innovation defined above. In the context of scenario planning, if we follow Rule No. 1, our starting point is something we all know well indeed, namely, today’s world. In fact, we take the time to define today’s world not only to build a genuine, deeply shared view of where we are, but also as a springboard to innovation.

One observation about today’s world might be that “the current industrial structure is consolidating.” Rule No. 2 requires us to challenge assumptions and ask, “How might this be different?” How might the industrial structure be different? Well, perhaps it will concentrate even further into a global monopoly; perhaps it will fragment as a result of government intervention; perhaps new entrants will come in on the back of a new technology.

Applying Rule No. 2 thus results in many alternative possibilities. As a group begins to list these potential futures, people start associating characteristics together, so that a small number of self-consistent worlds emerge, each with its appropriate set of descriptions. Created by a process of deliberate challenge and deliberate and systematic innovation, these descriptions will be very different from today’s world. When you are in the middle of the process, it can appear to be something of a muddle, with hundreds of post-its all over the walls. But rest assured that it works: The human mind is quite adept at seeing patterns. Just as the solution to the nine dots puzzle emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, so the process of challenge, coupled with the interactions of a group and the human ability to see patterns, will create a compelling series of new worlds.

“Scenario Planning Summary” forms the heart of a scenario planning exercise. Each column represents a different world, the first being today’s world. The often extensive descriptions of each world are incorporated in the first row. The levers are named in the title box of the second row, and the corresponding lever settings are identified in the appropriate column. Similarly, the outcomes are named in the title box of the third row, and the outcome values, for the defined lever settings in each world, are assessed and entered into each column.

The question then becomes, What are the lever settings and what new levers might be required to give favorable outcomes in as many of the worlds as possible? Once the most favorable set of levers and lever settings have been determined, then your strategy is that set of managerial actions required to move the levers from their current settings to the desired ones.

Testing the Levers

By now, you will have:

• Defined today’s world.
• Defined up to five alternative worlds.
• Defined the levers and the outcomes.
• Seen how the lever settings in today’s world generate today’s outcome values.

It is at this point that the scenarios themselves are written, each scenario being a vivid story describing how each of the alternative new worlds evolved, in its own particular way, from today’s world. Well-written scenarios capture your imagination and are powerful vehicles for communication and training. Immersing yourself in the scenarios builds “a memory of the future,” so that as time passes and the future becomes reality, you recognize what you see. But the scenarios themselves are not the end of the exercise: The purpose of the scenarios, and the alternative worlds they describe, is to form a context in which your business might operate in the future.

To test out this method:

• Imagine that the levers and their settings are the same as in today’s world. What will the outcome values be in the different worlds? Are they favorable or unfavorable?
• If the outcome values in any alternative world are unfavorable, what would the lever settings have be to give rise to favorable outcomes? Do you need to invoke any new levers?

This process is best carried out through group discussion; it can also be supported by modeling and specific, well-focused analysis. The objective is to examine how robust different lever settings are to future uncertainty. Suppose, for example, you decide that the current lever settings give favorable outcome values in just one of the alternative future worlds. That analysis implies that, if you leave the lever settings as they are and that particular future does indeed come to pass, your business is likely to be successful. But if the future were to evolve toward any of the other worlds, things might not be so rosy.

Turning Scenarios into Strategy

As a result of the exploration of the lever settings in the various worlds, you will discover one of a number of things, for example, that:

• The current levers, and their settings, are indeed robust under future worlds, or
• The current levers, and their settings, are not robust under future worlds, or
• Some different lever settings are robust under many of the future worlds, including today’s world; or there are no lever settings that work well under many worlds, but several clusters of settings that work well in some worlds but not others; or there are no generally safe lever settings – each world has its own.

These insights are guides to strategy. How so? Let’s go back to our definition of strategy: a shared commitment to act toward a compelling goal.

A shared commitment to take what specific actions, toward which particular goal? Well:

• The goal must be defined in relation to one or more of the worlds, and
• The actions must be to move existing levers to new settings or to deploy new levers.

The process of strategy development is therefore that of deciding which levers need to be placed at what settings. And the strategy itself is the set of actions you decide to take to move the levers from their current settings to their new ones.

Scenario-based strategic planning has the objective of providing a framework to enable managers to make strategic decisions (see “The Scenario-Based Strategic Planning Process”). These decisions can relate only to levers and their settings; managers, quite literally, can do little else. As we all know, the problem with resetting the levers is that some of them are difficult to reset; some, once reset, cannot be reversed to their original settings; many require a long time to reset; and, once settings have been reset, it may be a long time before the results are actually achieved—time during which the world is fast evolving, often in such a way as to make the new settings no longer fit for their originally conceived purpose.

THE SCENARIO-BASED STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS

Scenario-based strategic planning has the objective of providing a framework to enable managers to make strategic decisions. As such, it comprises a number of activities, beginning with defining today’s world and the range of actions that managers can take to creating scenarios of different possible worlds to testing levers in different settings and, finally, identifying effective actions.

But the levers must be reset from time to time. Doing nothing, and so betting that the world will stay still, is often a worse bet than taking a gamble on one particular future. The process is exciting, challenging, stimulating, exhausting, amazing – and, most importantly, it works.

Dennis Sherwood is the author of nine books, including Seeing the Forest for the Trees: A Manager’s Guide to Applying Systems Thinking, Smart Things to Know About Innovation, and Unlock Your Mind. For 12 years, he was a consulting partner with Coopers & Lybrand and was subsequently an executive director at Goldman Sachs in London, a partner in Bossard Consultants, and vice president of SRI Consulting. He is currently with the Silver Bullet Machine Manufacturing Company. Dennis was educated at the Universities of Cambridge, Yale, and California, and is a Sloan Fellow, with distinction, of the London Business School. He is a well-known speaker at conferences, has written many journal articles, and has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s programs In Business, Shoptalk, and Nice Work.

The post Turning Innovative Scenarios into Robust Strategies appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

When asked how he managed to accomplish this feat, Spielberg credited the use of a large, aerial-perspective map that effectively captured the entire story as well as the camera locations. This rich image, which was much more detailed than a normal film storyboard, showed everyone on the production what was supposed to happen to whom and when. The detailed picture helped the crew come to a shared mindset and allowed them to work quickly and effectively.

Everyone knew the desired result as well as the detailed steps along the way. People on the production could place their efforts in the context of the big picture. They were all on the same page, so to speak; it just happened to be a very big one posted around all four walls of Spielberg’s hotel room.

Old Wine in New Bottles

Of course, the use of pictures to convey messages, encourage dialogue, and shape people’s perspectives is nothing new. A lot of art has this quality, including religious art. Take, for instance, Botticelli’s La Primavera. In the painting, Venus looks out at viewers and, by the gesture of her right hand, asks them to choose which of the Three Graces they should emulate. It is an image designed to challenge the Medici princes of Florence to think about what sort of leadership they should provide: Should they lead with a deeper spiritual quality or should they go for short-term pleasure and gain?

Pictures are effective because they can convey complexity as well as make manifest people’s mental models. For these reasons, they can be useful in a corporate setting in helping leaders articulate their thinking, encouraging organization-wide dialogue to promote greater engagement in strategy and building a shared vision about what the future should look like and how to achieve it. A visual depiction is far more useful than words alone in helping a community of people create common ground.

“Learning Pictures” are a tool used to help people align their thinking about conceptual matters, such as strategy, the nature of change, organizational performance, the competitive landscape, and organizational dynamics. They are large, colorful representations of the business situation, created by a consultant or facilitator with the support of a graphic designer or artist based on input from a leadership team (see “Sample Learning Picture”). The images are then used as a catalyst for group dialogue, usually with a facilitator and one of the leaders involved in creating the picture. Once the picture has been used in these dialogue sessions with people from throughout the organization, they inevitably end up being put on a wall and used for other communication tasks, such as during orientation for new employees.

Done well, a Learning Picture helps to create what Richard Pascale, Mark Milleman, and Linda Gioja, in Surfing the Edge of Chaos: The Laws of Nature and the New Laws of Business (Crown, 2000), call “line of sight” understanding. This kind of understanding, they say, “provides an overview of the strategic context. It enables employees on the shop floor to see the direct connection between what they do and the overall corporate results.”

The Process

Leaders responsible for achieving new levels of performance and capability sometimes jump into action without first having thought clearly about the outcomes they seek to achieve. If the wider community of employees has only a tenuous grasp on the strategic outcomes and how they are to be achieved, then their chances of realizing them are severely compromised. Likewise, if the members of the leadership team do not have a similar view about “the what” and “the how,” then they have little hope of arriving at the destination. Thus, the process of creating a Learning Picture is often as useful to the organization as the result.

The process follows six steps:

1. Elicit the Big Picture. In this step, the team accountable for delivering the strategic change participates in a facilitated workshop. The workshop lasts about two to three hours and focuses on the following:
   1. The end state that is desired, the vision (the what)
   2. The challenges and a map through them (the how)
   3. The case for change (the why)

   Most of the focus is on the end state. The facilitator’s task is to probe what this will look and feel like and to drill down to specific details, such as: What sort of relationships will there be between the company and its stakeholders/customers? What will the working environment be like? How will leadership be exercised? What will be different? What are the dominant chains of cause and effect? What will be leading indicators of success? How will key functions interact and how will they create value across departments? What cultural artifacts will be employed to substantiate the desired culture? What would a visitor from another planet see?

   If a picture says a thousand words, then it can certainly help to create the dialogue that leads to shared mindset.

   The key is to elicit participants’ mental models about the future and align them around one version.

   Throughout the session, the facilitator listens for visual metaphors and imagery. At the end of the workshop, participants agree on a visual metaphor for the Learning Picture that might act as the core theme.

   Some possible metaphors include:

   • Islands in the sea
   • Landscape with hills and rivers
   • Built environment with roads, shops, and factories
   • Formula 1 racing
   • Aviation, airports, and airliners
   • The globe showing connected communities and other networking themes
   • Mountains
   • A maze
   • The inside of a computer

   A strategic or conceptual artist – a graphic designer/illustrator who can use standard illustration software – listens to the discussion and starts to conceptualize the Learning Picture with the help of the consultant/facilitator, who acts as a bridge between the group and the artist.

2. Design the Learning Picture. The next stage is to think about the main themes that emerged from the facilitated discussion. With one client, the challenge was to integrate a new function with two existing business units. The management team hit upon the idea of representing the groups in a Learning Picture that showed them all collaborating in a working environment of the future. The image shows people interacting in new ways and leveraging new tools and information to achieve unprecedented outcomes.The management team felt that people in the organization needed to be more interdependent and share information without the intervention of the head office. To depict that concept, the Learning Picture showed one business function in the center with another supporting it around the outside and then further layers of support above and beneath these two core organizational constructs. Collaboration, best practices, visibility of information, a common language, and other ideas were represented in the picture’s details.

   Before they produced this picture, the organization had created plenty of PowerPoint slide packs about the new teams and the processes they would use, but the framework as a whole was not clear. In fact, some people who were supposed to benefit from this new way of working saw the change as a threat. The picture helped staff see in some detail what the future held for them. Through the facilitated dialogue, they explored the impact of the new tools and methodologies they would be given to use and the new information they would have access to. The picture sparked a conversation about how people would relate to each other in different ways. Because the discussion elicited imagined details about the future, it had a grounded quality that led participants to begin to own and desire the changes.

3. Make It Rich. Once the architecture of the picture has been decided, the facilitator and the graphic designer work together to fill in the details in the new structure. For example, to show that the balance of power needed to shift in favor of one department when dealing with suppliers, the graphic designer included two people on a see-saw. The see-saw tipped in one direction as both people looked at a computer screen showing the details of the supplier’s performance over the previous quarter. The key is to fill the picture with lots of vignettes and mini-stories that people can refer to when using the picture as a catalyst for group discussion.The picture may go through one or two iterations, as the leadership team gives its input on the details and the image takes shape.
4. Design the “Cascade” Process and Facilitators’ Guidelines. When the image is completed, it is important to plan the process for using it throughout the organization – the “cascade process” – and to develop facilitators’ guidelines. One way to use the illustration with groups is to lead a conversation by structuring a story around the picture. Another approach is to simply give an overview of the image and then look at specific areas of detail to bring out the most important messages. Classic facilitation questions include:
   • What do you imagine these people are saying to each other?
   • Which theme in this picture is most interesting/threatening/enticing/challenging/appealing to you?
   • Who would you most like to be in the picture?
   • If you could do one thing in this picture, what would it be?

   With an engaging image and a facilitator armed with some well-chosen questions, it is not too difficult to encourage some searching dialogue around core organizational issues.

5. Train Facilitators and Plan a Pilot. We have found it remarkably easy for experienced in-house facilitators and seasoned managers to use the Learning Picture to enable highly valuable conversations. The process is often given a boost if the leadership team facilitates some or all of the sessions; doing so demonstrates their own commitment to the conversation about the future.
6. Roll Out the Learning Picture and Feedback. It is important to build a process into the facilitated sessions through which employees can provide feedback to the leadership team on important aspects of the change. Leaders should approach the roll-out with the spirit of “engage and shape” rather than “tell and sell.” This tactic is particularly important when the desired future represents something of a transformation from the current state.

A Shared Mindset

The Learning Picture is one tool that leaders can use to engage employees in bringing about a desired future for their organizations. If employees have what Dave Ulrich calls a “shared mindset” about the future, then they will be more likely to realize that future. If a picture says a thousand words, then it can certainly help to create the dialogue that leads to a shared mindset. In our experience, a good picture is worth a thousand PowerPoint slides. Just ask Steven Spielberg.

Robert Bolton is associate partner at Atos Consulting, UK. He specializes in creating high performance organizations by finding, designing, and leveraging powerful connections in people processes. He can be contacted at Robert. Bolton@atosorigin.com.

The post Picture This: Using Learning Pictures to Create Shared Mindset appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

As we began to unpack her frustration, I discovered that she was finding it easier to make difficult strategic decisions alone, without formal input from her senior team. When quizzed about making such decisions in isolation, she replied that involving others usually resulted in stubborn arguments that divided her team with clear winners and losers. She felt that winning the argument had actually become more important to some than doing what was best for the company.

Because of her engaging personality, she found it easier to make the rounds of her executive team, explaining and justifying her decisions to get everyone on board, rather than deal with the personal, confrontational battles that had previously erupted among her senior team. However, she had lost perspective on the fact that often the best decisions are made when all points of view can be engaged, examined, and discussed in an environment that removes fear and anger from the conversation and replaces them with curiosity and empathy—two of the building blocks of real dialogue.

The Debating Game

In a healthy environment, arguments are very helpful; they serve to pull people together and get them moving in the same direction. The key is having an argument that everyone can win. For this CEO, we staged a debate around a particular strategic decision that she was about to make; one that she was prepared to make alone. But we threw in a few twists that kept the discussions lively, productive, and fun.

I remembered reading how President Ronald Reagan handled debates at the White House. In many cases, he would assign those most passionate about one side of the issue to actually argue the opposite viewpoint.

So, we staged a debate around the specifics of the decision. And, like President Reagan, we assigned executives to each side of the issue, based upon their knowledge and passion for the opposing argument. It turned out brilliantly.

As the debate unfolded, we found that the negative emotions and personal attacks that usually characterize passionate arguments didn’t materialize, but in their place was humor, creativity, and most important of all, some really great thinking on both sides as the participants worked to understand, adopt, and defend a new position.

Because participants viewed the debate as more of a game than a formal presentation (of the kind they were accustomed to making to defend their view of an issue), they approached it on a more objective level. The result was that each side of the issue had a voice that provided thoughtful examination and advocacy.

This exercise was so thought provoking and useful that the CEO surprised everyone by calling for a straw vote at the conclusion of the debate and making the decision on the spot.

Afterward, several members of the executive team told me that the debate had helped them see a side of the issue that they had not considered before, which influenced their vote. The CEO was able to get the best thinking and perspective from her executive team, while also making them comfortable with all of the issues involved. Then, when the decision was made, there was both intellectual understanding and emotional belief in the reasoning behind the decision.

Empathy: Holding Another’s View as Your Own

Because the exercise required people to adopt the contrary viewpoint, they were free to bring their intelligence—both cognitive and emotional—to the table, resulting in an environment where all sides of the issue could be weighed and examined, without the fear of being wrong that causes discomfort in so many leaders.

It is this ability to hold someone else’s viewpoint as your own that fosters real conversation and breakthrough thinking. Whereas previously the CEO would have made the decision in isolation or after talking with a few members of the team, and later would have spent an enormous amount of time explaining her decision and coercing others to implement it, the lasting empathy this exercise developed ensured that her senior team was in alignment, making execution that much faster and more effective.

The next time you face a strategic decision, try staging a debate to release new energy, creativity, and excitement around the decision and speed up its adoption and ultimate success.

Dr. Michael O’Brien (michael@obriengroup.us) is the founder of O’Brien Group (www.obriengroup.us) and has been a pioneer in the field of Executive Coaching. He is the author of the book Profit From Experience (O’Brien Group, 2003) and has written numerous articles on the role of executive development and organizational change. Michael also developed the Learning Organization Practices Profile (Pfeiffer and Co., 1994), a survey that assesses an organization’s learning and change ability. This article originally appeared in The Leading Question.

The post Can Everybody Win an Argument? appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

They’ve failed to make the mark, no doubt, but even after this discussion, the reason for their shortfall is still unclear. That’s because despite all the questioning, the boss hasn’t gotten to the real issue. He’s failed to ask the most important question: “Why didn’t you achieve the goal?”

This scenario plays out all the time in companies, fostering a never-ending cycle where people are stuck in a place of great misunderstanding. Asking situation-type questions prevents the boss from understanding the real issue. It also keeps employees from doing the necessary brainwork required to uncover it. The results are answers that amount to fluff. Problems aren’t identified, and the proper corrective actions are not developed.

Leaders should focus on “why” people do what they do versus “what” they do. Asking the powerful question “why” forces people to think deeply. They can then peel back the layers of excuses and get to the root cause of the problem. For example, if employees have failed to meet a goal and are asked “why” questions rather than “what” or “how” questions,

they might give responses like, “I didn’t prioritize my time.” So the boss must then go farther and ask, “Why didn’t you prioritize your time?” When the employees say they have too much on their plate, the boss, once again, must ask “Why?” The final answer: These employees are given many tasks from their boss and cannot distinguish between what is and what isn’t a priority. With the real problem revealed, the boss can now take appropriate action, perhaps setting up time to help them prioritize their many tasks.

The Challenge Behind Asking “Why?”

Asking “why” seems easy enough. It’s just a little word, after all. So “why” don’t company leaders ask this powerful question more often? Probing deep can be scary for a boss. It smells of confrontation and hints of accusation. Yet asking “why” doesn’t have to be confrontational or insinuate blame, depending on how the question is asked, the tone of voice used, the way it’s introduced, and so on.

Many bosses are also accustomed to being the go-to person for answers. They’re used to giving direction and opinion. It makes them feel valued and important, and reinforces their position of authority. Also, some bosses prefer to deliver the answers because they think it will save precious time. Unfortunately, when bosses routinely dish out the answers, they become enablers of that dysfunctional cycle, which is actually a huge time-waster. Employees regularly seek out the boss for the solution rather than being problem-solvers. This prevents the ability to develop real solutions, stifles employee growth, and ultimately limits company productivity.

The best bosses and company leaders are those who understand that asking “why” is a highly productive teaching method. And teaching—rather than preaching—and challenging people to think is what stimulates discovery, solutions, and growth. So the goal of any leader is to become a great teacher and develop the necessary skills. This includes not only asking “why” but then also giving employees an appropriate amount of time to determine the real answer. That could be as simple as waiting a few minutes for a response in a meeting, or perhaps sending everyone off to think about the issue, research the reason for the problem, and return at a later time with an answer.

Great bosses also teach by holding their employees accountable for not just the problem’s answer but also its solution. When the employees are used to going to the boss for answers and direction, they actually transfer the ownership of the problem from themselves to the boss. Consequently, they can then blame the boss for the goal’s shortcomings and failure. It’s no longer their fault because they didn’t provide the solution—the boss did. Assigning employees with the task of uncovering the reason for their missed goal or creating a viable solution to a problem or challenge puts the responsibility back where it ultimately belongs.

Think back to your favorite teacher, someone who really made a difference in your life. Did he or she give you all the answers? (No!) Did he or she make you look for the answers? (Yes!) Did this teacher hold you accountable? (Absolutely!) These are the ways great leaders help people learn, cultivate the potential of those around them, and enable growth.

Becoming the Great Teacher

So when it comes to teaching, how do bosses start? They must ask more questions in general. To get people to open up, it’s O. K. to lead with a few situational questions, such as, “What was the biggest challenge?” But don’t spend a lot of time here; quickly move on to the meatier “why” questions and get to the root of the problem. Once the issue is clear, employees commonly ask bosses for the solution, and this is the opportunity for leaders to push back and pose that same question to the ones who are asking it. It’s the employees who need to find the solution, articulate how it will be done, spell out why it’s the remedy of choice, and list the appropriate new goals that must be set to reach it.

Finally, great bosses realize that quick reactions and easy answers typically don’t produce the right solution. That’s where digging deep, allotting appropriate time for understanding, and empowering employees to think hard come into play. The teaching process is a challenging one if it’s going to be effective. But for great bosses and leaders, every day provides an opportunity to create the lesson plan that will develop employees. Their ownership in mining the solutions to challenges is what ultimately leads to growth and success.

The post The Power of Asking “Why?” appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

Parents, teachers, and managers are all experts in spotting deficits. In fact, most parents, teachers, and managers consider it their responsibility to point out flaws and try to help us correct them.

We have become experts in our own weaknesses and spend our lives trying to repair our flaws, while our strengths lie dormant and neglected. The research, however, is clear: We grow and develop by putting emphasis on our strengths, rather than trying to correct our deficits.

A Focus on Deficits

Most people don’t concern themselves with identifying their talents and strengths. Instead, they choose to study their weaknesses. A Gallup poll investigated this phenomenon by asking Americans, French, British, Canadian, Japanese, and Chinese people of all ages and backgrounds the question:, “Which do you think will help you improve the most: knowing your strengths or knowing your weaknesses?”

The answer was always the same: weaknesses, not strengths, deserve the most attention. The most strengths-focused culture is the United States, but still only a minority of people, 41 percent, felt that knowing their strengths would help them improve the most. The least strengths-focused cultures are Japan and China. Only 24 percent believe that the key to success lies in their strengths.

The majority of people in the world don’t think that the secret to improvement lies in a deep understanding of their strengths. Interestingly, in every culture, the older people (55 and above) were the least fixated on their weaknesses. Perhaps they have acquired more self-acceptance and realize the futility of trying to be what they are not. Now Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, is an excellent resource for checking out the Gallup research on this topic.

Why Are Weaknesses So Attractive?

Why do so many people avoid focusing on their strengths? Weaknesses may be fascinating and strangely mesmerizing, like watching soap operas and Jerry Springer shows. But the attraction lies in the fact we deeply fear our weaknesses, our failures, and even our true selves.

Some people may be reluctant to investigate their strengths because they may fear there isn’t much in the way of real talent or strength inside them anyway, or that they are just average (again, ingrained from education models). Or, maybe there is a feeling of inadequacy, an “imposter syndrome,” and an underlying fear of being found out. Despite your achievements, you may wonder whether you are as talented as everyone thinks you are. You suspect that luck and circumstance may have played a big part in your getting to where you are today.

However, if you do not investigate your strengths, for any of the above fears and feelings of insecurity, you will miss out on discovering more of who you really are. You will miss out on becoming who you are really meant to be.

Too Close to See?

You are probably not as cognizant of your strengths as you could be, because most of us take them for granted. We are so embedded in our strengths, we are not aware of them as strengths. We think everybody is that way, too. It never occurs to us to be any other way; it is just natural for us.

This way of thinking excludes developing our strengths and becoming even stronger and more brilliant. You can’t develop what you don’t recognize. You can’t expand what you are not aware of.

Building on your strengths is also about responsibility. You probably don’t take pride in your natural talents any more than you would take pride in your sex, race, or hair color. Natural talents are gifts from God and your gene pool.

However, you have a great deal to do with turning your talents into strengths. You can take your talents into the realm of excellence. It involves becoming acutely aware, developing an action learning plan, and “practice, practice, practice.” Viewed in this light, to avoid your strengths by focusing only on your weaknesses is almost a sign of irresponsibility.

The Courage to Be Brilliant

The most responsible, yet the most challenging, thing to do is to face up to your natural talents. It is an honor to have such blessings. Do not waste them. Step up to the potential inherent in your talents and find ways to develop your strengths.

This advice is easy to give and difficult to put into practice. Working with a coach can make it easier for you to identify your talents and strengths. There are also a number of online self-assessments available to help (see the list of recourses below). Once you identify your top five strengths, you can examine how they show up in your life.

It is a process of a few steps back, a few steps forward, and learning as you go. It is not the same as book learning. The only way to learn about your strengths is to act, learn, refine, and then act, learn, refine again. Open yourself to feedback. This means you must be strong and courageous. Personal and professional development is not for sissies.

Discovering your true strengths is the path toward improvement and success. When you pay attention to your deficits and try to overcome them, you are placing emphasis on becoming what you are not. You wind up living a second-rate version of someone else’s life rather than a world-class version of your own. When you focus on your strengths, you are true to yourself by becoming more of who you really are.

The post Discover Your Strengths appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

• Are the possible ecological dangers of pesticides worth the potential benefits of increased crop yields and lower disease rates?
• Is an aggressive foreign policy a deterrent to belligerent nations or will it create a more fertile atmosphere for war?
• In a novel, can we analyze the protagonist’s actions from more than one viewpoint?

Connection circles are thinking tools designed to help students understand complexity. Using them as graphic organizers, students generate ideas about changing conditions within a system. They choose the elements they think are most important to the change and draw arrows to trace cause-and-effect relationships. In this way, connection circles help students delve into an issue and manage a number of different ideas at once.

Connection circles are an intermediate step to creating causal loop diagrams (CLD). Students often don’t know where to start in creating a CLD. Connection circles let them generate ideas about elements and connections first. Then, they can unravel the feedback loops that drive the changes in the story.

How They Work

In this article, we demonstrate how to use connection circles to understand a magazine article about the health risks associated with rising french-fry consumption (, “Eyes on the Fries” by Rene Ebersole, Current Science, March 1, 2002).

1. Choose a story. It may be a newspaper or magazine article, a book chapter, or a work of fiction. The more change over time that occurs in the story, the more effective the connection circle will be.

2. Simplify the article. Although connection circles allow students to understand complex articles, vocabulary and content could still be beyond the readers’ range. In addition, a piece of writing may include a level of detail that distracts students from the big ideas and themes. Briefly discuss the central problem in the article.

3. Create teams of four students each. Although this format is not necessary, we have found that collaborative conversations improve students’ thinking. Ask students to read the article— independently, shared orally in groups, or aloud as a class.

4. Give each student a copy of the connection circle template (a circle printed in the middle of a piece of 8 1/2˝ x 11˝ paper) and briefly explain the first step of the “Connection Circle Rules.”

5. As a class, brainstorm two or three elements, and ask students to write them around the outside of their connection circles. Draw a connection circle on the board or overhead to use as a class example (see “Sample Circle”).

SAMPLE CIRCLE

Throughout the lesson, guide the discussion to ensure that students are specific in their language and that they describe either some sort of change or something that can change., “French Fries” figure prominently in the story, but that label is too vague. A more useful label to show the change in quantity might be “French Fries Sold” or “French Fries Eaten.” Similarly, “McDonald’s” is a major topic of the article, but what quantity about McDonald’s might increase or decrease? Phrases such as “Number of McDonald’s Restaurants” and “McDonald’s Profits” might more accurately describe factors in the story that can shift over time.

Also remind students that elements may be tangible, such as “Number of Restaurants,” or intangible, such as “Concerns About Health Risks” or “Desire to Change the Law.” Often intangible elements are key to the changes in the story.

7. Ask volunteers from each team to suggest elements for the sample class circle. Students may add or delete elements from their circles as they hear others’ ideas. Although the class may suggest and discuss many different elements, the final circles should have no more than five to 10 elements.

8. Ask a volunteer to describe a causal connection between two of the elements around his or her connection circle.

• Does an increase or decrease in one of the elements cause an increase or decrease in one of the others? For example, as the number of french fries eaten goes up, it causes the fat consumption to go up as well.
• To represent this statement, draw an arrow from “Number of French Fries Eaten” to “Fat Consumption,” as shown in “Connecting Elements.”

Here are two other possible connections:

• An increase in fat consumption can cause an increase in concerns about health risks.An increase in the number of McDonald’s restaurants will likely cause an increase in french fries sold.

9. Let students work in teams to connect the elements in their connection circles.

• Emphasize that elements are not limited to one connection and that some elements may not have any connections.
• Students should be prepared to state explicitly how and why the connections work. For example, in our sample connection circle, an arrow leads from “Fat Consumption” to “Concerns About Health Risks.” The reasoning is that an increase in fat in a person’s diet causes an increase in susceptibility to higher levels of cholesterol, obesity, and other conditions detrimental to well being.

10. Ask students to search their circles for paths that make a closed loop. In other words, can they begin at one element of the circle, follow connecting arrows to other elements, and end up back at their starting point, as shown in “Closing the Loop.” Students should trace each loop in a different color.

Ask students to draw each closed loop separately and tell the story of that loop. For example, an increase in the number of french fries sold causes an increase in profits. The corporation can then use those profits to open more restaurants. An increase in restaurants causes an increase in french fries sold, and the loop begins again, reinforcing itself each time around.

11. Distribute a blank overhead transparency sheet to each team. Assign one student in each group to draw a feedback loop on the sheet to share with the class.

CONNECTING ELEMENTS

CLOSING THE LOOP

So, an increase in “French Fries Sold” causes an increase in “French Fries Eaten” and, in turn, “Fat Consumption.” Higher fat consumption can lead to a rise in concerns about health. When concerns grow sufficiently, the sale of fries may decrease, as customers try to eat healthier foods. Continuing around the loop again, a decline in “French Fries Sold” means that fewer are eaten and consequently a drop in “Fat Consumption.” A drop in fat consumption decreases “Health Concerns.” With fewer health concerns, over time, “French Fries Sold” might increase, sending the loop around again.

This feedback loop is self-balancing. Tracing around the loop, an initial increase in one element eventually comes back to cause a decrease in that element, balancing back and forth each time around the loop.

12. When the work of each team is displayed, challenge students to discover loops that share a common element. In our sample connection circle, “French Fries Sold” appears in at least two feedback loops. As students talk their way around the loops, they describe the changing behaviors of the elements in the story.

Bringing the Lesson Home

Students like using connection circles to figure things out. The tool may appear complicated at first, but after one class demonstration, students are usually ready and able to use it in a wide range of applications. Here are some questions to help guide the discovery process:

• Which elements have lots of arrows going in and out? Why? An element with lots of arrows in and out tends to be a leverage point in the story. Because of all their connections, key elements create lots of changes. In a connection circle about “Eyes on the Fries,”, “French Fries Sold” might have lots of arrows going in and out because it drives the key issues raised in the article.
• What is the significance of an element that has no arrows pointing to it? When an element has no arrows pointing to it, it is not being changed by any other element represented in the circle. If it is important, the student may need to add another variable that causes the first variable to change.
• What is the significance of an element that has no arrows coming from it? No arrows out means that the element doesn’t influence anything that is currently in the circle. The student may need to add one or more new elements.
• What is the significance of an element with no arrows connected to or from it? No arrows at all means the element is not critical to the part of the story being traced, or other elements have been omitted that need to be included.
• What does it mean when a pathway of arrows leads back to the starting element? When a pathway of arrows loops back to the original element, there is feedback in the story. Each closed loop identified is a feedback loop. When one element in the loop changes, the effect ripples through the whole loop, eventually affecting the original element as well.

  For example, in R1 of “Reinforcing and Balancing Loops,” as the “Number of McDonald’s Restaurants” goes up, “French Fries Sold” also goes up, causing “Profits” to rise. Higher profits tend to increase the number of restaurants being opened, starting the process again. This is a reinforcing loop, commonly known as a vicious or virtuous cycle.

  Another kind of feedback loop is a balancing loop. In contrast to a vicious cycle, a balancing loop does not spiral in the same direction, but rather see-saws back and forth. For example, in B2 of “Reinforcing and Balancing Loops,”, “French Fries Sold” increases “French Fries Eaten,”, “Fat Consumption,” and, ultimately, “Health Concerns.” If health concerns grow strong enough, french fry sales will be driven down.

  Follow the loop around a second time and notice what happens to the elements. When health concerns grow, the number of french fries sold and eaten go down. Fat consumption is reduced, and eventually health concerns should lessen. Over time, with fewer health concerns, people might start to buy more french fries again.

• What happens when elements from the connection circle are in more than one feedback loop? The loops will interact in ways that make the behavior interesting and often quite complex! As demonstrated in the previous paragraph, the sale of french fries creates profits but also creates health concerns. Profits increase the number of restaurants, and more restaurants mean more french fries sold. But health concerns tend to reduce the number of french fries sold. The loops push in different directions, causing tension and complexity in the story.

  The goal of using this tool isn’t to find one specific connection circle that will correctly describe a given topic or article. Rather, the circle is designed to generate ideas and to clarify thinking about complex issues.

  Connection circles help us brainstorm about what is changing and trace webs of relationships within systems to understand those changes. The connection circle examples in this story demonstrate one way to interpret “Eyes on the Fries,” but they are not the only way.

  Teachers and students will be happy that thinking, not memorizing, is the key to learning from this activity. Try creating connection circles and watch your students start paying attention to the shape of change.

REINFORCING AND BALANCING LOOPS

This article is adapted from a chapter in The Shape of Change (Creative Learning Exchange, 2004), by Rob Quaden and Alan Ticotsky, with Debra Lyneis. Illustrations by Nathan Walker. For information about or to purchase the book, go to http://www.clexchange.org/shapeofchange/ or to http://www.pegasuscom.com.

Rob Quaden and Alan Ticotsky are teachers in the Carlisle Public Schools in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Quaden is an eighth-grade algebra teacher and Carlisle’s math curriculum coordinator. Ticotsky is Carlisle’s science curriculum coordinator and a former elementary classroom teacher. Deb Lyneis works at the Creative Learning Exchange, helping teachers publish their system dynamics curriculum material for other teachers to use.

The post Learning About Connection Circles appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

• An epidemic accelerates in proportion to the number of people exposed, which in turn increases the likelihood that the epidemic will spread even further.
• Downsizing is likely to reduce an executive’s ability to generate revenue (not just costs), which in turn decreases profits and increases pressure to downsize yet again.
• Acts of violence perpetrated by one party in a war stimulate acts of revenge by the other party, which in turn lead to violent retaliation by the first party and an ongoing escalation by both sides.

Although people are easily caught in vicious cycles, they often do not see these cycles as endless spirals and do not know how to escape the dynamic.

This article:

• Describes an easy way to identify vicious cycles that people are caught in;
• Explains a four-step process to transform this dynamic into an engine of success instead of failure;
• Will expand your thinking beyond simple vicious cycles to enrich your understanding of common problems and identify specific interventions for complex systems.

Doom Looping

One easy way to identify vicious cycles we are caught in is called “doom looping,” originally developed by Jennifer Kemeny. Doom looping has four steps:

1. Identify a problem symptom that concerns you because it seems to get worse and worse over time. For example, your symptom might be morale problems.
2. Identify three immediate and independent causes of the problem symptom. For example, three immediate causes of morale problems might be a difficult manager, lack of career opportunities, and job pressures and stress.
3. Clarify three immediate and independent consequences of the growing problem symptom. For example, three immediate consequences of morale problems are turnover, quality problems, and performance issues.
4. Finally, show how at least one of the consequences exacerbates at least one of the causes. The connection might be direct or indirect. For example, the consequence of turnover is that it increases workload for key personnel, which in turn increases job pressures and stress, thereby increasing morale problems and turnover even further (see “Vicious Cycles”). This dynamic is a vicious cycle or, in systems thinking parlance, a reinforcing feedback loop.

VICIOUS CYCLES

One easy way to identify vicious cycles we are caught in is called “Doom Looping.”

Transforming Vicious Cycles

Once you have identified a vicious cycle, you can look for where to break the cycle and ideally transform it into a positive engine of growth. This involves four steps:

1. Identify at least one link in the vicious cycle that is governed by people’s beliefs or assumptions instead of hard-wired into the system. This is a link that can be broken. To clarify this link, ask, “Is this cause-effect link inevitable, or can it be influenced by changing how people think and behave?”

   Example: “Do morale problems necessarily have to lead to high turnover?” Here the answer is “No,” because the existence of morale problems could just as well stimulate the active engagement of your best people—the ones most likely to leave first when things get bad—in turning around the organization. By contrast, once turnover occurs (especially of good people), the workload of key personnel is likely to increase and, as a result, so will job pressures and stress, and then morale problems. These links are more hardwired into the vicious cycle.

2. Redirect the causal factor in the weak link by creating a new goal. Ask, “What do we want to accomplish when this causal factor appears?”

   Example: “We want to establish a highly effective organization led by our best people at all levels.”

3. Clarify the corrective actions required to bridge the gap between where you are and the new goal.

   Example: “In order to increase morale and achieve the goal of an effective organization led by our best people at all levels, we will ask these people to reassess the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities and lead task forces to capitalize on the most critical areas.

4. Implement reinforcing actions that sustain the new momentum. Because managers tend to be pulled by multiple demands, they often take their attention off of a new initiative once it appears to be moving forward. In order to ensure that the change in direction is sustained, it is important to implement actions that reinforce this direction over time.

   Example: The task force leaders can benefit from individual coaching and team learning meetings that enable them to overcome organizational resistance, deal with surprises, and increase each others’ effectiveness. This process should be followed by timely implementation of their recommendations and adjustments in the organizational infrastructure to support new ways of working.

Addressing More Complex Dynamics

Because vicious cycles are relatively easy to identify when things go wrong, we are tempted to see them everywhere we look. However, focusing on many vicious cycles tends to confuse people and limit their ability to identify effective interventions. There are two ways to make sense of multiple vicious cycles and key in on high-leverage interventions:

• The first is to simplify multiple vicious cycles by identifying the four to seven variables that people believe are most critical to the problem. Next, depict how these variables interact with each other by drawing no more than two or three loops. Once you have simplified the number of loops, use the above method for breaking and transforming vicious cycles to develop an intervention strategy.
• The second approach is to recognize that vicious cycles tend to disguise and dominate more complex dynamics. These dynamics can often be depicted initially as systems archetypes. Archetypes provide a rich, comprehensive explanation of what is happening while still being easy to understand. In addition to providing clarity that is both sophisticated and accessible, systems archetypes enable people to target more specific high-leverage interventions.

Example: If a vicious cycle is created when people use a quick fix to reduce a problem symptom, draw the “Fixes That Backfire” (also known as the “Fixes That Fail”) archetype, and apply interventions for producing a sustainable solution (see, for example, Systems Archetypes Basics: From Story to Structure by Daniel H. Kim andVirginia Anderson, Pegasus Communications, 1998). If one or more vicious cycles increase dependence on a quick fix and undermine your ability to implement a more fundamental long-term solution, show the “Shifting the Burden” archetype and use interventions designed to support this solution.

Other dynamics where vicious cycles tend to dominate include:

• Success to the Successful—one part of the system performs better and better over time at the expense of decreasing success of another part;
• Accidental Adversaries—the unintended consequences of actions taken by two potential collaborators undermine each other’s effectiveness;
• Competing Goals—efforts to achieve too many goals for too many different parties reduce their ability to accomplish any goal satisfactorily;
• Escalation—two parties continuously amplify their activities to defeat the other without ever achieving a sustainable advantage.

In sum: Identifying vicious cycles is often a great place to start applying systems thinking to chronic, complex problems. At the same time, people can often gain richer insight and even greater leverage by testing for and depicting the systems archetypes that produce these cycles.

David Peter Stroh is a principal of Applied Systems Thinking and founder and principal of www.bridgewaypartners.com. David is an expert in applying systems thinking to organizational and social change. You can contact him at dstroh@appliedsystemsthinking.com.

This article is adapted with permission from the Applied Systems Thinking Library. © Applied Systems Thinking 2006

The post Identifying and Breaking Vicious Cycles appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

Your Relationship with the Organization

You contribute to and depend on the success of the whole organization. As part of a group, department, or business unit, you must have access to certain resources (including people, capital, physical assets, and technology) in order to do your work. In turn, you use these resources to create value for the organization.

Your contribution to the organization depends on the quality of the decisions you make. Every decision is based on your understanding of what is important to you and to the organization and how to most efficiently and effectively achieve those goals. This is true for long-term decisions as well as daily ones—you act based on your own perspective of reality in your organization.

Obviously, the clearer you are about what you and the organization truly want to achieve and how the whole company actually works, the more likely you are to reach those results through your decisions. This is not strategic planning, but strategic action. So, your understanding of what you and others want to accomplish and how the organization actually works greatly influences your day-today efficiency and effectiveness.

You know better than most others what is important in your own work and how your part of the organization functions. You have gained this understanding through lots of experience and training, so you would not expect that others without that experience and training would have your clarity—and they don’t. Likewise, you do not have the same clarity that others have of their part of the organization.

While this point may seem obvious, most people assume that their understanding of different functions is sufficient, while others obviously misunderstand their part of the system. Why else would workers in other areas make decisions that cause problems in your area? The truth is that you probably do not have a clear understanding of what other parts of the organization are trying to achieve or the reality of how they function, and others have the same lack of clarity about your area.

Increasing Your Clarity

Clarity

Clarity is the correspondence between what is understood and what is actually observed.

To gain clarity so that your actions help you achieve what is important to you and to the organization, you need to understand:

• what values drive the system’s behavior
• how the parts of the system function
• how the values and parts relate

To help you gain understanding of these three items with as little effort as possible, my colleagues and I have developed a comprehensive, rigorous, and integrative framework called “GRASP” (Goals, Resources, Actions, Structure, People). GRASP is relatively simple to understand and focuses on the purpose of different areas and the overall organization. The three exercises on page 8 are intended to improve your clarity; each exercise is linked to one of the necessary understandings.

I mentioned in the beginning that you could do all of this with the understanding and tools you already have. As you will see in the exercises, all you need is some time (25 to 40 hours), the ability to ask questions, and the ability to listen with empathy. While some people are better at this than others, we all have the experience of asking questions and listening. I have found that these exercises are practical for both individuals and groups. If you are in a relatively autonomous part of the organization, they can help you understand how you and your team relate to others in your unit and in other departments. If you work with or oversee a substantial part of the organization, these activities provide a more strategic view of the whole enterprise and help you see how you contribute to it and how it fits in the larger system, such as your industry or community.

With this integrated understanding of the reality of what the different organizational areas want to achieve, how they function, how they interrelate, and how they are doing, you will be much clearer in how your day-today actions will help you achieve the desired results for your area and for the organization. This understanding will give you clarity about what resources you need to do your work and how you can help others do theirs most efficiently.

Not Just for Top Executives

Most people think that this more systemic, overall understanding is probably important for senior executives and strategic planning, but not for getting the real work done in their area. This is not true. By understanding the whole system, the interrelationships within the system, and their own role in it, people from throughout the organization become more efficient and work together more effectively. The alternative is to remain in our own individual silos, where we focus on strengthening our part of the organization and our results, often to the detriment of other areas and the whole on which we ultimately depend.

Jim Ritchie-Dunham is president of the Institute for Strategic Clarity, associate of the Psychology Department at Harvard University, and coauthor of Managing from Clarity: Identifying, Aligning and Leveraging Strategic Resources (Wiley, 2001).

The post A Framework for Achieving Clarity for You and Your Organization appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

A Starting Point for Theory-Building

Quality pioneer Dr. Edwards Deming once said, “No theory, no learning.” In order to make sense of our experience of the world, we must be able to relate that experience to some coherent explanatory story. Without a working theory, we have no means to integrate our differing experiences into a common picture. In the absence of full knowledge about a system, we must create a theory about what we don’t know, based on what we currently do know.

Each systems archetype embodies a particular theory about dynamic behavior that can serve as a starting point for selecting and formulating raw data into a coherent set of interrelationships. Once those relationships are made explicit and precise, the “theory” of the archetype can then further guide us in our data-gathering process to test the causal relationships through direct observation, data analysis, or group deliberation.

Each systems archetype also offers prescriptions for effective action. When we recognize a specific archetype at work, we can use the theory of that archetype to begin exploring that particular system or problem and work toward an intervention.

For example, if we are looking at a potential “Limits to Success” situation, the theory of that archetype suggests eliminating the potential balancing processes that are constraining growth, rather than pushing harder on the growth processes. Similarly, the “Shifting the Burden” theory warns against the possibility of a short-term fix becoming entrenched as an addictive pattern (see “Archetypes as Dynamic Theories” on pp. 9–10 for a list of each archetype and its corresponding theory).

Systems archetypes thus provide a good starting theory from which we can develop further insights into the nature of a particular system. The diagram that results from working with an archetype should not be viewed as the “truth,” however, but rather a good working model of what we know at any point in time. As an illustration, let’s look at how the “Success to the Successful” archetype can be used to create a working theory of an issue of technology transfer.

, “Success to the Successful” Example

An information systems (IS) group inside a large organization was having problems introducing a new email system to enhance company communications. Although the new system was much more efficient and reliable, very few people in the company were willing to switch from their existing email systems. The situation sounded like a “Success to the Successful” structure, so the group chose that archetype as its starting point.

'SUCCESS TO SUCCESSFUL' EMAIL

Starting with the “Success to the Successful” storyline (top), the IS team created a core dynamic theory linking the success of the old email systems with the success of the new system (middle). They then identified structural interventions they could make to use the success of the old systems to fuel the acceptance of the new one (loops B5 and B6, bottom).

The theory of this archetype (see “‘Success to the Successful’ Email” on p. 8) is that if one person, group, or idea (, “A”) is given more attention, resources, time, or practice than an alternative (, “B”), A will have a higher likelihood of succeeding than B (assuming that the two are more or less equal). The reason is that the initial success of A justifies devoting more of whatever is needed to keep A successful, usually at the expense of B (loop R1). As B gets fewer resources, B’s success continues to diminish, which further justifies allocating more resources to A (loop R2). The predicted outcome of this structure is that A will succeed and B will most likely fail.

When the IS team members mapped out their issue into this archetype, their experience corroborated the relationships identified in the loops (see “Core Dynamic Theory”). The archetype helped paint a common picture of the larger “elephant” that the group was dealing with, and clearly stated the problem: given that the existing email systems had such a head start in this structure, the attempts to convince people to use the new system were likely to fail.

Furthermore, the more time that passed, the harder it would be to ever shift from the existing systems to the new one.

Using the “Core Dynamic Theory” diagram as a common starting point, group members then explored how to use the success of the existing system to somehow drive the success of the new one (see “Extended Dynamic Theory”). They hypothesized that creating a link between “Usefulness of Existing Email” and “Usefulness of New Email” (loop B5) and/or a link between “Use of Existing Email” and “Usefulness of New Email” (loop B6) could create counterbalancing forces that would fuel the success loop of the new system. Their challenge thus became to find ways in which the current system could be used to help people appreciate the utility of the new system, rather than just trying to change their perceptions by pointing out the limitations of the existing system.

Managers As Researchers and Theory Builders

Total Quality tools such as statistical process control, Pareto charts, and check sheets enable frontline workers to become much more systematic in their problem solving and learning. With these tools, they become researchers and theory builders of their own production process, gaining insight into how the current systems work.

Similarly, systems archetypes can enable managers to become theory builders of the policy- and decision-making processes in their organizations, exploring why the systems behave the way they do. As the IS story illustrates, these archetypes can be used to create rich frameworks for continually testing strategies, policies, and decisions that then inform managers of improvements in the organization. Rather than simply applying generic theories and frameworks like Band-Aids on a company’s own specific issues, managers must take the best of the new ideas available and then build a workable theory for their own organization. Through an ongoing process of theory building, managers can develop an intuitive knowledge of why their organizations work the way they do, leading to more effective, coordinated action.

ARCHETYPES AS DYNAMIC THEORIES

Limits to success dynamic theory

The post Systems Archetypes as Dynamic Theories appeared first on The Systems Thinker.