Systems Thinking Powers Actionable Solutions in Three Easy Steps

The Past Is No Playbook for the Future

Issue 76: Oct 6, 2022

If by chance you have been asleep for the past three decades, you may have missed the success of a systems thinking strategic model. Everyone who understands climate change realizes that we (all of us, sentient and non) live in a closed-loop, interconnected system. That understanding is based on the ability to look at life holistically, connecting the parts to the whole and recognizing that every action causes ripple effects throughout the system. We’ve just seen one possible interconnected outcome of global warming with hurricane Ian slamming into Florida – and there was plenty of warning.

What does this have to do with running and operating an organization? Everything! Our organizational constructs mimic the natural order, and one major misstep throws the system off balance. How do we know? We are finding that organizations…