Why is the Fifth Discipline important? Why should I have a systems thinking approach?

We tend to focus on what we have to do and can’t see how our actions impact others. Even harder it is to see that the effect of our own actions come back to impact us. That is where systems thinking helps: You can only undertand systems (for instance, businesses, schools) by contemplating the whole, not any individual part.

Let’s start by understanding what we mean by a system in Systems Thinking. A system can be a business, a school, a university, a team, and it also apply to a rainstorm system, a production system, etc.

So if we take an organization as a system, we can use Systems Thinking as a way of looking at that organization differently: looking at the actions and interactions, not as isolated parts of the system, but as interrelated, how they work together, and how they impact each other. Systems Thinking helps us see how our own actions create the problems we experience and how to make changes.

When an organization follows Systems Thinking and all its best practices, tools and disciplines, it is called a Learning Organization. I like the term because it represents an organization that is always in the state of learning, continually expanding its capacity to create its future.

Peter Senge identified learning disabilities that don’t let organizations recognize threats to their growth, understand the implications of those threats or come up with alternatives to change:

I am my position: If we focus on our positions only, we have little sense of responsibility for the results when all positions interact and we don’t see how our own actions extend beyond that position.

The illusion fo taking charge: When we respond to issues only reacting to events, we can’t see the longer-term patterns that lie behind the events and from understanding the root causes of these patterns.

The parable of the boiled frog: When organizations are set up to react to sudden changes, they can’t feel slow, gradual changes and won’t stop to look at the processes that pose the greatest threats.

The delusion of learning from experience: When the negative effects of their actions happen elsewhere, they don’t know they need to look at cross functional lines to analyze their issues.

Systems Thinking alone is not enough to become a learning organization, that’s why Peter Senge calls it the Fifth Discipline, it needs to be integrated. Systems Thinking also needs teams willing to:

  1. Build a shared vision, a picture of the future that we want to create together. Here, there is an important distinction, we’re looking to build a vision that fosters commitment rather than compliance.

  2. Look inward, being open top unearth the shortcomings in our present ways of seeing the world (our mental models).

  3. Learn as a team, looking at the larger picture and how we interact beyond individual perspectives, looking at end-to-end processes.

  4. Be made up of lifelong learners, committed to our personal mastery so we have the skills to learn with each other and innovate as a team.

  5. See actions, events, behaviors as systems, interconnected and look at the root causes of behaviors so we can change them.

It’s easier said than done, but that’s why we’re studying this book. We can see two important concepts from lean thinking: look for the root cause of problems, question our assumptions, analyze end-to-end processes looking for wastes that cause deviations from the perfect process so we can continuously improve towards a vision.

As I reviewed this material, I remembered that the book “The Toyota Way to Service Excellence” by Jeffrey Liker could help us put the Systems Thinking in practice using Lean Thinking.

1. I am my position: If I focus on my position only, I have little sense of responsibility for the results when all positions interact.

2. The enemy is out there: If we don’t see how positions or departments interact, we don’t see how our own actions extend beyond that position or department.

3. The illusion fo taking charge: When we respond to issues only reacting to events, we are not seeing how we contribute to our problems.

4. The fixation on events: Focusing on events distracts us from seeing the longer-term patterns that lie behind the events and from understanding the root causes of these patterns.

5. The parable of the boiled frog: Organizations can’t feel they are in the middle of a crisis until they slow down and look at the processes that pose the greatest threats.

6. The delusion of learning from experience: When organizations try to solve their difficulties by breaking themselves up in components, analysis of the most complex issues that cross functional lines becomes a non-existing exercise.

7. The myth of the management team: When organizations try to defend their traditional ways of doing things rather than to question tem, they stop developing the capacity to change those ways.