It changed not only the way I approached our work with the City of Miami Beach and with all of our other partner cities, but also the way I’ve approached nearly every challenge since. So here we go, a systems thinking primer from a systems thinking user. FIGHTING THE FIRE VS FIREPROOFING “Systems thinking can be used to explain and understand everything from inventory changes in a supply chain, to populations of bacteria and their hosts, to the instability in Syria, to the seemingly irrational behavior of certain elected officials.
Steve Vassallo, general partner at Foundation
Systems thinking is typically explained with the Iceberg Model (see below). We spend most of our time at the top, thinking about and responding to acute conditions, events, and failures. For the cities I work with, acute events are often the latest storm or the intersection where every day there is another car accident. But fighting fires doesn’t fireproof your hillside.
To fireproof your hillside, you have
The whole system – including the patterns, institutional structures and values that played a part in creating the problem – in order to solve it. As defined, systems thinking is an approach to problem solving that attempts to balance holistic instagram data thinking and reductionist thinking. In practice, it means taking a step back. It means zooming out to ask better questions to understand how different systems interact so that you can design more impactful solutions.
It means seeking out team members from
Different academic disciplines, and it means working with folks from different departments to solve problems together. It means breaking out of a partner or friend can help to keep you accountable traditional silos and seeking out fresh perspectives. POURING CHAMPAGNE ON TRAINS Let’s start with some guidance from an expert: Video Player 00:00 00:00 Clipped from Rory Sutherland, “Life Lessons from an Ad-Man”, TED October 2009. nnificant. When it comes to problem solving, you can’t rely on one particular set of expertise or one single perspective – “improvement” or making something “better” can take many forms. The easiest way to start utilizing a systems thinking is to ask better questions.
Framing the right question is generally
The hardest part of any problem solving process. More often than not, we frame needs and risks too narrowly, and end up solving one problem only to create an tg data other. Conversely, when questions are too broad, they foster a lot of dialogue but not a lot of action. Simple questions, framed effectively, lead to better solutions.