"Today’s problems are yesterday’s solutions."

People want their part of a system to behave in a certain way. From their understanding of how the system works, they develop hypotheses about what to do to obtain the desired behavior. Usually people implement these hypotheses, and they result in Expected and Unexpected Consequences. When things don’t turn out as expected, we ask ourselves:

Did we properly understand the inputs to our decision?

Did we have a representative understanding of the different parts of the system?

Do we understand the implications of our decisions on different parts of the system over time?

Systems thinking helps us to understand these issues better. Additionally, it gives a risk-free "practice space" within which to test our hypotheses before implementing them in real life. Athletes practice for hours together, coordinating their team interactions, speeding them up and slowing them down before trying new strategies in a real game. Pilots spend hundreds of hours flying in simulated adverse conditions, within a flight simulator, before trying their skills in a real adverse condition with real passengers, since the risk is too high. Should we not simulate the applicability of our hypotheses in the organizational world before implementing them? What are the effects of reducing the Research and Development budget before actually doing it? Our learning environments allow you this opportunity.

Click here to see what we do at the Institute for Strategic Clarity to intervene in this same decision making process to strengthen the decision makers ability to understand and make decisions within complex environments.