In this second part of my 3-episode series, let’s dig into the concept of complexity and how my best friend, systems thinking, can help you unwind it.
But before, let’s go over the fundamentals of systems thinking that were already mentioned in the first part of the series.
- System is made of subparts that are directly or indirectly linked to each other and no matter how you group them, they all behave depending on how the other groups are doing.
- None of the subparts of a system has an impact on the whole alone, but together they do.
- When faced with a complication, systems thinking uses the technique of “Link and Dissolve” where it creates the picture of the situation by linking the subparts and then finds the root of the complication.
But how does it do that? More importantly, what happens if the situation is too complex to find out the root cause? Two things happen simultaneously: defining the question and creating the system. Defining the question is important but not essential for most cases. It is important, because it would tremendously save time in unwinding complexity by painting the right picture. It is not essential because systems thinking can also play a role as a map that navigates through ambiguity (topic of the next episode).
