Have you ever heard of that one thing that will solve all your problems? I bet you have. These days, living in a materialistic paradigm, we hear such things all the time. Being it eating bananas, using weighted duvets, or running with the latest Nike Vaporfly. The list goes on. And on.
Ok, I will admit it. I have gone full force into implementing such things and processes many times in my life, only to notice a little while later that, well… That thing did not solve all my problems. It probably did not solve anything at all. And then the same cycle starts over again. A feeling of lack -> Finding something external to fix the lack -> Feeling of lack.
Have you felt lacking something recently? This feeling of needing something outside yourself to be complete. This feeling is literally driving us off limits. Let’s stop this lacking and instead move towards contentment. Toward abundance within. Would you believe me if I told you that you have everything you need to live a happy and meaningful life within yourself? Because you have.
The process of lacking, searching outside ourself for fixing it, only to find some more lacking – that’s a reinforcing feedback loop. A loop that reinforces itself. More makes more.
Reinforcing feedback loops is something that is extensively debated in systems thinking – a field that I finally have had the time to dive deeper into this year. Wikipedia defines it pretty good: Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts1.
We are used to thinking that 1+1=2. In systems thinking we do it differently and emphasize the importance of understanding the interconnections between system components. As Donella Meadows puts it in her book Thinking in Systems. “In 1 + 1 = 2 we forget the +”. You might get frustrated here. And I agree. Such a perspective is indeed new and challenging (remember I come from an engineering background). Maybe an example related to sustainability transformation and governance will help?
Here it comes: We often think that providing knowledge to decision-makers will make them able to take decisions that is more in line with this base of knowledge, “the facts”. However, we see time and time again that providing knowledge to people is not enough to make them take decisions that is aligned with this knowledge. (Knowledge) + (Decision-maker) is not equal to (“Better” decisions). The “+” will in this case be the “filter” the decision-makers see the provided knowledge through. Their habits, beliefs, worldviews etc.
Ok, so what does this mean? It means that if we want to see a change in the decisions taken – we need to address other factors than just providing knowledge to the decision-makers! What is the history? What are the beliefs about what can happen? How do the decision-makers get supported if taking a new or challenging standpoint?
As you see, systems thinking challenges us to think broader, to account for interactions and the factors that are actually influencing the situation and not just what we can measure or what we are used to doing. If you think this is interesting, I highly recommend you to look into Donella Meadows’ paper on system leverage points2. It is pretty long but written in an inspiring and easy-to-grasp manner.
That’s it for today. I hope you’ve had a great summer and are ready to make some bold decisions and bring a systems perspective into your days.
-R
Further reading:
ritanerland 
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