This blog is a condensed version of an article by Seth Reynolds, who leads NPC’s research on systems change.
Never has the interdependence of our world been experienced by so many, so directly, so rapidly, and so simultaneously. Our response to one threat, Covid-19, has unleashed a deluge of consequences that have swept the globe faster than the virus itself.
A systems lens helps us learn essential lessons. Covid-19 has provided many clear examples of effective systemic action, and stark lessons in the consequences of non-systemic thinking. Leaders everywhere are being compelled to think broader and deeper about causation and consequence. Decisions taken, even words spoken, without systemic awareness can have—indeed have had—profoundly damaging effects.
Systemic thinking, planning, action, and leadership must now be mainstreamed— individually, organizationally, societally, across public, private, and charity sectors. We currently do not think and act in accordance with how our complex systems function and this has been part of the Covid-19 problem.
What Are Systems Approaches?
Systems thinking goes beyond individual actions to connections, causes, and consequences. Systems approaches incorporate tools and frameworks to help us do that, and to act in a way that reflects the complex and interconnected characteristics of our world. Systems are not external. We are part of them and we influence them. Linked to this, complexity is a field that seeks to understand and work with the uncertain, non-linear, adaptive, self-organizing nature of systems.
Coronavirus illustrates the need to bring systems thinking out of the clouds and into the mainstream.
Systems thinking is often seen as peripheral and ethereal, sheltering in the comfort zone of ambiguity. Complexity, by nature, encompasses many perspectives and interpretations, and systems people are often eager to point to the subjective and interpretative nature of systems. But this doesn’t help much when an urgent systemic crisis demands a systemic response.
Coronavirus illustrates the need to bring systems thinking out of the clouds and into the mainstream. We must learn to think, act, and organize systemically, and develop processes, tools, and technologies to help us. We don’t claim that it’s simple. But what is clear is that ‘business as usual’ is no longer available and systems approaches are no longer optional.
Here are ten ways to think bigger.
1. A shared understanding of complexity and interdependence
Scientists have commented that our failure to understand interconnection, what they describe as ‘asystemic (or non-systemic) thinking,’ allowed the virus to spread unchecked for weeks.
Wuhan seems far away. Despite being larger than London, most westerners had never heard of it. It’s hard to imagine its connection to us. Yet it is of course one of China’s new mega-cities. There was zero chance of containment, and too many have died as a result.
For systems thinking to become systemic, by definition it must be shared. There is little value in a few specialists trying to think and act systemically if nobody else is. Historically this been one of the challenges of the discipline, and why it must be mainstreamed.
To act systemically we need to talk about complexity, interdependence, our experience of it, and our role in the systems we inhabit. The traumatic experience of Covid-19 has given these ideas new exposure and urgency. We must seize this opportunity to prevent future disasters from bringing yet more devastation.
2. A shared understanding of the problem
In addition to shared understanding of our systems in general, we also need a shared understanding of the specific problem. Climate change campaigners have long understood this. An effective response requires all actors in the system to be on the same page.
What makes systems change challenging is that it has deep emotional and psychological, not just intellectual, dimensions, and these can inhibit understanding. Arrogance, hubris, and attachment to the status quo can blind us to what later seems incontrovertible. This has been apparent in many of the blame and denial responses.
Without shared understanding across all actors, underpinned by clear, consistent, and transparent communication, systemic change will be impossible.
There are vital lessons here. Without shared understanding across all actors, underpinned by clear, consistent, and transparent communication, systemic change will be impossible. Data can be the systems change agent’s greatest ally. In Covid-19, as with climate change, consistent and repeated reference to data has been vital in building shared understanding, however slow some might have been to accept it.
3. Identifying causal relationships
Systems modelling and mapping tools help visualise the causal relationships that may be hidden at first glance, or to predict what other effects could emerge. A range of mapping tools can help, at varying levels of complexity.
We quickly saw the causal effects of a lockdown strategy on issues as diverse as domestic violence, charity fundraising, and maternal health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many of these causal relationships were known and predictable because of existing data and modelling. As systems approaches become mainstreamed, integration of data into modelling tools should help identify these second and third order consequences in advance, which will help us to mitigate accordingly.
4. Identifying leverage points
Systems approaches seek to identify leverage points (often done through mapping) at which to target interventions in a system.
For Covid-19, protective equipment for healthcare workers was the first critical leverage point. A second was the tracking and tracing of infected people, which initially allowed for more efficient intervention in the system, without which everyone must be treated as if infected (the lockdown strategy). This is what South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong have done with impressive results, and what America and Europe have not.
Without successfully identifying leverage points for systemic action, responses will inevitably be scattergun and results less effective.
5. Foresight
Foresight can be integrated into a systems approach as it examines causation over time, which can aid projection and prevention. By highlighting plausible future scenarios and re-examining our assumptions we can act before it’s too late.
Of course, foresight is easy in hindsight. There are clearly huge challenges foreseeing causation within complex systems. Better use of data from related situations can help inform timely and effective decision-making, as has now been done for example with modelling of Covid-19 infection rates for different movement restriction scenarios.
6. Systemic decision-making
Bringing this all together should result in coordinated strategies that go beyond treating a single issue in isolation to include key causal relationships, leverage points, and data-driven foresight across a system.
Half of charities in the UK fear going under in six months without urgent support, depriving millions of people of vital services with untold costs to society and creating a plethora of crises to come. Preventing this catastrophe demands highly system-informed and aware decision-making.
7. Coordinated action
Strong coordination across spaces and sectors is often the difference between success and failure. This is true for all complex problems. Our world may look quite different once the system-changing impacts of coronavirus are laid bare. We will need to re-map, identify new leverage points, and act in consort with others across our system.
With resources scarcer and services stretched, coordination across agencies and sectors will be more than just a nice-to-have.
With resources scarcer and services stretched, coordination across agencies and sectors will be more than just a nice-to-have. For many, this represents a new way of working. We’ll all have to work much harder to grow our capacity for coordination and collaboration.
8. Reflexive review
Systems approaches encourage us not just to reflect, which implies a linear looking-back at actions and consequences, but to be reflexive. Being reflexive is a continual process of conscious reflection both individually and collectively. We need to be continuously aware of our own actions and behaviours, and their impact on our systems.
The fact that you are probably reading this in lockdown is a sobering illustration of how we affect the systems we inhabit. We now have an opportunity to pause and consider the continuity of our actions.
9. Shared learning
In systems approaches, learning is not the property of academics or professionals, but rather all actors in the system share the learning that is needed for continual improvement in system behaviour. This is only possible through collective reflection.
Perhaps the stark difference in response in South Korea and Singapore to our own was from people’s memory of SARS. We’re all hoping that once Covid-19 is over, future pandemic preparedness will improve. This learning should not be assumed, but made explicit, to avoid the danger of repeating mistakes.
10. System leadership
Finally, leadership is needed to create the conditions for these system approaches to flourish. System leadership, a term coined by organizational learning expert Peter Senge, describes the capacity to act effectively across a diverse and complex system. Logically, this requires skills in embracing diverse perspectives, deep listening, consensus-building, and inspiring action. It is a humble, transparent, self-reflective, and system-aware leadership that catalyses collective responsibility.
Covid-19 has frozen our juggernaut of constantly accelerating activity. As we pass the peak, we need system leadership to reboot and rebuild our organizations, sectors, and society. We may need to reskill, reboot, and reimagine at individual, organizational, and sectorial levels. But we first need to pause. Our ability to change the juggernaut’s path once it restarts will be determined by how we take this collective breath.
This blog is a condensed version of an article by Seth Reynolds, who leads NPC’s research on systems change. For more of NPC’s work on how philanthropists can respond to coronavirus, head to thinkNPC.org/coronavirus.