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Using systems and habits to improve your life is a proven method to succeed. It requires seeing the work as a system and then adjusting your thoughts and behaviors to be able to take advantage of your opportunities in life.
We all know what bad habits are. They are smoking, drinking, eating too much, biting our nails etc.
But these aren’t the habits that we use in the systems and habits approach to improvement. The habits that are important to leverage in order to improve are often much more subtle.
Read MoreWhenever we are manipulating a habit or system, we want to find small things to improve. But it can be tricky to know what to actually do. That is where the systems thinking concept of leverage is important.
Points of leverage in a system are the parts of the system where a small action produces a large outcome. It could be that we leverage time by doing something over and over again until it starts to become a habit. Or it could be to focus on key times when decisions and actions create the most important outcomes.
Read MoreIn a lot of motivational and self-help books the authors explain that in order to be accountable for your goals, you have to share them with others.
The idea is that if others are watching then you are more likely to actually do it. And when you struggle, others are more likely to help you keep moving.
Read MoreToo often when we want to change something in our lives to get better, we assume that the answer is that we just have to be tougher. We have to fight against the urges that we know lead us in the wrong direction.
We have to focus. We have to be strong. In short, we have to rely on our willpower in order to succeed and reach our goal.
Read MoreWhen it comes to setting goals and trying to get better, most of us inherently gravitate towards effort. We think we just need to put forth more effort in order to succeed.
Effort is important. Without at least some effort any attempt at improvement will likely fail. But because most people only know effort-based execution, they can’t see the horrible limitations that are imposed if all we can do is give more effort.
Read MoreFor the latest version of this article, click here.
Read MoreOur ability to use systems thinking to see the whole is important. Instead of relying on linear thinking and only seeing small sections of the whole system, we can envision the interrelationships, patterns, structures and mental models.
But why is it that linear thinking tends to guide us towards only a small snapshot of the whole? Why does it become difficult to see the full picture?
Read MoreWe all know the feeling. We have some big problem weighing on us. Any moment that we aren’t distracted by something else we think about it.
We worry, we stress, and we want so desperately for this problem to go away. We focus so much on wanting the problem to be gone that we try every trick in the book to relieve the stress on our minds.
Read MoreI read a lot of articles on systems thinking and one thing that I notice is that many times they focus too much on the negative. They point to a large system and show how the structures reinforce something bad or we can never improve as a society because of too much linear thinking.
Systems thinkers become expert critics of everyone and everything else around them. Sometimes they use it to be smarter than everyone they talk to.
Read MorePeter Senge talks about a concept called dynamic complexity in his book, The Fifth Discipline. He says that the world is becoming more and more complex every day.
Most of understand this from the standpoint of detail complexity. This is the complexity around the specifics of an issue and around the details.
Read MoreCreating a new system can be great way to try to improve and change something. By creating a new system to address a problem we are tackling the problem in a very direct and purposeful way.
But creating a new system can be extremely difficult. There is no certainty that the new system will work and no way to know exactly how to structure it.
Read MoreBlaming others for our problems is incredibly easy. In almost every conceivable scenario we find a way to shift some blame towards something external.
But blaming something “external” doesn’t make sense from a systems thinking standpoint. In linear thinking it does because the way the problem is framed, but it doesn’t make sense when look at the full system.
Read MoreIn systems thinking, speed isn’t looked at the same as in linear thinking. In linear thinking, the faster we can go the better.
The linear thinking goes… if growth in business is good, then faster growth is better; if improving one’s finances are good then gaining money quickly must be better; if getting healthy is good, getting there immediately is better.
Read MoreMany people have felt motivation to change something in their life at one time or another. The desire to correct for a weakness or get better in some area is common.
What also is common is the mistake that we tend to make where we ignore the structures in place and just assume sheer effort will get us there. We think we just need more motivation to find success.
Read MoreFor the latest version of this article, click here.
Read MoreLife is systematic. All around us are systems that impact us. Often, we can’t see the whole system so we just focus on a small portion of the system.
But seeing the larger system can be in way to gain understanding and then know how to move forward to adapt to better fit the system or work to change the system.
Our Emotions Around Seeing Systems for the First Time
When we first start to see the system our emotions tend to run wild. We might get excited, overwhelmed, afraid, and everything in between. It starts to become a brand new way of seeing the world. Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle come together and you realize this whole time the system was always there and always impacting you.
In Presence, by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers, the authors talk about this journey of seeing the full system. They explain it through a recent conversation they were having about Senge seeing larger system for the first time. Here is the section that discusses this:
‘“My immediate experience was more of being a victim, because in the moment I couldn’t see any way to influence the system I found myself stuck in. I don’t think that’s uncommon when people first start to see a larger system at play.”
“I think this is because the first awareness of larger forces, or a larger pattern, is just the beginning,” said Otto. “It’s as if we awake to something that’s been going on all around us but that we haven’t seen. Maybe we’ve even subconsciously worked to keep ourselves from seeing it. Then, all of a sudden, we see this larger pattern, and it’s a real ‘Aha!’ By suspending our normal analytic ways of thinking, we allow ourselves to encounter the system directly.”
The authors of the book are experienced systems thinkers but even they realize that seeing the full system isn’t always natural. Humans don’t start by thinking this way. We start with quick, linear thoughts and analysis. This is the major difference between systems thinking and linear thinking.
But taking a step back to envision the full system can be incredibly beneficial. It can give us great insight into seeing a problem with fresh eyes and come up with a solution that understands the full system, rather than one that ignores the larger system.
Quality Control Improvement Example
Here is an example from a recent experience I had at work. We were trying to reduce the time it takes us to do our quality control process. We are a repair center for medical equipment and we have to run the equipment for several hours and then check the levels in order to confirm that the machine is fixed.
This process can be a bit time consuming. About a month ago we started to track the time it takes per unit to complete the quality control process. It seemed to take longer than it should so we wanted to know what we could do to improve the process.
Our quality control person said that he felt the end of the process was very cumbersome and inefficient. This was the part of the process where all the equipment is lined up and we take clear bags to place over the equipment and then place in their respective delivery bins to get sent to customers.
The first few suggestions relied on linear thinking. Some ideas that were thrown out were to stop bagging the equipment or hire someone else to bag it so the QC person doesn’t have to.
But these aren’t good system improvements. By not bagging the equipment for customers, they would receive their equipment back and it wouldn’t have the same experience of receiving a clean, bagged machine. This would hurt our customer’s experience with us in order to be slightly more efficient.
Having someone else bag the units just meant that we shift the inefficiency to a different person. We don’t really solve for it we just have someone else do that part. The time would still be spent doing that.
Finally we started to realize that we needed to improve the bagging process. We realized the bags were in the QC space but the completed units were usually moved and lined up in another section.
This meant that the QC person had to grab 60-70 bags from the roller, tear them off, tear them apart individually, walk them over to the line of units, place a bag on each unit, then go one-by-one and open each bag and place it over the machine.
The solution we came up with was to move the roll of bags to the other section. This meant that the QC person could simply add the bag as they lined up the units. The roll had all the bags in the same order with the opening coming off the roll first. The QC person can simply pull the bag right from the roll to the unit.
Many people felt that this wouldn’t make a difference. It didn’t seem like a major change and they couldn’t understand how this would help in any way. So we measured it.
We took the average time that it took prior to making the change and compared it to the time per unit after the change. What we found was that we reduced the average time per unit from 4.9 minutes per unit to 3.6 minutes per unit! This reduced the time per unit by almost a minute and a half.
Since we have 60-90 units per day go through QC, we now saved a couple hours a day with this change. The QC person can now move on to other duties much quicker than he could before. This had a major impact on our operations and helped us become more efficient.
Switching from Credit to Debit
Improvements that come from seeing the full system don’t just have to be at work. Our personal lives are full of areas that can be improved with a little systems thinking.
A few years after college I found myself in debt. I started a business right out of college and racked up some credit card debt while I got it going. At one point I picked up some additional work and thought it would be easy to finally pay off the debt.
But after a few months I found something interesting. Instead of paying off my debt I was adding to it faster than normal. “This can’t be,” I thought. “I make more now so why am I not seeing my balances go down?”
What I realized was that I was used to spending more than I could afford. It became easy to throw purchases on the credit card and worry about them later. I was always justifying a business purchase as one I needed to make.
I started realizing that I didn’t really need the things I convinced myself that I needed. I really needed a better way to decide to buy something or not.
I tried many different approaches and some worked and some didn’t. One that had a drastic impact was to switch from using the credit cards to make purchases to using cash or debit card. This forced me to consider the impact on my accounts and my budget. I would have to keep all receipts and log them in a checking account excel spreadsheet that I created.
Suddenly the new equipment, drinks with a client, or even the daily lunch weren’t a “need to have”. They became “nice to have” and many times, unnecessary. I paid more attention to where my money went and wouldn’t spend money as recklessly as I did when I just put it on the credit card.
By switching to a new system for spending money I was able to get rid of all my credit card debt (over $10,000) in a little over a year. And this gave me a new system that I could continue to improve and evolve to better fit my lifestyle and assure myself that I wouldn’t have credit card debt again. I still use the excel spreadsheet to this day and have found it crucial to being able to balance a family budget to make sure money goes where it is needed and not wasted.
This represents seeing the full system and then finding elements of that system that can be changed and improved. Initially when I increased my income I thought linearly that my debt would automatically decrease. I assumed the higher income would automatically go towards paying off my balance. When this didn’t happen I needed to see the full system and then tweak aspects of the system in order to fix the problems of the system.
Stop Projecting Your Habitual Assumptions
In Presence, the authors do a great job to emphasize the value of systems thinking. They state, “Learning to see begins when we stop projecting our habitual assumptions and start to see reality freshly. It continues when we can see our connection to that reality more clearly.”
Instead of relying your habitual assumptions, start to explore the full systems that exist. They often go unnoticed in an attempt to quickly move forward but many times seeing the full system shows us a fresh reality that we can then adjust and improve, as we desire.
There are three elements to a strong system. First, it has to be simple. Second, it has to be sticky. Third, it has to be self-regulating.
Simplicity is a key to a system being able to sustain because the more complex it is the more likely steps will be forgotten or skipped. If it is complex, it may never even get going because the complexity would be a deterrent for someone trying to take on the system.
Read MoreEach time there is a deadly mass shooting in the United States, we get a sense of the larger systems at play with regards to guns. Some will point to an aspect of the system and feel they have a solution. Some will defend their position. Some will work to use the event for political gain.
The systems in the United States around guns are incredibly complex and deeply ingrained in the various beliefs people have. This makes a simple, linear solution impossible.
Read MoreThe way we approach new goals and dreams, in many ways, reflects how we feel about learning. The parallels between the two can shed light on ways we might be sabotaging our efforts to improve.
In Presence, by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers, the authors state that, “When we’re learning something new, we can feel awkward, incompetent and even foolish. It’s easy to convince ourselves that it’s really not so important after all to incorporate the new – and so we give up.”
Read MoreIn life there are numerous things that we want to change. Many times we want change to happen for us, fitting neatly in the exact way that fits us best.
But if there is change that we desire, we can’t just sit idly by and hope others do it for us. We have to find a way to move from saying we should change something to actually changing it.
Read More