A review of key concepts from Jamshid Gharajedaghi's Systems Thinking book. Formulating the mess, conflict management, understanding the why.

1. SYSTEMS THINKING
By Charles
Duhigg
Jen Runkle, PhD
Runkle Consulting
www.runkleconsulting.com

2. RATIONAL choice is the domain of selfinterest, or the interest of the decision maker,
not the observer....
EMOTIONAL choice is the domain of beauty
and excitement. We do lots of things
because they are exciting or, more precisely,
because they are challenging.
TO INFLUENCE
PEOPLE
W E H AV E T O
U N D E R S TA N D
WHY THEY
DO WHAT
THEY DO.
CULTURE (default) defines the ethical norms
of the collective, of which the decision maker
is a member.
Jen Runkle, PhD
Runkle Consulting
www.runkleconsulting.com

3. H I E R A R C H Y O F FO R C E S
T H AT E R O D E C O M P E T I T I V E
A DVA N TAG E
H I E R A R C H Y O F FO R C E S
T H AT E R O D E C O M P E T I T I V E
A DVA N TAG E
SY S T E M S D I M E N S I O N S
T H AT I N F LU E N C E T H E
O R G A N I Z AT I O N
SY S T E M S D I M E N S I O N S
T H AT I N F LU E N C E T H E
O R G A N I Z AT I O N
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE SYSTEM
Jen Runkle, PhD
Runkle Consulting
www.runkleconsulting.com

4. FORMULATING THE MESS
Searching : generate
information, knowledge,
and understanding about
the system environment.
•System analysis:
develop a snapshot of
the current system.
•Obstruction analysis:
identify the
malfunctioning in the
power, knowledge,
wealth, beauty and
value dimensions of a
social system.
•System dynamics: to
understand the
interactions of critical
variables in the
Mapping : defining
essential characteristics
and the emergent
property of the mess
•An event (cause) might
have more than a single
outcome (effect).
•Cause and effect are
separated in time and
space (time lag).
•Cause and effect can
replace one another
(circularity).
•Effects, once produced,
might have an
independent life of their
own. Removing the
cause will not
necessarily remove the
effects.
Telling the story: shape
the right message so
people can hear it
•The mess should be
presented as a
consequence of past
success, not as a result
of failure.
• The challenge is to
create a shared
understanding of the
current reality and its
undesirable
consequences, thus
creating a desire for
change...
Jen Runkle, PhD
Runkle Consulting
www.runkleconsulting.com

5. CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
to SOLVE a conflict is to select
a course of action believed to
yield the best possible
outcome for one side or the
other:
a win/lose struggle
to RESOLVE a conflict is to
select a course of action that
yields an outcome good
enough and minimally
satisfactory to both the
opposing tendencies :
a compromise
to ABSOLVE a conflict is to wait
it out, hoping that,
if ignored, it will go away:
benign neglect
to DISSOLVE a conflict is to
change the nature and/or the
environment and discover new
frames of references:
redesign the system
Jen Runkle, PhD
Runkle Consulting
www.runkleconsulting.com