Living as if We Are the System

LIVING AS IF WE ARE THE SYSTEM

It is easy to get lost in thinking about global issues like climate change, to feel that there is nothing you can do, and maybe even that there is nothing anyone can do. But global systems are not just global. They are also right here.

Herein lies a secret of the systems worldview. The system is not only out there, it is in here. We are the seed carriers of the whole in the sense that we carry the mental models that pervade the larger system. We are all actors in the global energy system, the global food system, and the global industrialization process. We can either think and act in ways that reinforce the system as it currently operates, or think and act in ways that lead in different directions. Because the systems that shape our lives manifest themselves at multiple levels, we can work at multiple levels.

This does not mean that any one of us as individuals, or any one organization, can unilaterally shift these larger systems overnight. In fact, a good rule of thumb is that no one can do this unilaterally. Neither the president of the United States nor the president of China has the power to shift the world’s present dependence on fossil fuels, even though their nations are the two largest users. They too are but actors in a larger system, often far more constrained than we imagine. Yet, the global energy system is enacted by humans and human institutions. It is not based on the laws of physics. Alternative systems can also be enacted.

We are all novices in understanding how systemic change can occur at the scale that matters. But the experience of many in the SoL network over the past fifteen years suggests that it can begin when enough people and institutions start to see the present system and their part in how it operates. In terms of greenhouse gases, this awareness seems to be growing among a number of leaders, especially some of the large multinational corporations and large NGOs that truly must think globally. “If I reflect on what many organizations have been going through,” says Andre van Heemstra of Unilever, “the awareness of sustainability has been growing because systems thinking, in different forms, is enabling us to see more interdependencies than we have seen in the past. It is those interdependencies which make you conclude that it is more than stupid, it is reckless to think of commercial sustainability in isolation, [without thinking of] either social or environmental sustainability.”

This seeing must eventually encompass a critical mass of the players that sustain the present system—what we have come to call a “strategic microcosm.” In a company, this strategic microcosm represents a meaningful cross-section of people and teams that shape the present system, as when enough managers and engineers in the product development team of the auto engineering group saw the patterns of dysfunctions they were creating that thwarted their goals. Similar strategic microcosms can enable change in industries, in complex global supply networks, and perhaps even in societies. It is here that organizations grounded in systems thinking and the related learning disciplines can make a difference, by fostering collective rethinking and innovation and serving as a convener for microcosms of larger systems.