The Missing Synergy: Shared Vision and Systems Thinking
Vision alone is insufficient without systems thinking; systems thinking reveals how current reality is created, enabling people to shape their future and making vision a living force.
THE IDEA
THE MISSING SYNERGY: SHARED VISION AND SYSTEMS THINKING
I believe that the discipline of building shared vision lacks a critical underpinning if practiced without systems thinking. Vision paints the picture of what we want to create. Systems thinking reveals how we have created what we currently have.
In recent years, many leaders have jumped on the vision bandwagon. They’ve developed corporate vision and mission statements. They’ve worked to enroll everyone in the vision. Yet, the expected surges in productivity and competitiveness often fail to arrive. This has led many to become disaffected with vision and visioning. The fad cycle has run its course, and the baby is about to be thrown out with the bath water.
The problem lies not in shared visions themselves, so long as they are developed carefully. The problem lies in our reactive orientation toward current reality. Vision becomes a living force only when people truly believe they can shape their future. The simple fact is that most managers do not experience that they are contributing to creating their current reality. So they don’t see how they can contribute toward changing that reality. Their problems are created by somebody “out there” or by “the system.”
This attitude can be elusive to pin down because in many organizations the belief “We cannot create our future” is so threatening that it can never be acknowledged. There is a strong espoused view that being a good manager and leader means being proactive, being in charge of your own future. A person who questions publicly whether the organization can achieve what it has set out to do is quickly labeled as “not on board” and seen as a problem.
Yet, this “can do” optimism is a thin veneer over a fundamentally reactive view, because most organizations are dominated by linear thinking, not systems thinking. The dominance of the event mentality tells people that the name of the game is reacting to change, not generating change. An event orientation will eventually drive out real vision, leaving only hollow “vision statements,” good ideas that are never taken to heart.
But as people in an organization begin to learn how existing policies and actions are creating their current reality, a new, more fertile soil for vision develops. A new source of confidence develops, rooted in deeper understanding of the forces shaping current reality, a place where there is leverage for influencing those forces. I’ll always remember a manager emerging from an extended “microworld” computer simulation session at one of the companies in our research program. When asked what he had learned, he replied: “I discovered that the reality we have is only one of several possible realities.”
When to use it
When developing a corporate vision, use systems thinking tools like causal loop diagrams to map the policies and behaviors that have created current performance, aligning the vision with leverage points for change.
In team meetings, facilitate a session where members explore how their daily actions contribute to the current reality, moving from a reactive 'blame the system' mindset to a proactive sense of agency.
As a leader, use microworld simulations or scenario planning to help leaders experience that current reality is not fixed, but one of many possible outcomes shaped by underlying structures.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Manager's Insight from Simulation
A manager emerging from a microworld computer simulation session said: 'I discovered that the reality we have is only one of several possible realities.' Systems thinking can transform one's view of current reality, enabling a deeper belief in the possibility of change.
Corporate Vision Statements Without Impact
Many companies develop elaborate vision and mission statements, yet they fail to achieve the expected productivity gains. This happens because they lack systems thinking to understand the underlying structures that create current reality, leading to a reactive rather than generative orientation.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
In your organization, does the vision feel like a living force or a hollow statement? How might systems thinking reveal the underlying structures that prevent the vision from being realized?
Think of a current challenge at work. How might your own mental models of 'how things work' be based on linear thinking rather than recognizing systemic interconnections?
What would change if you and your team truly believed that the current reality is only one of several possible realities? How could you use that insight to reshape your approach to goals?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Fifth Discipline The Art Practice of the Learning Organization (Peter M. Senge)