Curious to know more about
Systems Thinking?
Congrats on finding the secret QR code in the Fortune Teller! Read on to learn more about Systems Thinking.
What Is Systems Thinking?
Systems thinking is the practice of looking at problems through the lens of relationships, patterns, and structures rather than isolated incidents or individual failures. When you think systemically, you ask different questions:
What patterns keep showing up?
How do different parts of the organization influence each other?
What would happen if we changed the structure instead of the people?
How does the environment shape what people can and can't do?
Systems thinking helps us move from blame to understanding. When we see that behaviors are often predictable responses to the conditions people face, we can design better conditions. This approach is particularly powerful in educational organizations where the same conflicts and frustrations repeat year after year.
Look Beyond Individuals, See the System
When there's confusion about who does what, when leadership and line staff are in tension, or when staff feel torn between competing demands, the knee-jerk response is to blame individuals. "They're incompetent." "They don't care." "They're playing politics."
"The explanation is systemic. Our System Blindness is preventing us from seeing and understanding our organizations clearly."
Adapted from Barry Oshry, Seeing Systems
At Thrive Point Studio, we focus beyond the individual. We try to reveal and work within the system itself. When we can see the system, we can change the system. Whether you’ve thought about it or not, you work within an organizational system. You’re an active part of that system.
You Probably Have Some System Blindness
System blindness is our inability to see the larger patterns and structures that shape our behavior. We're all inside the system, so it's hard to see how it works. We can see our immediate situation, our frustrations, our challenges. What we can't see is how those experiences are shaped by our position in the system and by predictable organizational dynamics.
System blindness causes us to:
Attribute problems to individual character flaws rather than structural issues
Miss how our own behavior contributes to the very problems we're complaining about
Repeat the same solutions that haven't worked before
Create stories about "them" that justify our righteousness
Feel powerless to change things because we don't see the real leverage points
When we overcome system blindness, we can see not just what's happening, but why it keeps happening. That's when real change becomes possible.
3 Types of System Blindness
Spatial Blindness
We see our part of the system but not the whole. We don't understand what others' worlds are like, so we create stories and stereotypes. We take things personally when we shouldn't.
Relational Blindness
Roles exist in relationship to each other. Leadership feels burdened, line staff feel oppressed, middle managers feel torn. None of them see their part in creating the tension, and the pattern continues.
Process Blindness
We don't see our organizations as whole entities struggling to survive in their environment. We miss how systems differentiate, how they create patterns, and how each role falls into predictable dances.
Does This Sound Familiar?
Barry Oshry's research reveals that humans in organizational systems fall into predictable roles and patterns:
Senior Leadership
Burdened by unmanageable complexity. Fighting fires when they should be shaping the future. They feel responsible for everything.
Middle Management
Torn and confused between conflicting demands from leadership and line staff. Isolated from each other when they should be coordinating processes.
Line Staff
Feel oppressed by distant and uncaring senior leadership. Their negative energy distracts them from putting creative energy into delivering great work.
Campers, Families, Other Departments
Feel done-to by nonresponsive systems. Their disgruntlement keeps them from being active partners in improving things.
When we fall into these roles, we explain problems in terms of personal character, motivation, and abilities.
The solution becomes: fire them, fix them, rotate them. This misses the deeper truth. The problem is system, especially if it keeps happening over and over again.
Questions to Consider:
What in the system is creating this confusion or conflict?
What predictable pattern are we falling into, and how do I contribute to it?
Am I seeing the whole picture, or just my part of it?
What does this situation look like from their perspective?
What structure or system needs to change?
How can we create role clarity without creating rigidity?
Ready to See Your System Clearly?
Thrive Point Studio offers "workshops and organizational consulting to help you move from blame to clarity.