Seeing the Forest for the Trees: A Manager’s Guide to Applying Systems Thinking

Citation

Mattacks, K. (2003), "Seeing the Forest for the Trees: A Manager’s Guide to Applying Systems Thinking", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 111-112. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj.2003.24.2.111.4

I am sure that I am not alone in having worked for a highly “left‐brained” manager who saw his role in managing and leading the department as a matter of breaking complex issues down into smaller, component parts, so we could work out which levers to pull to solve problems. The difficulty was that there always seemed to be unintended consequences resulting from what we did – like that painful Business Process Re‐engineering programme and Activity Value Analysis! I wish I could have introduced him to the ideas in this book. He was an engineer by background and would have appreciated the care with which the author introduces an approach to dealing with the complex, often strategic issues.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees is about applying systems thinking to solve the complex problems of business and organisational life. For those readers who are not familiar with it, the essence of systems thinking is that the complexity of the real world can best be handled by viewing things “in the round” as a system where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The author, Dennis Sherwood, argues that this results in robust and wiser decisions that mean better results for the organisation. He has both a business and a consultancy background and now runs a company with a name that both alarms and excites – the Silver Bullet Machine Manufacturing Company Ltd!

At the heart of this book there are, therefore, two key arguments. First, the essence of a system is completeness. Dividing systems into bits breaks this connectedness and transforms the system. This helps to explain why so many of our approaches to making sense of the world around us that derive from dissecting things for further study disappoint in reaching their objectives. As a consequence, if a manager or consultant wants to understand and seek to influence the behaviour of a system, they must seek to understand the system as a whole. David Sherwood’s second key point is that sharing mental models with people in an organisational context makes sense and underpins a lot of key elements in organisational life. Competence in drawing causal loop diagrams – a key technique in the book – is therefore very valuable.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees is divided into four parts:

1. 1

   Taming complexity. This looks at the fundamental principles of systems thinking and introduces causal loop diagrams, one of the key techniques upon which the book depends.

2. 2

   Tools and techniques. Expands on the application of causal loop diagrams.

3. 3

   Applications. This section takes specific business and organisational problems and shows how systems thinking can help to determine plans of action. It even offers a systems thinking explanation of global warming!

4. 4

   How to build a “laboratory of the future”. The final section turns to systems dynamics and “plumbing diagrams,” including an example of how these can be used in practice.

The book engendered some mixed emotions. After a while I found the endless causal loop diagrams began to annoy me. I also found the final section on system dynamics modelling rather confusing and for me it was a step too far. But the thorough way that the core technique is introduced and subsequently developed using appropriate and easy‐to‐follow examples is excellent.

This promises to be a pragmatic book and indeed it is. It is not necessarily the first book that I would choose as an introduction to systems thinking. That said, its development of the idea of using causal loop diagrams as a practical tool to help my former manager to view and deal with the system as a whole, and perhaps avert some of the unexpected and unintended consequences of his actions, is very useful! I would certainly recommend this book to an operational manager who wishes to increase his or her understanding of complexity and who is looking for an approach to help. It will particularly suit OD consultants and practitioners who may find themselves working with a person or group that is struggling to see the trees for the leaves let alone the forest for the trees!