Systems Thinking II: A fun and engaging facilitated exercise

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Welcome!
Systems Thinking II A fun and engaging
facilitated exercise
For discussion OD Learning Group, July 18, 2002
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The Facilitators

• Carol Zulauf
• Dr. Carol Ann Zulauf is Associate Professor of
  Adult and Organizational Learning at Suffolk
  University in Boston. She also has her own
  consulting practice, Zulauf Associates,
  specializing in leadership, team development,
  emotional intelligence, and systems thinking.
  Her clients span high tech, federal and state
  governments, health care, education, and consumer
  product organizations. Prior work experience
  includes being a senior training instructor/OD
  consultant for Motorola, Inc. Dr. Zulauf has many
  publications to her credit and is a frequent
  presenter at regional, national, and
  international conferences. Carol may be
  contacted at czulauf_at_mindspring.com
•  
• Nancy Kristiansen
• Nancy Kristiansen is an organizational
  development training consultant with her own
  practice, Training By Design Consulting. Nancy
  draws from more than twenty-five years of
  experience within high tech RD and manufacturing
  companies and expertise in adult learning
  instructional design, TQM, ISO 9000 and systems
  thinking to serve a wide range of clients. To
  complement her experience, Nancy received her
  Masters degree in Adult Organizational
  Learning from Suffolk University in Boston.
  Nancy may be contacted at nsk.tbd_at_verizon.net
• Matt Aspin
• Matt Aspin recently joined Lee Hecht Harrison, a
  firm that specializes in outplacement, career
  planning, and executive coaching, as a Job Market
  Consultant. Prior to his current role, Matt
  worked as a performance consultant for a large
  insurance company, and held management positions
  with both Boston Financial and Putnam
  Investments. He is currently pursuing a Masters
  degree in Adult Organizational Learning from
  Suffolk University. Matt may be contacted at
  matt_aspin_at_lhh.com

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• Joining the Systems Thinking Revolution!!!!
• --Reference www.systemsthinkingpress

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In this seminar, we will

• Lay the foundation with introductory Systems
  Thinking Principles
• Apply these principles to an easy-to-use
  facilitated exercise
• Show the interconnections in any organization and
  how these interconnections affect the bottom line
• Discuss how you, the OD professional, can use
  this facilitated exercise with your clients.

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The Disciplines ofOrganizational Learning
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Implementing Systems Thinking for Team Learning

• Problems are all around us
• Step 1 State the Problem as Succinctly as You
  Can
• There is an inability to reach closure with this
  team project.

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Implementing Systems Thinking for Team Learning
And this is what happened...

• Step 2 Tell it as a Story
• Begin to sense the following
• There is a cause-and-effect flow to the story
• Certain key variables emerge
• The interconnections among the components

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The Turfbuilder ...
Two years ago, Michael had been hired as the
manager of employee training and development for
a 7,000- person telecommunications organization.
In addition to the employee training and
development manager, there are two other
positions in the training department a manager
of sales training and a manager of technical
training. As one of their responsibilities,
each manager had to submit a budget to the
director of education these budgets were based
on the projected costs to operate their
respective programs. Included in each budget was
a line item designated for educational supplies
and resources, but the dollar amount was
allocated across the entire training
department. From the start, Michael worked to
protect his turf. Regardless of what other
training programs were offered by the other
managers, he decided on the training programs he
wanted for his people, and publicly announced
that he didnt care what the other trainers were
doing. He also wanted to make sure that he was
the first person to secure common resources for
his own programs--ordering books, journals,
videotapes, and software. Over time, Michaels
behavior led to a duplication of programs,
increased costs, and a decrease in the
overall effectiveness of training as measured by
the organizations 360-degree evaluations. In
the process, Michael found himself becoming
isolated from decisions, from his peers, and from
social events.
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Implementing Systems Thinking for Team Learning

• Step 3 Identifying Key Variables
• Duplication of programs being offered
• Costs
• Effectiveness of Programs
• Management of Employee Development
• Level of Isolation

• Notes
• You may choose both quantitative and qualitative
  descriptors
• Use nouns instead of verbs

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Implementing Systems Thinking for Team Learning
The pattern of the problems behavior over
time Behavior-Over-Time Graphs
Step 4 Visualizing the Problem
Duplication of Programs
Effectiveness of Programs
Time
Time
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Implementing Systems Thinking for Team Learning

• Step 5 Creating the Loops
• What is Influencing What
• Two Kinds of Loops
• Reinforcing Loops amplify change
• Balancing Loops seek equilibrium

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Causal Loop of Turfbuilding Story
No. of training programs
s
s
Costs
Start Here
Mgrs need to protect his turf
R
s
o
Level of isolation
Effectiveness of training overall
o
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Inability to Bring Closure on a Team Problem

• Team Dynamics
• You are finding that as the amount of work the
  team completes (the task) goes down, frustration
  increases.
• As frustration increases, the number of actions
  that each individual takes outside the team
  framework
• grows, which interferes with focused team action.
  This further decreases the amount of work being
• accomplished.

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Team Dynamics You are finding that as the
amount of work the team completes (the task) goes
down, frustration increases. As frustration
increases, the number of actions that each
individual takes outside the team
framework grows, which interferes with focused
team action. This further decreases the amount
of work being accomplished.
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People need to see systems thinking almost as
puzzles--they need to understand that the single
piece that stands alone isnt useful, but is
vital to the larger picture. -Erik Ormberg
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Next Steps...
Applying Systems Thinking to Your Own
Organizational Issues!
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In our Rush to Improve
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Reviewing the Steps

• Step 1 State the Problem as Succinctly as You
  Can
• Step 2 Tell it as a Story
• Step 3 Identify Key Variables
• Step 4 Visualize the Problem
• Step 5 Create the Loops

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It Is All About Discovery

• And recognizing that the best solutions and plans
  are drawn from a deep and honest understanding of
  what constitutes the gap between where we are and
  where we want to be.

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Applying the Principles
THE BIG PICTURE

• A Facilitated Exercise
• that shows the interconnections in any
  organization and how these interconnections
  affect the bottom line.

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Objectives Purpose

• To learn key concepts
• What is a variable?
• Inter-connectedness (how everything relates to
  everything else).
• To take an aerial view by laying out the
  landscape
• Identify all of the key variables that comprise
  your project.
• Organize the variables by laying them out and
  grouping them into a meaningful structure.
• See your potential to effect the big picture
  through identification of the causal loops and
  their key leverage points.

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Context In Support of New Points of View
In todays world, flat, dynamic organizations
are braving new territories... Within this
landscape, employees at all levels (as few as
there may be) benefit from opportunities to see
the big picture.
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The Big Picture

• From time to time, an aerial view may help
  everyone in an organization to formulate, monitor
  and reach their long range goals.
• Systems thinking teaches us that
• Employees at all levels can benefit from peering
  at their world from 30,000.
• Employees at all levels can benefit from
  understanding the nitty-gritty of local views.

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The Big Picture

• The high level view, to the degree to which
  there is an understanding of local, community
  realities, can provide an accurate picture of
  where we are and where we are going.

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How the Exercises Can Help
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Exercise 1 Materials

• Big Picture Game Board
• Story Cards from The Big Picture book.
• Blank Cards to be used as you see fit to complete
  the big picture.

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Exercise 1 Resources

• ? Summarized from
• A short summary of the book.
• ?Excerpted from
• An organized list of systems thinking principles
  and learning steps as found throughout the book.

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Begin by

• Laying out the landscape
• Roll the dice and select that number of cards.
• Place the selected cards in the black squares in
  any of the 4 sections of the game board that
  offer the best fit.
• Hint Review the Summarized from document.
• Repeat as often as you can.
• And Refining it
• Have too many cards and not enough squares? Try
  forming logical groupings of very related
  variables and stacking them.
• Hint To find groupings, it may be helpful to
  remove cards form the board and put them in
  causal loop order.

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Exercise 2 Materials

• Big Picture Game Board
• Sticky note paper to create your own story cards
  as you see fit to complete your big picture.
• Excerpted from
• An organized list of systems thinking principles
  and learning steps as found throughout the book.

?
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Create Your Big Picture

• Laying out the landscape
• State the Problem as Succinctly as You Can
• Center a discussion around a critical issue(s)
  that your group may be encountering.
• Tell it as a Story
• Capture your stories as they emerge and write
  them down on the sticky notes.

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Create Your Big Picture, cont.

• Identify Key Variables
• Check for both types of variables
• quantitative and
• qualitative descriptors
• Use nouns instead of verbs.
• Visualize the Problem
• Place each story card in its most logical
  location on the game board.

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Create Your Big Picture, cont.

• Create the Loops
• Try forming logical groupings of very related
  variables and stacking them.
• It may be helpful to remove cards form the board
  and put them in causal loop order, returning them
  to the board location in stacks once you have
  identified the most important or key leverage
  variable.

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Create Your Big Picture, cont.

• View from a higher vantage point Choose the
  most important variable in each section, the ones
  that might offer the most leverage, and place
  them (along with any others they are stacked
  with) in the center red squares.
• Now focus Choose one variable to serve as the
  success gauge.
• Hint This will most likely be one of the
  mission variables. If you choose the red
  square, pick another variable to take its place.
• Soar to 30,000 feet Turn all the variables (and
  stacks) upside down, except those on the center
  red squares and in the center square.

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Debrief Step 6 - Evaluate

• How do you feel about what you experienced?
• Did any issue(s) or insight(s) emerge while
  playing the game that you would like to
  investigate further?
• What did you notice about the variables that
  emerged?