Systems Thinking is Not Optional Lessons From a Pandemic

[Music]

in the early 1950s

there was an outbreak of malaria in

borneo

the world health organization tried to

solve the problem by spraying large

amounts of ddt

to kill the mosquitoes that carried the

malaria

the ddt worked and the mosquitoes died

but other things happened as a result

first

the fats roofs of people’s houses began

to cave in

because the ddt also killed the wasps

that ate the patchy eating caterpillars

with no wasps to eat them there were

more and more thatch-eating caterpillars

other insects that died from the ddt

were then eaten

by gecko lizards which were then

eaten by cats the cats died

which allowed the rats to multiply which

resulted

in outbreaks of two new diseases plague

and typhus

carried by the rats what was the

response

operation cat drop

the world health organization actually

parachuted

live cats into borneo to eat the rats

this is what happens without systems

thinking

the best leaders are typically systems

thinkers

systems thinking helps leaders see the

big picture

and understand and influence the

consequences of their decisions across

the community

since society itself is a complex

adaptive system

systems thinking is the philosophy that

everything

is connected but systems and their

connections

are not always obvious so systems

thinking sometimes

requires us to see the invisible

a system is generally defined as an

organized collection of parts or

subsystems

that are highly integrated to accomplish

an overall goal

now there are many different kinds of

systems are cultural

environmental economic mechanical

electrical

and so on for example the human body is

a system

and contains 11 major subsystems such as

skeletal

muscular nervous and so on the key

principle is that if one part of the

system is changed

the nature of the overall system is

changed as well

a system functions as a whole

for example dividing a human in half

does not give you two smaller humans

even centuries ago the buddha

said nothing ever exists entirely alone

everything is in relation to everything

else

peter singh in his book the fifth

discipline explains 11 laws of systems

thinking i’m going to focus on the

foremost relevant of these laws what

they mean

how they affect our decision making and

how they apply to the coven 19 pandemic

the first law is today’s problems come

from yesterday’s solutions

a solution to the hunger problem was

industrial production of food

but the use of colorants

preservatives nitrates and gmos

cause health hazards today coal was used

to generate electricity in the united

states

in the 1880s and to fuel the

steam-powered horseless carriage

the first car with an internal

combustion engine

another solution changed the demand for

petroleum products around the world

forever

and as we now know fossil fuels are a

finite resource

and they harm the environment contribute

to climate change and lead to

catastrophic effects to our to our

environment

problems caused by yesterday’s solutions

covid today’s problems

come from solutions that were half

measures at best

and didn’t follow the guidance of the

experts

the united states has four percent of

the world’s population

we have 25 percent of coveted cases

and 20 percent of covet deaths

the atlantic magazine published an

article

a year ago stating that we had time to

prepare for this pandemic

at this at the state local and household

level

even if the government was terribly

lagging but we squandered it because of

widespread

asystemic thinking the inability

to think about complex systems and their

dynamics

the next system law is the harder you

push the harder the system pushes back

remember prohibition the war on drugs

criminalizing marijuana

when our initial efforts fail to fix a

problem we just push harder

we’re told that hard work will overcome

all obstacles

but we fail to realize that often we are

the ones creating the obstacles

with covert people pushed against simple

safety measures such as

social distancing and mask wearing or

called mask wearing a political

statement

the system’s just pushed back harder

giving us higher cases of

deaths and higher numbers of cases and

deaths

covet has also highlighted the fact that

deforestation

makes future pandemics more likely

does it make any sense that in our

ecosystem

a tree is worth more dead than alive now

as the human subsystems

destroy wildlife habitat displaced

animals move into closer proximity with

each other and with humans

climate change can also affect where

these animals go

and bring pathogens closer to humans

fast company magazine published an

article entitled why our shrinking

natural world is increasing the pace of

global pandemics

stating that conservation is suddenly a

public health issue

now we know that nature always wins

so is it possible that in our ecosystem

the human race is the disease

and the pandemic is the cure

the third system’s law the easy way out

usually leads back in

you go to the doctor for a headache

doctor gives you some pain pills your

headache goes away

a couple weeks later headache comes back

you go back to the doctor

more pills no more headache easy fix

a couple weeks later your head hurts so

bad you have to go to the er

where the doctors run some tests meaning

acquired data

and they diagnose that you have a brain

tumor

the first doctor took the easy way out

and treated the symptom

without fully analyzing the problem and

treating

the cause

systems thinking is a disciplined

approach to analyzing problems more

effectively

before acting with covid all the experts

agreed that strong

active measures were required to slow

the pandemic

social distancing mass scoring

quarantining avoiding large groups

but these measures resulted in small

businesses closing

many permanently a global recession

and lost jobs and some would argue are

worse consequences

than the safety measures the real

dilemma here is who gets to decide

which is worse and why isn’t the loss of

life a bigger factor in the decision

as sengay wrote sometimes the

easy or familiar solution is not only

ineffective

sometimes it is addictive and dangerous

the long-term consequence of

non-systemic thinking

has increased the need for more and more

of the solution

and we’ve seen this happen when coveted

first fight in the u.s

the president said it would magically

disappear

people resisted quarantining mass

squaring avoiding large groups

leaders didn’t institute safety measures

because of the impact

on people and businesses

they ignored scientists and took half

measures

and the numbers spiked dramatically some

have even called it

pandemicide they took the easy way out

and based decisions on emotions

or politics rather than data

and the easy way out let us write back

in and made things even worse

the final systems law that i’ll discuss

today is

faster is slower every system has an

optimal speed

when growth becomes excessive the system

will try to compensate

by slowing down and that puts the entire

system at risk

we all know the moral of the tortoise

and the hair slow and steady

is better than quick and careless a

quick

fix usually equals a slow cure

i heard many times in the air force

we never have time to do it right but we

always have time to do it over

with covert we fast-tracked

a vaccine within a few months when the

normal clinical trial process can take

years

in may of 2020 the vaccine development

program

was actually named operation warp speed

and yet today 10 months later

we’re still having problems distributing

and

producing the vaccine

there are actually covered mutations

that the current vaccines will not

affect according to the cdc

the covert variant that first showed up

in the uk quote

looms ready to hijack our successes to

date

worse 16 states have just

lifted mass mandates against cdc

guidance

it’s like the rookie air force navigator

on his first mission

we’re lost but we’re making darn good

time

so to succeed in life in business and

society

we must take a systems approach to

planning and decision making

understand that everything is connected

we should learn from covet 19

and avoid a future pandemic or at least

be better prepared to deal with one

remember in systems thinking the critics

are the actual optimist

they always think there’s a better way

if nothing else we should now realize

that measures taken to

protect the general public are not an

infringement on individual rights

we say that every system is designed

perfectly designed

to get the results it gets but how do

you get the results

you want where do you start

first understand your system

compare it to other organizations other

communities

and benchmark against their best

practices

another way is just to start small

pick the low-hanging fruit

a famous sculptor was once asked how he

was able to create such beautiful

sculptures

of of horses and his response was simply

i start with a piece of stone and i just

chip away everything

that doesn’t look like a horse

so you can start today by knowing your

system

and chipping away everything that

doesn’t look like systems thinking

and if you stay with it you will end up

with a system

that gets the results you want thank you

all very much