Wait, Broccoli Is A System? A Primer on System-Thinking

(Prefer to watch rather than read?  Click here, 5 mins with captions.)

“System-thinking”.  It’s been around for decades and gets increasingly more popular as complexity ratchets up.  But what does it mean?

Broccoli

I recently had 24 hours off life (I have three  kids) and took the chance to read “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan, great writer from the New York Times.  One piece stood out to me as a great way to explain systems thinking.

Pollan talks about “nutritionism”, the idea that we can work out what’s good in food by breaking it down to its component parts.  Take broccoli – we generally consider that to be healthy, and you might know about anti-oxidants, those things that fight baddies inside us.

Here’s what’s interesting – when certain anti-oxidants are isolated, removed from the food and administered, they don’t always have the same healthy effect as when they are consumed as part of eating the vegetable.  This means there’s something going on in the way the whole thing works together to create the healthy effect…broccoli is more than just a delivery system for anti-oxidants. 

In other words…broccoli is a system!

The 4 S’s That Will Move Your Culture

Prefer to watch on video rather than read?  Click here, 5 minutes with captions.

Getting your culture moving in the direction you need doesn’t have to be a mystery.  There are tangible actions you can take right now that will make a difference. 

I’ve named them the 4 S’s, and if you know the work of Frances Frei and Anne Morriss in Unleashed, and the body of work known as Systems Leadership developed by Ian Macdonald, Catherine Burke and Karl Stewart…you’ll already be familiar with some of these ideas.

First – my definition – culture is the shared understanding about the way you need act to fit in around here.  Don’t get too caught up in it…this works fine.

Culture Change – The Simple Lesson from Ted Lasso

This is definitely one that’s better to watch on video.  Click here, 5 mins, with captions.

Have you seen the show Ted Lasso?  You should.  Warms the coldest heart, and it’s funny.  And…we can find lessons in there about how we can make our own workplaces better.