How do you look at the systems structure to make the desired changes? Let me introduce the basic idea and approach of systems thinking.

We were overwhelmed by events such as "I told my employees to make improvement proposals, but they rarely came out," "Sales fell," and "Complaints were brought forth again." I tried to think of countermeasures and solutions such as "what should I do?" The problem that I think "I have to do something about it!", is the part that is seen above the surface of the sea, like an iceberg, and each is a separate "event." Even if you think at this level, you can't make any effective changes just by "reacting" to it.

Iceberg model

Like icebergs, the events visible above the surface of the water are only a small part of the whole, and below that there is a larger one. Immediately below is the "time pattern". If you look back at the events that are visible on the surface, you will see a pattern such as "Sales are always falling two months after the promotion campaign." You could think of a pattern of what would happen if you did the same thing similar to it.

For example, every time a sales drop, even if you run a sales promotion campaign, the sales will eventually drop shortly thereafter. " When this pattern is known, it becomes possible to "adapt", for example, by allocating the personnel system for receiving orders and shipping according to the sales pattern. However, in essence, the aging pattern itself must be changed.

Why does such a time pattern occur? In the case of icebergs, it is the "structure" below that creates the aging pattern. The structure of the system creates a pattern over time. For example, "Promotional campaigns anticipate future sales by having retailers pick up inventory, but the final consumption itself does not increase, and in reaction to that, subsequent orders cannot be placed." There may be a structure such as by digging into this level, you can "create" change by thinking about where in the structure you can work to create the desired pattern.

At a deeper level, there are various conscious and unconscious level premises and values ​​that are the premises of the systems structure. In this example, the salesperson may be thinking at a conscious or unconscious level that "I wish I could achieve the quota in front of me without thinking about the future." By working at these levels of consciousness, it is possible to create individuals and organizations that learn autonomously and always create changes to better patterns.

Let's cite the example introduced in "How to Repair the Earth" (Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows, Junko Edahiro).

Think of the story of forests in the New England region of the United States from this perspective. There are many sawmills in this forest area, and they cut trees to make wood. However, when there were no trees in the forest, all the sawmills were closed and collapsed. Everyone said, "I'm in trouble". This is an event that "there were no trees and the sawmill collapsed."

By the way, how was it so far? Looking at the graph of the number of sawmills in New England, I found that it was corrugated. At one point it suddenly increased, but at some point, it suddenly decreased. It will increase again after about 30 years, then decrease again. From here, we can see the behavioral patterns behind a single event. The event that the sawmill now says "trouble, trouble" is the surface of this pattern, and the same thing has often happened in the past.

So why is there such a behavioral pattern? If you think about it, you will understand the structure. The structure of this problem was like this. In the New England region, sawmills are built to produce timber, but because there are many sawmills, more timber is needed than can be logged in the area, and more and more timber is cut for a certain period of time. After that, the forest will disappear. Then, the sawmill will be closed because the raw material (wood) will be exhausted. Decades after the sawmill is closed and trees are no longer being cut, the forest will recover naturally. After about fifty years, it will return to what it was before. Then, many sawmills will be built again, saying, "There is a forest." Then, the forest would disappear as more trees are cut down. You can see the structure that repeats this pattern all the time.

And what brings about this structure is probably the conscious / unconscious premise that "you should take as much as you have". "I want to take as much as I have". So, you can see that this structure creates this kind of behavioral pattern and brings about the reoccurrence of events.

Systems thinking is most effective not only for capturing the events we face, but by looking at the time-dependent patterns and structures behind them, and the conscious and unconscious thoughts and values ​​that are the premise of them. It is an approach that works in a positive way.

Each event is a snapshot of a pattern. Then, in systems thinking, we broaden our horizons in time, look at the entire pattern, and then expand our horizons to the structure that produces the pattern. We would also introduce tools for that purpose later.