The System Thinkers

Designers are not designing for themselves, but for the people, therefore they should understand the people. Designing for the future involves an overarching scope going beyond the limits of the Design Thinking.

Understanding your users is the first level but in todays’ world is is insufficient, we should design for sustainability of the humankind.

Taking a holistic approach, by applying the Systems thinking mindset is one way to do that.

The result is seeing problems as interconnected elements, people, and activities organised in ways that produce patterns of behaviour over time. Design increasingly takes action at the level of networks, systems, platforms, and communities. Systems thinking links structure to behaviour in the pursuit of goals.

After the development of the human-centred design in the last 20–30 years, where we tried to move away from imagining how design should be and focus on what people need this is a new turning point.

Systems mapping

Understanding the ecosystems in which a problem lives is essential to understanding how to solve it. This is called systems mapping: understanding the systems where a problem lives to take it apart in a better way. As soon as you’ve mapped out the systems that can help you solve your problem, you can do some systems modeling to understand their interactions.

Interconnectedness

At a global level, we are learning that the world is more interconnected than we could have ever imagined.

If you look beyond the surface, you can see how systemic problems can lead to devastating unanticipated effects. The pandemic serves as a perfect example of how our systems are connected and how critically we must consider every facet when attempting to find solutions.

Synthesis

Synthesizing involves making sense of things in the context of the problem to be solved. Unlike analysis, synthesis involves combining ideas or things to create something new.

Emergence

Consider the solar system. A complex and abstract system comprising planets, stars, galaxies, and many undiscovered elements. The concept of emergence states that bigger things emerge from smaller ones, making it central to understanding how synthesizing, particularly of different parts, works.

Feedback Loops

Feedback is critical to determine whether something is working or not. Adopting systems thinking in an organization requires implementation of feedback loops in the process. For instance, if the company plans to roll out a new performance management software, missing key milestones might indicate that the managers require more support. Regular feedback checkpoints and office hours can provide managers the assistance they need to navigate the platform successfully.

Causality

Causality deals with the idea that the outcome is the effect of your actions. When analyzing a broken part of a system, testing the cause-and-effect pieces of the systems becomes crucial. For example, implementing regular feedback checkpoints may improve communication, which might result in fewer ‘missed’ performance reviews.

The future-minded

Practicing future-minded thinking can help organizations prepare for the future. Of course, we know that the future is unknown. Especially now, there’s plenty of uncertainty and change looming.

However, with future-mindedness, your organization can be better equipped for what the future holds. Training your leaders to build their future-minded skills can help keep your organization agile, resilient, and relevant for whatever the future holds.

What is future-mindedness?

Future-mindedness is a mindset that balances optimistic action with thoughtful pragmatism to envision possible futures. It prepares us for what comes next. Optimism drives action by deliberately seeking out upside, possibilities, and opportunity. It requires confidence in our ability to shape outcomes. However, we must also be pragmatic, acknowledging that unknown events beyond our control will likely change the situation, and thinking through what that might look like.

Practice future-minded thinking.

Create space to reflect and question what could change to upend a plan or invalidate the current goal.
Consider how you might respond and what happens next.
The future-minded are flexible to change, skilled at planning, imagining outcomes, setting goals, and executing flexibly.

People high in future-mindedness also tend to be high in resilience, self-efficacy, cognitive agility, and optimism.