Is it health@work a clock or a cloud problem?

In our quest for different solutions when managing health at work intelligently, systems thinking and practice has become a recent reading and learning topic in our team.

Most of present health promotion and management practices in organizations are still considerably focused on the individual: the employee health habits and individual behavior change. Although these approaches are evidence-based and much needed, it’s becoming clear that a different, more systemic approach might be needed when addressing organizational health (OH).

In 1966, Kari Popper observed that some problems worked like clocks. They were mechanical, predictable, finite and controllable. However other problems worked more like clouds. They seemed infinite, ever-changing, hard to control and unpredictable. Other authors called these problems ‘adaptive challenges’ or ‘wicked problems’.

When dealing with a “clock” problem one can easily identify a broken part and then focus on finding the best practices to fix what is broken. These are the kind of problems that we often find in health protection that although they may require hard work and thinking to figure out, there are know best practices and checklists that can help anyone make sense of them. Some clock problems might require input from an expert in order to solve them, but they all have a right answer, although it might not be self-evident.

When trying to manage the health of an entire organization and a considerable increase in burnout risk in a specific group must be addressed, this problem might not be simple and might not have a mechanical fix.

Also, most often when working on cloud problems if we neglect to consider the systems in which they are embedded, we end up with “fixes that fail”. We learn that a solution was a “fix that fail” when we see the same type of problems over and over again, even after the cure/solution was implemented. Sometimes when tackling one part of the issue you just end up discovering that it actually makes another part worse, even the most well intended actions or programs.

Although organizations and individuals have the best of intentions when promoting a healthy and thriving workplace, when dealing with a “cloud problem” such as OH, it’s essential to examine solutions through a wider lens, take a longer-term view of the consequences and resist linear solutions.

To start using this approach when trying to solve a “cloud” problem in an organization we first need to figure out everything that goes on in the cloud.

When using a dynamic systems analysis we might start by replying to three basic questions:

• How does the environment within which you work operate as a complex, dynamic system?
• How will your strategy engage the system in order to have a highly leveraged impact?
• How will you test your assumptions and hypotheses about how your system works so that you can learn and adapt effectively?

Although highly complex, systems thinking and practice shows considerable results when dealing with complex problems that affect our world, and the way we work and live in organizations is clearly a crucial cloud problem we need to address fully and abandon for good a quick fix approach.

In the words of Jess Mohr (CEO of Kumo.io) “Whether you call them wicked, complex, intractable, or just plain broken, our society is facing many tough issues. We can’t sit back and hope for the best. It’s up to us to work through the complexity and create thoughtful, sustainable solutions…But simplicity doesn’t come easy. To get there, we first must embrace the complex world we live in.”

Senge, P. M., & Sterman, J. D. (1992). Systems thinking and organizational learning: Acting locally and thinking globally in the organization of the future. European journal of operational research, 59(1), 137–150.

Tsoukas, H., & Hatch, M. J. (2001). Complex thinking, complex practice: The case for a narrative approach to organizational complexity. Human relations, 54(8), 979–1013.

Jackson, M. C. (2001). Critical systems thinking and practice. European Journal of operational research, 128(2), 233–244.

Liliana Dias, Managing Partner @ Bound.Health

This blop post was firtly published at www.boundmakers.wordpress.com