We live in a "systemic" world in the sense that, intentionally or unintentionally, we use the systems approach to understand everything that happens around us, to make decisions, and to design and implement interventions. The term "system" is used more and more, not only in systems-related issues but in our everyday conversations as well.
A system is a set of interrelated or interacting elements which, all together, form an integrated whole that serves a specific purpose.
The whole system's behaviour is due to the interaction of its elements.
We can distinguish two types of systems:
a) In cases where the behaviour of the whole is entirely determined by knowing the behaviour of the elements, we talk about "hard systems". Examples of "hard systems" are cars, aeroplanes, computers and every mechanical object.
b) In systems where the elementary unit is the human being, whose behaviour is not entirely predictable, the conduct of the whole cannot be determined by examining the behaviour of each individual and the relations among them. This is the case of "soft systems"; typical examples are the social or corporate systems in which we live and work.
In "soft systems", we know that the whole's behaviour is due to the individuals' existence and interaction, but we do not know how it exactly happens, and we cannot fully control it.
That is the phenomenon of complexity.
Complexity is the property of a system that prevents the observer from understanding or predicting the behaviour of the whole while having complete information about the elements and the relationships among them.
An immediate effect is that understanding a situation proceeds from the whole to its parts, not from the parts to the whole.
A system exhibits properties not expected by examining the parts. Instead, they are meaningful at the level of the whole system. This is the phenomenon of emergence. The system exhibits emergent behaviour due to the interactions and relationships among the parts. Emergence can be simple, weak or strong. While simple emergence refers to expected synergy results, strong emergence refers to unexpected behaviours at the system level.
Complexity is the tough reality in the social or corporate systems we live and work.
Systems do not exist independently of an observer.
Depending on the problem, the observer forms a mental model of the (complex) situation less complicated than the situation itself.
The model consists of the essential parts of the problem or concern, while the importance is related to the system's purpose. The system's purpose depends on the observer's point of view.
To the observer's mind, this particular model is the "system" itself.
According to the above, the system (the model) is less complex than the actual situation. And the observer's system perception is less complex than the system's environment.
Sometimes, a system is sufficiently complex to be capable of self-observation.
After all, something is called a system if three features can be discerned:
Components and the relations among them
The purpose of the system (according to the observer’s point of view)
Indivisibility in the sense that if the integrity of a system is destroyed and its identity lost, it loses its purpose
"Systems Thinking" is about viewing the world, situations, or problems as systems and thinking and acting accordingly.
Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static snapshots (Peter Senge).
A management system is the organizational structure and the set of policies, processes, and procedures used by a business entity to achieve its objectives.
ISO defines a management system as a “set of interrelated or interacting elements of an organization to establish policies and objectives, and processes to achieve those objectives.” Consistent and predictable results are achieved more effectively and efficiently when activities are understood and managed as interrelated processes that function as a coherent system. (ISO 9000:2015, Quality management systems - Fundamentals and vocabulary)
(words of wisdom)
Edwards W. Deming:
I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management), 6% special.
The system that people work in and the interaction with people may account for 90 or 95 percent of performance.
Quality is made in the board room. A worker can deliver lower quality, but she cannot deliver quality better than the system allows.
Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.
A bad system will beat a good person every time.
Russell L. Ackoff:
A problem never exists in isolation; it is surrounded by other problems in space and time. The more of the context of a problem that a scientist can comprehend, the greater are his chances of finding a truly adequate solution.
Every problem interacts with other problems and is therefore part of a set of interrelated problems, a system of problems. I choose to call such a system a mess.
Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. Problems are extracted from messes by analysis. Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.
In systems thinking, increases in understanding are believed to be obtainable by expanding the systems to be understood, not by reducing them to their elements.
William Ross Ashby:
Businesses and other human endeavors are also systems. They, too, are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other. Since we are part of that lacework ourselves, it's doubly hard to see the whole pattern of change. Instead, we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get resolved.
When placed in the same system, people, however different, tend to produce similar results.
The systems perspective tells us that we must look beyond individual mistakes or bad luck to understand important problems.
Jay Wright Forrester:
The image of the world around us, which we carry in our head, is just a model. Nobody in his head imagines all the world, government or country. He has only selected concepts, and relationships between them, and uses those to represent the real system.
Fritjof Capra:
The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realise that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.
From the systems point of view, it is evident that one of the main obstacles to organizational change is the – largely unconscious – embraced by business leaders of the mechanistic approach to management.