USING SYSTEMIC SOLUTIONS TO PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE

‘The future is unknown, so how do we prepare for it?”

The Future Thai Leader 2020 study, conducted by the APMGroup and Prof Bruce McKenzie, an internationally recognised pioneer in systemic studies, asked this question.

Hundreds of people from all walks of life were asked a series of questions, and their responses were analysed systemically. From this analysis, we were able to come up with strategies to address future needs. In this, the fifth of a five-part series, I will briefly recap what was covered previously and discuss how we can implement the changes we need.

In the first part of the study, the challenges and issues companies would face in the future was investigated, and one thing became very clear: while we can’t know what the future will hold, we can confidently say that there will be a lot of change: technological change, social change, political and economic change, even climate change, all at rates never seen in human history.

The No.1 challenge for future leaders will be dealing with this rapid change effectively. We will all adapt in one way or another, but the ones that plan for and handle these changes the best will be tomorrow’s frontrunners.

The study also revealed what capabilities leaders and organisations will need to effectively operate in changing environments: ability to deal with uncertainty, flexibility, innovation and improvisation, ability to communicate across generations and groups, building trust, continuous learning, and the ability to consider both long and short-term impacts. These capabilities, and their supporting skills, all combine to make leaders and organisations capable of effectively handling change. Having only some of these capabilities is not nearly as effective as having them all, much like a ship can operate without an anchor, keel or rudder, but it can operate much more effectively if it has all of them.

The second phase of the Future Thai Leader 2020 study was probing ways to systemically build up these capabilities, and 12 strategies for developing the capabilities were developed. In previous articles, I discussed how each of these strategies is itself a system, and how all these systems reinforce and support each other. Using these systemic processes, improvements are effective and sustainable.

Every company has its own systems, its own strengths and weaknesses. How can this 12-strategy solution possibly be applied to very different companies in very different fields? The answer is each solution must be individually tailored for each company. Every company that wants to improve its capabilities this way needs to carefully examine where it is going and what capabilities it needs most.

Self-examination is a key part of successfully implementing these strategies. Most companies have existing processes for monitoring themselves, but this selfexamination cannot use those processes. All processes have strengths and weaknesses, well-understood areas and blind spots. Using an existing process to assess strengths and weaknesses will have those same blind spots. Thus, another process needs to be used.

This is why I’d like to suggest the Leadership 2020 Discovery Tool, which can examine a company’s dynamic from many perspectives on many levels to get a complete, system-wide look at how the company works. The results from this examination can identify problems that were previously hidden, and information about how the company operates allows decision-makers to make plans and set goals that are realistic, achievable, and moving towards the future.

Information from the Discovery Tool can chart out a company’s capability gaps and how they impact the organisation. This is the basis for planning how strengths can be used to improve weaknesses. With this information, the systems that make up the 12 strategies for improving a company’s ability to handle change can be created.

One of the strengths of systemics is the perspective it brings. When everything is viewed as interconnecting systems, the impact a change in one place will have in other areas is far easier to predict. For instance, a procedural change in payroll to reduce the burden of processing hundreds of paychecks monthly may result in confusion among employees and damage morale across the company. This is a fairly obvious consequence, but problems of this type happen all the time when the entire system is not considered. And for every obvious consequence there are dozens that are obvious only in hindsight or from information uncovered using the Discovery Tool.

This is why systemic analysis in general, and the Discovery Tool specifically, is so well-suited for preparing a company or organisation for change: a wider perspective of how different systems and groups affect each other can highlight interactions that may not be obvious, but can have a major impact on change. It can identify areas that need to be handled carefully, which areas are already very strong, and what areas are crucial for the success of the entire project. Using the Discovery Tool and strategies developed in the Future Thai Leader 2020 project, companies can make themselves resilient and adaptable for the future of change.

For more about these articles and APMGroup, please see http://www.apm. co.th/media/press-release.php