Whole system in the room

…you are to make an important and complex decision that affects many people across the organization.

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You want to understand everyone’s stakes in order to make faster decisions and evoke greater personal responsibility.

Forces:

• Growing aspirations for both systemic—rather than single-problem—solutions and for greater inclusion of people in using what they know.
• No task is too complex if the right people can be brought in on it.
• The nature of the whole cannot be understood fully by anyone unless all participate.
• People cannot be expected to act responsibly without understanding the impact of what they do.
• Having a “whole system” in the room opens doors no one has walked through before.

Make “systems thinking” experiential rather than conceptual.

Therefore:

Include all the relevant people who are in in each meeting.

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When you can’t get the whole system in the room, the 3 × 3 rule might be feasible. nemawashi can be another approach and lead or follow don’t just do something, stand there!.

Once you’ve got the whole system in the room, you can explore the whole elephant.

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Sources

• Don’t just do something, stand there!—Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter by Marvin Weisbord, Sandra Janoff