“The only winning move is not to play” is what WOPR concluded after playing endless drawn games of tic-tac-toe against itself in the movie WarGames. By recognizing the simple cause and effect relationship and learning that sometimes there are no winners, WOPR demonstrated its system thinking, its big picture thinking thereby saving the world.

While the traditional form of analysis focuses on taking apart the individual pieces of the whole to be studied, systems thinking focuses on the whole itself: interactions and interdependencies that takes place between what is being studied and the system it is part of. By expanding the view of the system, more interactions and interdependencies can be identified and analyzed. This expanded view could result in a different conclusion than anticipated through traditional forms of analysis, especially when the system is complex with numerous interactions, internal or external.

Perhaps the importance of systems thinking is best seen in nature. There are numerous case studies of introducing non-native species to new regions for one purpose or another. The Cane toad was introduced to Australia to control sugar cane pests, but instead are now declared as an invasive species in Australia, and are a serious threat to native biodiversity. Along the same lines, Scotch Broom was brought to Pacific Northwest to be used as a garden ornamental. Unfortunately, this bush has bloomed out of control and is now considered an invasive specie in Washington and other states.

Just like the environment, your firm is a complex organism and a living system. As with any system, you need to understand and manage the internal and external interactions and interdependencies to be successful. As I mentioned before in Innovation Process: 3 Things You Can Count On, innovation is an effect in economy and society. To avoid being referred to as an invasive species, you need to incorporate systems thinking, big picture perspective, into your innovation process. How you internally manage your innovation process, how you handle the interactions and interdependencies between your idea generation, strategic planning, resource allocation, competency development and more is just as important for your success. By managing your innovation as a system, internally and externally, you increase the chances of your success.

Below are some tools to help you sharpen your systems thinking. I would love to hear about your tools, and what works for you and your team.

• Apply the 5 Whys: As painful as it is at times, I do enjoy the Why? questions that my son asks. Asking Why? helps one to move from the immediate symptom to cover the underlying problem, and thereby identify potential resolutions to the issue at hand. Just make sure in the process, you are focusing on facts and not opinions, as your goal is to identify potential actions that you can take. Opinions, finger pointing and such are just explanations that do not lend themselves to solutions. If you do happen to get an explanation, ask again Why else could it be? Each Why? question will take you to a different perspective, different context and expand your system further, opening up new possibilities and potentials.
• Use scenario planning and stories: Write stories about the potential futures of your innovation. Then use these stories to capture relationships, interactions and interdependencies between various parts to build the view of the whole system. As you build your story, focus on the type of relationships: supportive, limiting, negative, unintended consequences, … Each of these could then feed into your risk management process, your assumption validation and other parts of your innovation management cycle as appropriate.
• Leverage the power of diversity: In order to uncover hidden relationships and capture the impact of interdependencies you need a diverse team of experts, skills, experiences and perspectives, i.e. a cross-functional team. Bear in mind that as your scenarios and stories expand, so should your team, including potentially suppliers, partners, customers, analysts, … Be flexible with your team structure and be open to signs when you need to reevaluate its membership.
• Stimulate your creativity: I enjoy shuffling through Roger von Oech’s Innovative Whack Pack. Regardless of which card I pick, it offers a new insight and wisdom that I need to incorporate into my thinking.
• Compile a portfolio of analysis tools: Porter’s 5 Forces,life cycle analysis tools, cause-and-effect diagrams, TRIZ, value chain analysis and others can help bring a systems perspective to your thinking.
• Improve your collaboration and change management skills: Systems thinking is about interactions and interdependencies, and how things behave within the whole, internally and externally. It is about recognizing these interactions and changing or managing them accordingly. So, sharpen your collaboration and change management skills to improve your overall effectiveness.

Finally, establish regular checkpoints. As I mentioned before, we are all part of a complex organism and a living system. As you launch your innovation, you will need to continuously monitor and examine the system and analyze if its behaving as expected. If the results are not what you anticipated, then review and adjust. In a way, it is all an experiment.

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