Why systems intelligence?
Imagine this:
You’re building the best car in the world.*
You go about it by first bringing each of all the car models in the world to one place.
You then hire the best engineers and mechanics in the world and ask them to determine which of the cars has the best engine. If the engineers say that the Rolls-Royce has the best engine, you pick the Rolls-Royce engine for your car.
Similarly, you ask your engineers to find out which of the cars has the best exhaust system and pick that for your future car. Using this method, you and your team go through the necessary parts for building a car and in the end have a list of the best parts available in the world.
You then give the list to your engineers and mechanics and ask them to assemble the car.
What do you think you will get?
If you are lucky, you get a jumbled up, dysfunctional machine, but it’s more likely that you don’t even get a car!
The parts won’t simply fit together. An engine from a Rolls-Royce won’t work well with an exhaust system from a Mercedes. The performance of the car does not only depend on its parts, or the performance of each part taken separately. It depends on the interaction of the parts together.
Is your collaborative team a jumbled collection of skills, or a well linked up system for complex problem solving and innovation?
When we think of collaboration between diverse teams, across disciplines, or between sectors, we often think of the parts: who to involve and what they will bring to the table. However, we assume that just by bringing these people together, they will know how to work well together.
That is often not the case, and research has shown this again and again.
The reason is that, people are people. They may have a shared goal but they may also have their own interests and incentives.
People often assume that barriers to success are other people’s behaviours or decisions.
They might blame a ‘faulty system.’
They may focus on optimising their own part.
Thery may be oblivious to how their own actions can contribute to the problematic situation at hand.
In order to produce innovative, long-lasting solutions that none of the collaborators could achieve on their own, you need to find common ground and elevate their abilities to collaborate and contribute their full potential.
This is the essence of systems intelligence, and this is what we, at IFSI, strive to help you achieve.
Systems intelligence: a new paradigm for collaboration
Systems intelligence is the ability to take intelligent action in the context of complex, changing environments. It is the awareness of interdependencies in changing, complex environments, combined with the skills to act on that awareness to drive meaningful change.
For teams of collaborators (whether from the same organisation or across different ones), awareness of context means understanding how their work relates to that of others, and how their actions impact the overall outcome.
It means taking a big picture view of the problem or situation, and understanding their role within it.
Taking the big picture view means being open to how others view the situation. How can you do that if you see them as part of the problem, or if you misunderstand or completely reject their perspective? How can you do that if you are speaking different technical languages?
Systems intelligence can help catalyse collaboration by:
building awareness of the interdependencies between the actions of diverse teams or stakeholders.
establishing a common collaborative language that bridges gaps and reduces friction, fostering trust and shared objectives.
enabling teams to anticipate challenges, adapt in real-time, and move from reactive to proactive collaboration
Our unique framework is rooted in the principles of systems thinking, combined with methods from other fields such as art and education. It was built through a lot of testing and iteration with groups of people who live, work, and think differently.
If you want to know more, get in touch!
* Story by, and adapted from, Russel Ackoff.
