15 – The Systems Thinking Principles Set

[00:00:00] David: Hi and welcome to the IDEMS Principle. I’m David Stern and I’m here with my co founder Danny Parsons.

Hi Danny.

[00:00:13] Danny: Hi David. What set of principles are we discussing today?

[00:00:17] David: Systems Thinking. The four principles are Systems Thinking, Embracing Diversity, Transdisciplinary, and Holistic Interventions.

[00:00:27] Danny: Yeah, where do we start?

[00:00:28] David: I guess in some ways for certain audiences some of these terms are pretty standard. And so maybe as a set, it is unusual to put these together. But these tend to be, in certain disciplines, academically understood terms, with the exception maybe ofEembracing Diversity.

But diversity –diversity, equity, inclusion– is really at the forefront of everyone’s minds. So I guess we [00:01:00] are taking a slight twist in how we’re thinking of these as principles.

[00:01:04] Danny: Yeah, the Embracing Diversity one stands out to me, in the sense that this is obviously something that has a lot of meaning in other contexts, and a lot of organisations are thinking about this, and I think many people would agree with this as a principle in general.

We think about it in many different ways. One of the ways that we embrace diversity is through the kind of work that we do. Our work is very diverse. And I think that’s just one example of an area where people maybe don’t think about diversity.

But we’ve always had a very wide range of projects. Not just projects, but areas of work. And we’ve been advised against this as well because it’s not standard for how a company would work where you focus on your niche and what you can do really well and go ahead with that as far as you can. And again, this is, as we talked about before, maybe making our lives more difficult for ourselves. But…

[00:02:06] David: But it’s entirely related to our Systems Thinking.

[00:02:10] Danny: Yeah, although there is a very diverse set of things, for us, they fit together, and they are related to each other. And we see that as almost necessary to have this diversity of work.

[00:02:22] David: And I suppose one of the ways in which I feel that’s slightly unusual is people think of embracing diversity as something you do for moral reasons.

[00:02:34] Danny: Yes.

[00:02:35] David: Whereas we’re seeing this as actually good systems work better with diversity.

[00:02:41] Danny: Yeah, I think there is more recognition of advantages of diversity in general in the ways that people are thinking about it.

[00:02:48] David: Absolutely.

[00:02:48] Danny: But yes, we’d certainly think of it as a big positive. I mean, we found, during COVID times– when we were doing a lot of work that involved travelling and giving trainings and workshops, and that all stopped– we were able to…

[00:03:02] David: Pivot.

[00:03:03] Danny: Pivot, yeah. We did have work in other areas, but there was a big focus on the in-person stuff. And then we managed to pivot to other stuff in the software development side and then the online side and then things like online trainings where we also had experience. So I think that diversity really helped us. If we just had that single focus, which was dependent on travel and face to face, we would have struggled, we wouldn’t have been able to pivot.

[00:03:28] David: Well, I think one of the things which is so interesting there is that, actually, that pivoting was really positive and beneficial, in terms of actually making it through COVID and continuing to grow as an organisation.

But it was also extremely challenging because the other areas of our work haven’t really recovered in that same way. The training courses we used to give, which were highly financially beneficial to us as an organisation, that’s never really taken back up in the same way. And our diversity has enabled us to navigate that, I think, sensibly,

But it’s not just about that. It’s also about the fact that this has enabled us in some sense to be embracing our holistic interventions more. The training aspect was always a small component of a bigger picture, and I think now we’re more balanced in that sense.

[00:04:27] Danny: Yeah, and I think as it says, under the diversity, it should bring stability.

[00:04:32] David: Yes.

[00:04:32] Danny: And I think that, is what it enabled us to do, that we weren’t sort of imbalanced on one aspect of work.

[00:04:40] David: Well, I think we have been imbalanced and we continue to be imbalanced while we’re small. But as we grow, we’re trying to minimise those imbalances and trying to push forward the different components of our work.

[00:04:55] Danny: Yeah, as you said, the Holistic Interventions. I think it also speaks to how we dive into a project or how we embed ourselves in the project, trying to help the people we’re working with to do what’s going to be most useful and impactful, not necessarily just what they’re asking for. And I think that relates to holistic inventions.

We’re trying to think of long-term vision as well, I guess. But also actually thinking about this from a bigger-picture perspective. And even sometimes thinking about how projects, which are quite big for the people we work with, fit into other bits of our work which is maybe, at the beginning, unrelated but can then come in and relate. And I think we’ve done that in the past.

[00:05:39] David: This of course relates to our Systems Thinking.

[00:05:42] Danny: Yeah.

[00:05:42] David: At the heart of the element of trying to take on board the concept of a holistic intervention, you need to be thinking about the system.

[00:05:51] Danny: Yeah.

[00:05:51] David: And so sometimes you prioritise a component of the system, but system thinking is really necessary.

[00:05:59] Danny: Yeah. I think if we had a niche, that is part of the role that we can play for people. Because you need people who can focus on those components because each component needs to be done really well and to do that, people need to focus on it. But I feel that we are able to bring that systems thinking and complement what other people are doing, so that them focusing on an individual component doesn’t just stop there and it can fit into bigger picture.

[00:06:27] David: Which of course you’re relating to the fact that we’re quite good at being Transdisciplinary.

[00:06:31] Danny: Yes. Yes. Good lead in to the one we haven’t mentioned yet. As I was about to say on the Systems Thinking, I think that comes from the mathematical background that we have– and many of our team have but not all of our team– as we have various sets of skills. But these kind of mathematical skills are very applicable to other areas. They’re very … what did they call them?

[00:06:56] David: Transferrable.

[00:06:56] Danny: Transferrable skills, thank you. And so I think, yeah, that supports the systems thinking idea and then it means we can be transdisciplinary, where we’re actually working with people who are from other specific areas together in almost new areas, where we combine different disciplines.

[00:07:12] David: Well I think this is something where, when I think about the role that we play and how we differentiate ourselves from other mathematical scientists that I know who work in areas of application, the transdisciplinary part is maybe the key point. In many cases, when mathematicians work outside their discipline, the natural thing for a mathematician to do is to go in, listen, understand the problem and then get stuck in to the maths that’s needed to solve the problem.

[00:07:48] Danny: Yeah.

[00:07:49] David: And I think that approach, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that approach, but I’d say the heart of what I find we do slightly differently is that we’re never trying to just solve the maths problem. We’re always trying to become part of the investigation of whatever the topic is that we’re working on.

And actually, the maths problems are nice because they’re solvable.

[00:08:17] Danny: Yes, and I was going to say often actually, I don’t feel our main work is on that mathematics. I think when we say to people, yes, we have this mathematical background, I say mathematical more than mathematics and mathematicians because I don’t feel the work that we do is, as you say, what a typical mathematician would do. I feel it’s the mathematical skills that we have, which are much broader, this kind of logical thinking, systems thinking, attention to details, this kind of logical way of thinking to understand how things fit together and how things should work. Not all mathematicians can apply that outside of their mathematics work.

[00:08:54] David: Well, this is really important because actually there’s been some research which has shown that you don’t necessarily gain some of the skills, by some metrics as being a mathematician versus a historian or somebody else. And so there’s some very interesting work which shows that if you measure it simply as logic skills or something, it’s not clear that mathematics gives you the skills boost that some people claim. And so that’s disputed, and there’s people who are doing research into that. But what I think is certainly true, in our context, is the ability to not turn things into a maths problem, which we can enjoy solving, but actually engaging in the problem that is as a mathematician. That is valued by all parts.

[00:09:45] Danny: Yeah. Because we can bring a different perspective, and I think another sort of mathematical type skill is this abstraction that you can do not being in their field, if you can understand enough, you can step back enough to see things that people who are working in the details can’t see.

[00:10:03] David: Sometimes that abstraction enables us. I’ve had this in a number of different areas. My favourite example comes from agriculture, when I started getting involved in agriculture, and I was listening to experts debate. And after a while I said, wait a second, if I understand correctly, you’re saying this and you’re saying that, and it sounds like you’re disagreeing with one another, but I don’t see the disagreement.

[00:10:29] Danny: Yeah.

[00:10:30] David: I see that the two things you’re saying are both compatible with one another. They could both be true, and actually both of them help me in my understanding. Am I wrong? And actually just voicing that often helped.

[00:10:45] Danny: Yeah, and I don’t think that’s purely a mathematics…

[00:10:47] David: No.

[00:10:48] Danny: …skill. That’s part of what we bring. I don’t want to say that this is all about mathematics.

[00:10:53] David: No, absolutely. I think that’s really important. The other people I know who do this very well are anthropologists.

[00:10:59] Danny: Yeah.

[00:11:00] David: Who wouldn’t consider themselves as mathematicians, but they’re very good with humans.

[00:11:04] Danny: Yeah.

[00:11:04] David: And observing and actually trying to understand and looking for some of this complexity.

[00:11:11] Danny: And I think this is much harder.

[00:11:13] David: Yeah.

[00:11:13] Danny: That the mathematical type problems, which might be in data or might be in mathematics or whatever, are actually much simpler to solve because you’re not having to deal with people who are complex.

[00:11:25] David: Well, I have to confess, very recently we’ve taken on a project which I’m really excited about because it’s one of the few projects where I get to do some proper maths.

[00:11:34] Danny: Yeah.

[00:11:34] David: But most of the maths that needs doing, we’ve got a really bright postdoc who’s come in and he can do almost all the maths. I’m not needed for that. Yes, it is nice maths. It’s proper maths. But it’s not that hard as maths goes.

[00:11:47] Danny: Yeah.

[00:11:48] David: The hard part is actually understanding what’s needed, how to build things which actually work for people in their context.

[00:11:55] Danny: Yeah. I think that’s why I wouldn’t describe us as a mathematics organisation, a mathematical organisation. It’s a core part of our background and a lot of the people in our team, but we’re not just looking for those projects with the mathematics. I can think of other organisations which are doing those kind of things, using their mathematics on more complex problems.

But it comes back to this Systems Thinking and Holistic Interventions, where we’re using our skills to have that impact, not just working.

[00:12:24] David: Well, I think you brought out the Systems Thinking and the Holistic Interventions, which I think are exactly the two correct ones to bring out in terms of this is what we do. So we’re not just isolating out the mathematics.

I think how we present ourselves, to be able to do that, that’s the Transdisciplinary. And then If you want the one which we keep coming back to…

[00:12:48] Danny: Yeah, Embracing Diversity. As I said, not being a mathematics organisation, having this mix of skills in our team, having people who are experienced in development and experienced in other areas, that also is how we can play this kind of role. Because we’re not just saying, we’re the mathematics people who can come in and help. We can do the impact work and we can contribute to the whole project. And then we’ve seen that, becoming partners of projects, big projects.

[00:13:19] David: Yes.

[00:13:19] Danny: Where we could have essentially just been a technology partner who just did that part and got on with that. And then other people worry about the impact and how it’s used. That’s not our approach, and I think that’s been…

[00:13:31] David: …one of our strengths. And the thing you mentioned about the embracing diversity, part of this is just valuing different skill sets. And in our team meeting, very recently, we had a full team meeting, we got together, and one of the things that I noticed there was that, although from the outside most people might say, oh, you’re mostly just a set of geeks, there were no two people duplicating skill sets.

And I was actually surprised, given we had 16 people in the room, if I had to take two people who had the closest skill sets, it’s probably us. It’s quite surprising to think that everybody else in our team, what they bring is a specific set of skills that they’re building on, that they, they’re gaining, that they’re, they’re doing, and that diversity and the mutual respect between them.

[00:14:28] Danny: Yeah, that was what I was going to say. I think even from the team meeting and even the year before, where we started to have more people with these different skill sets beyond the mathematical skills, really good skills in communication and the development and impact areas. How would they see themselves and how would they fit in with these mathematics geeks? And how would the mathematics people see these people with very different skills?

And I was just really pleased to see that all the skills, everyone’s unique skills were valued and there was no, well, this is a really important skills and we just need these people to do easy bits or whatever. And it’s both ways.

[00:15:07] David: Mutual respect.

[00:15:08] Danny: You could easily see the impact people feeling, well, you’re mathematics side, you’re not really doing anything that useful, you’re just doing your own stuff, and mathematicians could say something similar. But we didn’t have any of that.

[00:15:20] David: It’s more than we didn’t have any of that. If you take two of the most opposite people in this, talking to them after the meeting a year and a bit ago, It was the fact that they singled each other out as being amazing, I have so much respect for what they’re doing and working with them. And they both felt that about the other. That mutual respect about the diversity of skills and the diversity of perspectives. I don’t like to do this very often, but we should pat ourselves on the back a little bit for the fact that getting to where we are, we’ve built a team with that diversity that can work in these transdisciplinary ways, that is taking on holistic interventions while doing systems thinking.

You know, when we started out, we had these principles.

[00:16:06] Danny: Yeah, from two of us.

[00:16:07] David: From two of us. This is what we wanted.

[00:16:09] Danny: Yeah.

[00:16:10] David: And we’ve gone from two to about 20, and we’ve managed to get a team with this, that values this.

[00:16:18] Danny: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say, to have that respect that we’ve seen, the team must be valuing these things, the system’s thinking and not just that my little part, I can just get on and do that. It’s that they’re seeing the importance of this as well, and the value of everyone else and the need of everyone else in the team.

[00:16:36] David: Absolutely. So I suppose, we should probably tie it up there. Our next set of principles is going to be Inherently Inclusive which is a really nice set that I’m looking forward to discussing.

[00:16:48] Danny: Yeah.

[00:16:48] David: But as we finish with this set, the thing which I’d like to get your last thoughts on is if we look at Systems Thinking as being the headline, Why is that so important to us? Because it is central to everything we do. And do you have a sense of why is this such an important set of principles?

[00:17:09] Danny: I suppose, without this set of principles, I couldn’t see how we can really have a big impact. And that’s what I always come back to, that we’re trying to have impact, positive impact, and we’re not just doing work for the sake of the work. We could have little pockets of impact by doing small things, but without the Systems Thinking set, we’re never going to have that big impact.

[00:17:35] David: And just to hone in and explain what I think you mean by that is, even if we became really big and we did something extremely well, and we did it at scale, there’s no way of knowing what the impact of that is on the system if we’re not thinking about the systems. And we’ve seen this so many times in the work we’ve done elsewhere, where really positive ideas, when implemented at scale, if you don’t fit them into the system, they can have unintended consequences and you can end up with really unexpected negative impact.

[00:18:13] Danny: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:15] David: And so that’s why, for us, the Systems Thinking element has to come at the beginning. We don’t want just a scalable impact– which is one of our other principles which we’ve already discussed– without systems thinking, that impact might not be positive.

[00:18:31] Danny: Yes, and I think this is how they link together, and you could see that the scalable things, like the Viral Scaling, can just be out of control. And this is a vital component to thinking about that kind of scaling.

[00:18:43] David: And so maybe it is worth just finishing this with the fact that we’ve done three sets of principles now, we’ve done our Scalable Impact, our Options by Context, and now Systems Thinking. And in some sense, the Systems Thinking ties this all together.

[00:18:58] Danny: Yeah.

[00:18:58] David: Because the Options by Context, if you do your Scalable Impact without thinking about Options by Context, and you’re not thinking about systems thinking… Those three together give us the foundation of how we want to create impact in the world.

[00:19:14] Danny: Yeah, that’s a really nice way of thinking, and seeing how those three sets ties together is a nice way to finish.

[00:19:19] David: A nice way to finish. And we’ve still got two left. Two more sets to go! So anyway, I look forward to carrying on with these discussions and we’ll speak again soon. Thanks.