System thinking

“To optimize the whole, we must sub-optimize the parts.”

The most significant gains are to be made in managing the organization as a system, not in optimizing components within the system. Optimizing the results for a process is not the same as optimizing that process in a way that it provides the most benefit to the system as a whole.

Systems Thinking considers the whole system, and how the parts of the system are interconnected.

Safety Advice
By lacking a systems perspective a solution to one problem can easily lead to a new and bigger problem later on or somewhere else in the system
Failure of individuals and departments to work together is the result of how the organization has been setup and incentivized. To change collaboration behavior the management system must be changed.


Recommended Resources

  1. The Deming Institute

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