The Situation Seems to be Getting Worse

Board Management Articles

Article by Frank Martinelli

An increasingly complex world requires new ways of thinking. The old solutions simply don't work anymore. If you've heard yourself and others say things like "The situation seems to be getting worse", "I feel like I'm butting my head up against a wall", "We seem to be stuck", or "We're going to hell in a hand basket", it's time to consider a systems thinking approach to problem-solving.

Systems thinking is a way to see beyond isolated events to the deeper patterns, connections and root causes that explain many of the problems that confront us in our organizations and communities. The systems approach to management is a highly effective method for helping leaders understand the relationships that shape the environment in which their organization operates. It provides Outdoor Ministry leaders with an fresh understanding of relationships between our underlying assumptions about the world, the actions we take based on these assumptions and the consequences of these actions - both intended and unintended. Furthermore, systems thinking provides a range of tools and techniques for leaders who want to try out the approach. In this and future articles, we will discuss these some of these systems thinking tools with application examples from the Outdoor Ministry world.

During the first Approach To Systems Management Training in October 2000, we introduced an easy-to-use sequence of systems thinking tools that will be helpful to you as Out door Ministry leaders. This sequence offers a pathway to new solutions for familiar problems. First we need to identify the reasons or root causes of the problem; next we determine which of these reasons are the driving forces that deserve our focused attention; finally we develop high leverage solutions based on our new understanding of the problem.

Let’s begin with three techniques that can be used to analyze an organizational problem in order to understand "root causes". The three techniques are: Force Field Analysis, "The Iceberg", and "Keep Asking Why".¹

Here’s what happened when one group of Outdoor Ministry leaders applied "Keep Asking Why" to the challenge of growing competition for prospective campers’ time. They started by simply asking the question "Why?". Why is there growing competition for campers’ time? Responses included: More appealing choices available to people. Weaker ties to church. Less available leisure time. Next the group asked "why" a second time for each of the first round responses. For example, second round responses to the question " Why are there are more appealing choices for people to consider?" included: people have more disposable income. People expect to have more choices. There is better marketing of choices. Competitors are doing a better job of meeting needs and wants of prospective campers such as providing desired comfort level, opportunities to acquire skills and new learning, new or progressive camp experiences for campers who have "outgrown" previous camp experiences.

The second step in the systems thinking sequence is development of an interrelationship diagram that helps to identify and analyze the cause and effect relationships that exist among root causes so that we can focus on the "driving forces". Driving forces are those that have the greatest impact on the problem we are trying to solve. The logic of this process leads us to focus on the driving forces because actions that reinforce or minimize the impact of the drivers can do the most to improve the situation. We arrange all of the cause factors in a circle on a large writing surface (for example, newsprint). Then, taking the factors one at a time, we look for cause/influence relationships and draw arrows in between items. The arrow originating from one item and pointing to another indicates the first is the stronger cause. After doing this repeatedly, we look to see which 1-2 cause factors have the most arrows originating from them. These are the drivers and we focus on them in the next step.

With this knowledge of driving forces, we can begin to identify high leverage actions that minimize the impact of the negative forces, and at the same time increase or strengthen the impact of the positive forces. We call these as "high leverage actions" because they take into account how the system surrounding a problem operates. Based on this knowledge, we can begin to make decisions about where carefully placed actions can have big impact. In fact, our definition of a "high leverage action" is one that has high impact with the least amount of organizational resources. By contrast a low leverage action would have little impact and require a large commitment of organizational resources.

Based on their work at the October 2000 training, the group identified the following as high leverage actions: Spend more time promoting the unique selling points of our camp experience. Promote the quality of outdoor Christian community. Promote a "buddy system" that emphasizes the comfort level of attending with a friend; consider offering discounts for campers who enroll a friend.

Try these tools out. Let us know what happens!