Building Systemic Intelligence: How Deep Understanding Transformed Risk into Opportunity

“Management’s business is building organizations that work.” —Joan Magretta

The subtitle quote is from Joan Magretta’s book What Management Is. Although the concept of “building organizations that work” may seem straightforward, systems guru Russell Ackoff states the real challenge.

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“Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes.... Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.

—Russell Ackoff, Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science, Wharton School

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In today's interconnected world, organizations face increasingly complex challenges that resist simple solutions. Whether it's a corporation trying to maintain market leadership, a government agency addressing public health issues, or a non-profit working to reduce poverty, these challenges share a common thread: they cannot be solved with traditional analytical approaches alone.

Systemic Intelligence (SysQ) offers a powerful framework for understanding and addressing these complex organizational challenges. SysQ is the capacity to see beyond isolated events and recognize the deeper patterns and relationships that drive organizational behavior.

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WELLS FARGO FINANCIAL FOOLISHNESS

2011 was a very bad year for Wells Fargo. The financial giant paid over $80 million in fines for upselling higher interest rate mortgages to customers who were able to receive lower rates. Such a severe penalty should change not only who is in leadership, but the broader organizational policies that led to such behavior. At least you’d think it should.

But less than ten years later, this was the headline:

$3 Billion Payment Result of Deferred Prosecution Agreement in Criminal Matter, Settlement of Civil Claims under FIRREA and Resolution of SEC Proceedings

Why? Because employees had been opening accounts (deposit accounts) for current customers–without customer approval. For several months, many employees were repeating the following formula…

1. Open an account (without customer knowledge)

2. Move in a little bit of money (also without customer consent)

3. Close the account

4. Put the money back (hoping customer didn’t see the whole process)

After opening enough accounts, employees received a bonus–an incentive to continue following the formula. Compensation and incentive programs often generate problematic employee behavior.

“Unfortunately, as variable compensation plans afford high-performers an opportunity to maximize their income, they can also come with many unintended consequences. From lawyers who paid their client billables, to the product sales reps who work in cahoots with buyers to shift the timing of purchases to help each hit their bonuses, these compensation models can be a driving force for behavior if not designed with extreme care.”—Forbes (2016)

In both cases at Wells Fargo, the rewards and incentives the company used to motivate employees to increase profitability eventually led to criminal behavior–massive fines–and lower profit.

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THE LIMITATIONS OF TRADITIONAL PROBLEM-SOLVING AND STRATEGY-BUILDING

Many organizations approach problems with what we might call a "mechanical mindset" — they see issues as isolated events that can be fixed with straightforward solutions. This approach works well for routine problems, where cause-and-effect relationships are clear and solutions are well-established. However, today's most pressing organizational challenges are adaptive in nature — they're complex, interconnected, and resist simple solutions.

Consider the case of Wells Fargo's account scandal. The surface-level solution might appear to be implementing stricter controls and changing incentive structures. However, this fails to address the deeper systemic issues within the organizational culture that allowed such practices to develop in the first place.

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THE POWER OF SYSTEMIC INTELLIGENCE

SysQ enables organizations to better:

Frame up strategic objectives — Identify the most important trends and systemic relationship to improve

Model the business — Develop operational understanding…see the “physics” of the business…of how the business works

Solve problems and build strategy — Find high leverage solutions and strategies to fundamentally transform organizational performance

Implement and learn — Enroll across silos to better implement the strategy using key leading indicators to monitor and learn

Organizations with high SysQ are better equipped to navigate complexity and create sustainable solutions. They understand that quick fixes often lead to longer-term problems, and that lasting change requires understanding the whole system.

BUILDING SYSTEMIC INTELLIGENCE IN ORGANIZATIONS

Developing SysQ requires organizations to:

Challenge existing mental models and assumptions Look beyond immediate cause-and-effect relationships Consider multiple perspectives and stakeholder views Take time to understand problems before rushing to solutions

While tools like AI and data analytics can support this process, they cannot replace the fundamental need for systemic thinking.

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THE RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Organizations that develop strong systemic intelligence capabilities will see:

• More effective strategy development and execution
• Better risk management and decision-making
• Increased innovation and adaptability
• Improved stakeholder relationships and outcomes

In a world where change is constant and challenges are becoming increasingly complex, systemic intelligence isn’t merely an advantage — it’s a necessity for organizational survival and success.

ORGANIZATIONAL APPLICATIONS

Many of us spend most of our lives working, often for organizations. As mentioned earlier, organizational challenges are numerous. These range from individual decisions within a division or department to strategic decisions made in c-suites with board input. These decisions are frequently made without adequate understanding of their potential impact on performance. SysQ is a capacity that enhances insight and impact.

The ORGANIZATIONAL APPLICATIONS are of the Finding High Leverage substack is dedicated to content specifically tailored to organizational challenges. We will explore a wide range of issues, including how to develop high-leverage strategies and reduce employee burnout. Use the Organizational tag to find articles and tools that describe how SysQ can enhance your effectiveness in any organization, regardless of its size or nature, such as a multinational Fortune 100 company or a nimble local philanthropic organization.

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." —Helen Keller

Picture a room full of dedicated professionals, each representing different aspects of children's behavioral health services in Georgia. They've been meeting for over a year, all sharing a common goal of helping children, yet finding themselves stuck in a cycle of unproductive discussions and competing interests. This is the story of how developing systemic intelligence transformed their approach and unlocked collaborative potential that had remained dormant for far too long.
The Strategic Challenge

The state's interagency directors' team (IDT) faced a daunting task: fundamentally transform how various agencies coordinated services to improve children's behavioral health. The team included representatives from developmental disabilities, community health, education, juvenile justice, and other critical services. Their mission seemed clear – break down organizational silos and develop an integrated strategy for improving children's behavioral health.

But clarity of mission doesn't always translate to clarity of action. Despite regular meetings and genuine commitment from all parties, progress remained elusive. The system itself seemed designed to resist the very collaboration they sought to create.

Building Intelligence About Complex Systems
The Georgia Health Policy Center, working with Pontifex Consulting, recognized that before the team could transform the system, they needed to transform how they understood it. They began by building the team's capacity for systemic intelligence – not as an academic exercise, but as a practical tool for seeing their challenges in a new light.

The first revelation came through mapping the current state. The initial diagram revealed a service-centric "push" system where organizations competed to provide their specific services to qualified children and families. In this model, children were often shuffled between services, with little improvement in their long-term development trajectory. The main accomplishment was often simply transferring responsibility from one agency to another.

Seeing the Whole System

Through the process of building and discussing system maps, something remarkable happened. The team began to shift their perspective from individual service providers to seeing the entire developmental journey of the children they served. They created a "Managed Population Chain" that traced a child's path from prenatal care through to adulthood.
A profound insight emerged: The further along this chain a child moved while "off track," the more costly and urgent the interventions became. Yet the system provided little incentive for upstream collaboration – leading agencies to compete for resources at "the end of the line" where problems were most severe and expensive to address.

The Power of Shared Vision

The breakthrough came when the team developed their final simplified strategy map. This visual tool accomplished something that a year of meetings couldn't – it gave them a shared language and framework for understanding both problems and solutions. As one team leader noted, "Now I see how we can focus on a child at each stage of their development and think about what they need...and how we can each coordinate our resources to fulfilling that need."

This wasn't just a map – it became the foundation of their strategy, a communication tool for engaging with state health commissioners and other officials, and a dynamic framework that could evolve with their understanding.

Core Elements of Change Agent Leadership

In his book Leadership for a Fractured World, Dean Williams describes essential principles employed by effective change agents. The interagency team applied several of these principles during their strategy work. Three of those key principles were:

Facing Reality Together:

Rather than avoiding difficult truths or seeking quick fixes, the team learned to collectively face the reality of their fragmented system. They developed what Williams calls "diagnostic capacity" – the ability to understand complex challenges from multiple perspectives.

Boundary Crossing:

The team embodied the change agent's role as a boundary crosser, moving beyond their organizational silos to engage with other perspectives and possibilities. This wasn't just about coordination – it was about creating new spaces for collaboration and innovation.

Harnessing Creative Tension:

Like artists working with different materials and techniques, the team learned to work with the creative tension that emerges when diverse perspectives meet. They discovered that progress often requires maintaining this productive tension rather than rushing to eliminate it.

The Three Transformations

The development of systemic intelligence catalyzed three fundamental shifts in the team's approach:

Reframing the Goal:

They moved from a supply-side focus on providing services to a demand-side vision of developing self-actualized adults. This shift opened up entirely new solution spaces that weren't visible before.

Developing Shared Understanding:

The team moved from "close-to-the-chest, keep our interests guarded" perspectives to a comprehensive, 30,000-foot view where they could see and appreciate the whole system.

Unleashing Collaboration:

Most profoundly, they transformed from a group of individual stakeholders into a cohesive team with a compelling way forward. They shifted from pointing fingers at each other to pointing at their shared map – working together to make it better

The Broader Perspective

This case demonstrates how systemic intelligence can break through seemingly intractable inter-organizational challenges. The team didn't just solve a specific problem – they developed a new way of seeing and thinking about their work. They created a sustainable foundation for ongoing collaboration and improvement.

The success was so compelling that the team subsequently applied the same process to develop a strategy for "at risk" children, demonstrating how building systemic intelligence creates ongoing capacity for tackling complex challenges.

This transformation shows that when organizations invest in building their capacity for systemic intelligence, they don't just solve immediate problems – they develop the ability to see, understand, and improve complex systems continuously. This is the essence of high-leverage thinking in action.

"Anyone who aspires to make observations about mankind should look upon the human scene as from some lofty height." — Marcus Aurelius

The recent global supply chain disruptions provide a perfect illustration of why we need systemic intelligence to address today's interconnected challenges. When COVID-19 hit, organizations responded individually - cutting production, reducing inventory, and laying off workers. While these decisions made sense from each organization's perspective, they collectively amplified system-wide disruption, leading to shortages and inflation that we're still grappling with today.

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“The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social-psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent, intractable global problems arise directly from this mismatch.”

—Donella Meadows

This is where systemic intelligence (SysQ) becomes essential. Rather than viewing problems in isolation, SysQ provides tools and frameworks to understand how different parts of a system interact across organizational boundaries. It helps us see the deeper structures driving complex problems, revealing crucial time delays and feedback loops that traditional analysis often misses.

THE EXTRA VALUE OF SYSTEMIC INTELLIGENCE

Systemic intelligence adds three critical dimensions to problem-solving and strategy creation:

Shared Understanding —

SysQ provides a common language and visualization tools (like stock-and-flow mapping) that help diverse stakeholders build shared mental models of complex systems. This shared understanding is crucial for effective collaboration across organizational boundaries.

Long-term Perspective —

By making time delays and feedback loops visible, SysQ helps organizations move beyond quick fixes to develop solutions that address root causes and consider long-term implications.

Collaborative Solutions —

Instead of optimizing individual parts, SysQ encourages stakeholders to consider the health of the entire system, leading to more effective collaborative responses to complex challenges.

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BUILDING SYSTEMIC INTELLIGENCE CAPACITY

For NGOs and communities looking to develop systemic intelligence, I recommend starting with these key practices:

Build Shared Maps —

Create visual representations of the system you're trying to understand. Focus on identifying key resources, flows, and feedback loops that generate current outcomes.

Focus on Physics —

Pay attention to the actual resources and constraints in your system - what I call the "physics." This helps ground discussions in reality rather than assumptions.

Look for Time Delays —

Identify where significant delays exist between actions and their effects. This understanding is crucial for developing realistic implementation timelines and managing expectations.

Foster Cross-boundary Dialogue —

Create regular opportunities for stakeholders from different parts of the system to share perspectives and develop shared understanding.

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MAKING SENSE OF SOCIETAL ISSUES

Through my upcoming Substack series, I'll be helping readers develop their systemic intelligence capacity by exploring real-world examples and providing practical tools for understanding complex societal issues. We'll examine cases like the supply chain disruptions, showing how systemic thinking reveals deeper patterns and more effective intervention points.

Each article will combine accessible explanations of systemic principles with practical applications to current challenges. My goal is to build a community of practitioners who can apply these tools to create more effective, sustainable solutions to our most pressing societal issues.

In today's interconnected world, success requires more than just organizational excellence - it demands systemic intelligence to understand and manage complex interdependencies. I invite you to join me on this journey of building this essential capacity together.

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NAVIGATING TODAY'S COMPLEX NEWS LANDSCAPE

In an era of information overload, systemic intelligence offers valuable tools for making sense of today's rapid-fire news cycle. Rather than viewing each headline in isolation, SysQ helps us understand how different events and trends interconnect and influence each other.

For example, when analyzing current geopolitical tensions, systemic thinking reveals how economic policies, resource constraints, and social dynamics create reinforcing feedback loops that can either escalate or de-escalate conflicts. This deeper understanding helps us move beyond simplistic narratives to grasp the full complexity of global events.

Pattern Recognition —

SysQ helps identify recurring patterns in seemingly unrelated events, revealing deeper systemic structures that drive similar outcomes across different contexts.

Multiple Perspectives —

By encouraging us to consider various stakeholders' viewpoints, SysQ provides a more nuanced understanding of complex social and political issues.

Future Implications —

Understanding systemic connections helps us better anticipate potential long-term consequences of current events and policy decisions.

THE CASE FOR SYSQ JOURNALISM — WHY WE NEED A NEW APPROACH TO COVERING THE “NEWS”

The increasingly complexifying, interconnected world is inscrutable to typical approaches to news gathering, analyzing and sharing — even in those rare cases where the news is analyzed. We need an approach that moves from merely reporting the news into a systemic sense-making approach that generates insight. In short, we need to surface above the ocean of news “events”, moving from data to information to insight.

SysQ Journalism, if implemented, would be a powerful way of reporting that goes beyond just telling isolated stories. Instead, SysQ Journalism would show how different issues are connected. The main goal is to reveal the systems and structures behind the challenges we face, helping people who want to make a difference understand the bigger picture. By using a systemic intelligence approach, this type of journalism will help communities understand the root causes of problems, which can lead to better solutions. It will create more informed and engaged citizens that can solve community challenges and ultimately the urgent global issues we face. SysQ Journalism, because it is based on systemic intelligence promotes the tackling issues with a connected and holistic view.

The need for systems journalism is urgent because the world is facing many interconnected challenges, and it’s crucial to equip and empower people who can drive change. Traditional journalism often doesn’t capture the complexity of these issues, which can lead to misunderstandings and ineffective responses. Systems journalism, on the other hand, provides a complete picture and emphasizes teamwork, problem-solving, and adaptability. By giving people the tools and knowledge they need, it helps break down barriers and encourages innovative solutions, promoting essential skills for those working to bring about global change.

The importance of systems journalism is further highlighted by the Great Unraveling of the global polycrisis, which describes the breakdown of global systems due to multiple crises.1 To address these problems, it’s important to improve the skills of leaders and influencers so they can use a systemic approach in their decisions. Systems journalism is crucial in this effort as it sparks learning and change. It shows how global issues are connected, encouraging a broader way of thinking necessary to tackle the complex problems of our time and helping to create a more informed and involved society.

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GLOBAL DYNAMICS — USING SYSTEMS JOURNALISM TO MAKE SENSE IN TURBULENT TIMES

In 2023, in an effort to promote systems journalism and make sense of global issues, I produced a video called Global Dynamics — Making Sense in Turbulent Times. The video includes an ecosystem map showing the interconnections between several global phenomena, including:

• Rising authoritariansim

• Polarization and extremism

• Dark money influence on politics

• Corruption

• Cryptocurrency

• Social media influence

• Climate change

  
  I will create several future posts describing the issues in the global ecosystem map — as individual and interconnected issues — to the Societal Applications section. Understanding these interconnections could help identify the levers needed to avert future crises or mitigate current and future ones.

You can watch the video here.

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SUMMARY

As we face increasingly complex global challenges — from climate change to technological disruption — systemic intelligence becomes not just useful, but essential. It provides the cognitive tools we need to navigate uncertainty and work toward more effective, sustainable solutions. Systems Journalism is the vehicle for building our SysQ and insight regarding important global dynamics. We need this insight and capacity to navigate the turbulent waters of today…and tomorrow.

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1 Heinberg, R. and Miller, A., Welcome to the Great Unraveling: Navigating the Polycrisis of Environmental and Social Breakdown, Post Carbon Institute, 2023

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