JLBC Leadership and Systems
OBJECTIVES:
JLBC Cadets List three steps in the systems thinking approach.
JLBC Cadets Identify barriers to our ability to use methods of thinking.
There is a simple, neat, and wrong solution for every problem.
Many managers mistakenly think that changing just one part of a complex problem will cure the ails of an entire system. Everyday management thinking too often looks for specific cause and effect relationships in problem-solving that ignores the effect on and feedback from the whole system.
JLBC Cadets Leaders operate in the realm of bewildering uncertainty and staggering complexity. Today's problems are rarely simple and clear-cut. If they were, someone else would likely have already solved them. If not well-considered—and sometimes even when they are—today's solutions become tomorrow's problems. JLBC Cadets' Success in the contemporary operating environment requires different ways of thinking about issues and organizations. JLBC Cadets, we will introduce you to some concepts of systems thinking. It suggests that it is a framework that should be understood and applied by leaders at all levels, especially those within the acquisition community. JLBC Cadets It is insufficient and often counterproductive for leaders merely to act as good cogs in the machine. JLBC Cadets Leaders perform a valuable service when they discern that a venerated system or process has outlived its usefulness or is operating as designed initially but against the organization's overall purpose. Sometimes we forget that people create systems based on an idea about what should happen at a given time.