After reading the 12 comments to the proposed question, I have decided to weigh with my opinion. The comments appear to be dancing around what system thinking really is and where it originated, etc. Also the misconceptions of what lean is and what six sigma is and the combination of Lean Six Sigma or LSS. So lets define lean as the elimination of all non-value added actions (waste has too narrow of a connotation). Six Sigma is defines as an organized way to leverage decade old tools in order to eliminate variability in processes. Lean DOES NOT improve quality or excellence of a product, service or organization. Six Sigma DOES NOT improve throughput or cycle time. LSS starts to go toward system thinking by combining the two together in order to derive synergistic effects not feasible with each set of tools individually in isolation.
Now let’s dive into Systems Thinking and the convergence with QMS and LSS. Systems’ thinking has been around since the beginning in time. Aristotle was one of the first to put into a philosophical dialogue. What is the ultimate synergy of system working in perfection? Well look at Earth’s ecological systems and also the human body. Systems’ thinking is man’s philosophical approach to try and understand these complex systems and how they interact with great positive value generation with effortless ease. Now let’s get back to how this relates to value generation for organization and mankind. Remember that organizations were created by man for the sole purpose to benefit man – not for the exploitations of man. Also there is symbiotic relationship that not exists between man and the environment – earth’s ecological systems – but also between each other the communities. Here is quote from an article I just read by Tito Conti, “Quality and Value: Convergence of Quality Management and Systems Thinking”. “Systems thinking is a way of thinking that STRIVES to UNDERSTAND the complexity of the reality we are immersed in, in the particular the reality of socio-cultural systems. … ever increasing complexity of man-made systems, the dynamics imposed by exponential growth of technology … we cannot escape the systems thinking challenge.’
Very humbling to reflect. LSS can be a tool to create simplicity and then co-operations between departments, business units and thus human. Synergetic effects of social systems (which is work people!) has value generated that, if positive and aligned, is greater than the sum of the values individual units could generate in isolation. Quality is neutral and excellence is not quality, but has been misused often enough o be widely accepted by professionals. Excellence is just a product of the interactions among systems and not the sum of the actions of individual parts. We all understand that excellence of one individual unit does not translate into excellence for the entire organization, right? An organization culture and structure must be designed with system and integral thinking, which takes higher levels of critical thinking. LSS should only used for the sake of aligning the workforce toward a common goal and drive out fear and selfish agendas – ONLY LEADERSHIP can bring this together. Last thing – pay attention to Maslow’s laws on human, social interaction and behavior. The perceived gratification received by people, through motivation and engagement, is directly proportional to the value generated for the organization. This is leadership at the fifth level, which sees the interaction of systems through whole brain – 4-lens perspective of the global whole and breaks it down in simple forms for the alignment of people toward a common vision!
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Integral thinking appears to be a more focused application of system thinking. A single system is a number of processes occurring to generate an end result within that system. An organization or organism comprises itself of numerous systems in order to function in the whole environment. So within a system, several things must happen, such as initiation of action, control of the processes, monitoring of said processes, recording/documentation of data, establishment and deployment of standardized work, managing a knowledge base, allocation of resources, and the archiving of data. All systems have these elements working within the processes that create (hopefully) a desirable end result of the system. As we know full alignment and synergy of the individual system within the whole creates a sum much greater that sum of the individual systems in isolation. But as we know there seems to never to full alignment of systems focused toward the greatest outcome. This is due to lack of integration among all of the systems. Among the systems and processes residing in the individual systems lays redundancy and thus wasted energy/effort – not fully efficient. So Integral thinking must be using high levels of critical thinking to flesh out the interactions of the systems amongst themselves and their processes residing within them. As with all interactions, there are consequences and within organizations decisions always end up with trade-offs and result in misalignment. Risk assessments and mitigation coupled with scenario planning use integral thinking, which is a more pragmatic approach to system thinking.
So what tools can help us? Well LSS lends itself coupled with scenario planning. PDSA, etc cycles help us drill down and flesh out the necessary discoveries that facilitate integral thinking at higher levels. One must be able to simultaneously view and understand multiple lens/perspectives in order to grasp the interactions of various systems amongst themselves. This leads to also convergence thinking, which I am beginning to believe is what integral thinking is trying to get to. System thinking is broader sense of acknowledging that systems exist and interact. Integral thinking is using system thinking coupled with convergence thinking approaching order to understand how to impact system interactions for maximum alignment, thus positive outcome. Eliminating losses between system interaction creates greater benefits and higher performance.
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