Methodology
Complexity requires companies to acquire a new kind of thinking to thrive in uncertainty. Thinking systemically is a human skill that every decision maker must practice to foresee and enact necessary change. It enables continuous innovation that is fundamental to compete.
In order to leave behind the familiar but inadequate ways of traditional hierarchies and command and control, we have to change the way we think. We have to learn to think systemically. In our 30 years of experience in the field, we can state that this ability that is so vital, especially for decision-makers, can be acquired and fortified by learning and practicing the Thinking Processes from the Theory of Constraints.
In the 1990s, starting from the idea of managing flows (money, products, ideas, etc.), Dr. Goldratt developed a linguistic framework that can greatly mitigate the risk of linear thinking as applied to a complex environment. He developed an approach to thinking that he labeled ‘Thinking Processes’ designed to overcome ‘layers of resistance’ that unavoidably are encountered when tackling a process of change.
The Thinking Processes are not an ‘add on’. As Dr. Goldratt states in 'It’s Not Luck', they are the hard core of the Theory of Constraints. We will never be able to emphasize sufficiently how powerful the Thinking Processes are. It would sound corny to say something like “The Thinking Processes transform dreams into reality.” However, if you understand intellectually and emotionally how to use them, it would not be so far from the truth.
The logic that permeates the Thinking Processes, while portraying itself as a rational approach to tackling issues, in reality is much more. Through language and the meaning that language creates, the Thinking Processes enable the proper verbalization of the emotions that guide anybody’s thought process. They guide their users to systematically reveal the mental models and assumptions that create a situation of blockage and to challenge them in a way that creates breakthroughs.
Over the years of working with these Thinking Processes, we have been able to witness their remarkable effectiveness in ‘shaking up’ people’s thinking and enabling them to envisage a new reality and how to make the new reality happen. By using this method on an ongoing basis, people learn to think systemically. They begin to see connections that they would never have seen by using traditional, linear thinking approaches. Any company that uses the Thinking Processes in a continuous way will increase the individual and collective intelligence of the organization.
Next steps:
Explore the patterns behind familiar growth symptoms.
