As leaders, impacting change is one of the more important aspects of our roles.  Yet, nearly 70% of all change management efforts fail, split relatively equally between employee resistance and poor leadership as the main culprit.  This creates a culture of us versus them in a way that is not healthy or productive, but in fact, perpetuates the challenges we face in implementing change. 

We all live and work in a matrix of interconnected systems.  Each individual within that system impacts and influences the whole, and is impacted and influenced by each system in which they interact.  It’s bi-directional.  

I’ve spent nearly 10 years writing, talking, and thinking about systems and their impact on us as individuals and how we make long term, systemic change. We live and work in systems:  families, teams, divisions, companies, or larger systems such as healthcare, criminal justice, or education.  

Systems theory provides us with a lens to perceive organizations not as isolated entities but as intricate webs of interconnected parts. It teaches us that nothing within a system exists in isolation. Every action, every decision has a ripple effect that resonates throughout the entire system. 

The individual impact of change

We’ve all likely experienced the difference one person can make on a team - either by addition or subtraction.  This provides an important insight into how we can harness systems thinking to lead impactful change.  All systems are influenced and impacted by the individuals that make up that system, and each person, based on their lived experiences, are impacted and influenced by the system in different ways.  Understanding this dynamic creates insights into where and how we can leverage our team to drive impact. As a leader, if we don’t understand each individual that we serve, the systems in which they interact, inside and outside of our companies, then we miss an opportunity to create meaningful and lasting change in our people, our teams, our companies, and our communities.  

This requires a deep understanding of the individuals we lead and serve, and not just a surface level understanding.  If you view each person in terms of an iceberg, only about 10% of what makes us us is visible, or above the water line.  The other 90% is invisible.  So to truly understand how team members are impacted by what is happening at work, or in their communities, or around the world, we need to understand how they are impacted based on their individual identity and lived experience.  

I had a former colleague who had a very different upbringing than I had.  She came from a wealthier background and attended an Ivy League school.  I came from rural Southern Indiana and was a first generation college student.  She was also a woman of color, and I am a cisgender white man.  We each had experiences and identities that made us who we are, and we also had moments where we experienced work and work culture in very different ways.  We were each impacted and influenced by systems in our day to day and work lives that needed to be understood and acknowledged for us to continue to do the work we needed to do. 

From a business perspective, each department or division works together to create and function within the larger system, or business.  Each department is influenced and impacted by those around them.  For years, we have talked about “breaking down the silos” in our companies.  What we often miss is the why.  We know that “collaboration is important” and that the “left hand needs to know what the right hand is doing.”  Yet, we often don’t dive any deeper to create an intentional understanding of how the pieces—or people—fit, why they fit, and how they are interacting on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  

It’s the individuals within each of those areas that impact how the system functions, which ultimately continues to influence and impact the system.  I love this paragraph from author Heather Plett on how systems evolve, in positive and negative ways, and how it gives us a look into our future:  

Systems usually evolve as ways to organize us.  A system without some form of organization won’t be able to sustain itself or the purpose it’s meant for, and so, if we value a system and find meaning in it, we organize it.  

The problem is that what organizes us often begins to control us.  When we become too rigid to allow a system to evolve, when we put value of the system above the value of the individuals in that system, and when we enable a measurement of worthiness into a system, then that system is no longer just organizing us, it’s controlling and measuring us.

When we put greater value of the system above the value of the individuals in that system…

This is a powerful statement and one that we need to spend time contemplating as it relates to what we value within our companies.  Are we prioritizing profits over people?  Systems over humanity?

We so often think in terms of quarterly revenues, data on spreadsheets, and the priorities of the company at large; prioritizing each of these areas above the individual components of the system (our people). But if we aren’t prioritizing the humans behind the cells on the spreadsheet, not only in terms of recognizing them as unique individuals, but understanding their unique roles within our organizations and the roles they play, individually, in impacting our culture and abilities to navigate change.

Systems thinking empowers us to anticipate challenges, leverage synergies, and drive meaningful change.  As importantly, it allows us to understand each of our team as individual humans that are individually impacted by these systems, understand the spheres of influence within and across our organization, and consider innovative and unique ways of interacting and working together.  

By viewing and understanding each component part—the individual humans—we naturally begin to lead from greater empathy.  According to a 2023 survey by Ernst and Young, 90% of workers believe that empathic leadership leads to greater job satisfaction, 79% believe it decreases turnover, while 86% say it boosts morale, and 87% say it's essential to fostering an inclusive environment.  Additional data from the E&Y survey shows empathy also increases innovation and creativity (87%), increases productivity( 85%), and increases revenue (83%).

A couple of years ago, I had an employee that I hired as a direct report.  About a year later, due to a number of factors, I had to let that employee go.  A few months later, they reached out to me as they were launching their own LLC and asked me to be their business coach as they launched their new company, which I did for about a year. What I know about understanding systems as a conscious leader, is that this employee wasn’t a bad person, or even a bad hire.  They experienced significant change in their personal and professional life which led to them not being the right fit for that position at that time.  Understanding how each aspect of this employee's experience fit into the overall picture of our team and organization, allowed us to make hard decisions, in a way that was respectful of each of our shared humanity.  

The good news is, we can learn to do this better.  The bad news is, you can’t fake it. This isn’t a soft approach to leadership, but an imperative to drive business innovation and effectiveness and our ability to manage change, which, as we know, is the only consistent.