Along the way I’ve attended many workshops and done much research on systems thinking, as well as neuroscience. But my best training for working with systems has come from my master’s degree in English. As a student and later a teacher, I learned to pay attention to recurring themes and symbols in literature and thus construct a deeper meaning than the surface plot of the story. The richness and design came from the themes and symbols.

            Of course, once the author has written it, the story doesn’t change except for the new perspective of the next reader. With human systems, on the other hand, people can rewrite the script in a moment by making a different choice.

            Truly working with systemic change requires more than work flow charts or systems tools. It requires deeply listening to people’s stories until the themes emerge, then building trust through truthfulness so that people see that they can serve themselves and their organization better through making different choices. Finally, they need a period of time when these different choices are supported and become routine but not fixed—because the only constant is change.

            The ultimate goal of systemic change is to create an environment in which people can say what truly needs to be said, thus maximizing the intelligence and information which is already there and which is enough to bring about the change we want to see.