Systems Thinking for Instructional Designers

Catalyzing Organizational Change

M. Aaron Bond, Suha Rahif Tamim, Samantha J. Blevins, Beth R. Sockman, M. Aaron Bond, Suha Rahif Tamim, Samantha J. Blevins, Beth R. Sockman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367902964
• eBook ISBN: 9781000513424
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Industrial Management

Systems Thinking for Instructional Designers offers real-world cases that highlight how designers foster continuous improvement and manage change efforts across organizational contexts. Using a systems thinking approach, each case describes a holistic process that examines how a set of interdependent elements can be analyzed and coordinated to influence change. Instructional designers, faculty, program directors, digital learning leaders, and other development specialists will learn how systems thinking can solve authentic, real-world challenges. The book's rich narratives cover both successes and failures of meaningful growth, paradigm shifts, and large-scale problem-solving in a variety of settings, including education and industry.

1Integrating SystemsA Practical Guide

M. Aaron Bond, Suha Rahif Tamim, Samantha J. Blevins, and Beth R. Sockman

DOI: 10.4324/9781003028772-1

Challenges can arise in all workplace environments. No matter the profession, situation, or need for change, systems thinking offers a powerful approach for addressing complicated issues by providing tools for thinking, organizing, and action. Drawing upon the expertise of professionals across many disciplines, this book provides detailed narratives on how systems thinking was used to approach real-world problems. The stories detail success and failure, to help professionals develop a systems thinking approach to problem-solving and change management for sustainable solutions that meet the evolving needs of stakeholders.

Systems are intrinsic to human behavior and organizational development and can be found everywhere, in both micro and macro forms. Systems thinking is a set of synergistic analytic skills used to improve the capability of identifying and understanding the interrelated systems, predicting their behaviors, and devising modifications to them in order to produce desired effects (Arnold & Wade, 2015). Though organizations try to simplify causal relationships into linear actions, this is only part of reality. Organizations have complex needs because organizations are just that, organismic. Decisions and consequences to those decisions made within organizations do not fit nicely into a hierarchical chart. Instead, systems thinking can help organizations address complex problems which are inherently nonlinear by examining the parts and the whole simultaneously (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2015). When planning change initiatives it is essential to understand the system in which the problem exists before developing a plan to influence change. Every action can impact other areas of the system (Gibons, 2014), and if not careful, a “solution” can generate greater problems elsewhere. Systems thinking employs thoughtful problem-solving, as components are analyzed within the context, examining the interrelationships between each component and how these components affect the whole (Arnold & Wade, 2105; Senge, 2012). The process can be a challenge since generating change involves fluidity while continuously analyzing interactions (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2015; Senge, 2012).

Brief History

As theories go, systems theory and systemic thinking are fairly new in academic and popular writing. Their complex and fluid nature makes concepts challenging to grasp; as soon one mentally pins the theory down, a new concept “jumps in,” so it feels like comprehension is wiggling away. To help us understand the evolution, Midgley (2000) describes three historical waves where each addresses a different aspect of systems that enriches and expands the field.

The first wave provides grounding in general systems theory by articulating what systems are, and how systems operate. The description of systems compared how organizations were defined by others contrasted to how they actually operated. Organizations were often discussed in isolated parts, but systems emphasized the interconnected parts with the whole (Banathy, 1973; Bertalanffy, 1968; Capra, 1996; Reigeluth, 1993). From the beginning, systems theory was characterized by modeling hard systems and borrowing metaphors from biological and ecological systems that visualized interconnections and computational metaphors of networking. These metaphors helped describe the complexity of social systems (Banathy, 1973; Bertalanffy, 1968), while still providing a functional approach to operations.

The theories highlighted the interactive flows in and out of the systems while aiming to maintain equilibrium. Since equilibrium was an organic-explicit aspiration, systems theory was one of the first theories to emphasize “why” change to any system was difficult to sustain since a destabilizing force challenged the system; the system strived to revert back to the “old” way of working (Banathy, 1973; Bertalanffy, 1968; Capra, 1996; Hutchins, 1996; Reigeluth, 1993). Substantial change could not be piecemeal, but meaningful change would happen when the whole system transformed.

The second way is often known as soft systems. Less reliant on the hard metaphors of the physical world, soft systems were interpretative, intentional, and more in search of building understandings between stakeholder groups with processes to support the intentions. The focus was solving problems within an organization (Wilson & van Haperen, 2015). With greater emphasis on different stakeholders groups and the perspectives that they supplied, various models emerged that could help solve the problems by comparing people’s mental models to the real world (Checkland, 1981; Senge, 1990). Leaders championed a systems understanding as an imperative for sustainable-meaningful change. To make the process accessible, various steps were parsed with linear – interactive and iterative steps on the way to achieve solutions.

The third wave focused on critical systems thinking by addressing power relationships. Systems became a set of thinking tools for emancipation (Stroh, 2015) and expanding empowerment of people (Brown, 2017). The pluralistic ideas of systems were embraced with emphasis on stakeholder involvement, nonlinear movement, and embracing the feedback loops to make change for sustainable solutions (Meadows, 2008). Newly emerging is an extension of the third wave or perhaps a fourth wave. System thinking embraces complexity as an organic-adaptive-responsive movement (Brown, 2017; Kowch, 2019) that also includes focus on the individual (Carr-Chellman & Carr-Chellman, 2020), and, simultaneously, seeks to simplify the system’s elements (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2015). Unlike the first wave, it is accepted that the enormity of the whole system change may not be realistic for most circumstances. The focus is to improve performance by providing a new way of thinking about relationships and acknowledging the challenges and the characteristics of the systems.

Because of its broad appeal, systems theories that can be applied to education, science, business, society, and personal development (Kowch, 2019; Senge, 1990). Regardless of the system theory used or the context, there are common concepts that can be applied. The making of bread is a complex process with many inputs (ingredients), processes (kneading, baking, etc.), and many possible outputs (varieties of bread, disastrous results, mediocre success, or a perfect loaf). We will use this analogy of bread making to make explicit the commonalities to visualize each concept.

• The whole is bigger than the sum of the parts (Hutchins, 1996). We need to parse organizations to describe them, but with systems, there is an understanding that the reduction will never equal the whole. (Bread is more than the ingredients of flour, yeast, and water.)
• We have models in our mind that represent how the world works (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2015). Sometimes those mental models match reality and sometimes they do not. We always have to check the mental model. Feedback from other stakeholders helps to check the model of reality. (Bread: what is the best way to make bread?)
• Systems are messy (Kwoch, 2019). Systems are complex, nonlinear, in constant-flux, adaptive, and interconnected. As a result of the dynamism, systems are hard to describe. They are understood best with rich descriptions of the context, parts, and images (Bread: the process of making bread can also be messy, between the flour, sugar, water, and yeast, you must eventually get your hands dirty in order to knead the bread into loaves.)
• Embrace the messiness and conceptualize the interconnectedness (Hutchinson, 1996). Making a hierarchical organizational structure may support responsibilities, but not reality. Organizations are networks where innovations flow. Each part makes a difference and it doesn’t matter where it resides on the organization chart. (Bread: all the ingredients make a difference. One is not better than the other.)
• Each stakeholder and stakeholder group will have a different perspective on the process (Rogers, 2003; Senge, 1990). The stakeholders in different parts of the system, have their networks, their flow and will perceive the goal(s) based on their investments. (Bread: all the different parts that come together to create bread … farmers, transporters, baker.)
• Each stakeholder or stakeholder group will have a different definition of success (Senge, 1990). The stakeholders will have opinions about what is “best” based on their positioning, and therefore will have a different idea about what “success” looks like. (Bread: what kind of bread is best Italian, nan, pita, puri, mochi, pão de queijo?)
• Oftentimes solutions do not reside in “either/or” thinking but in “and/both” thinking (Brown, 2017; Stroh, 2015). Multiple perspectives are not necessarily competing ideas. Multiple explanations can support solutions that often acknowledge reality by meeting more stakeholder needs. (Bread: there are different ways to make bread. You can often use the ingredients of one and cook it differently and it will make a different kind. Italian bread, nan, or pão de queijo can all make a hot dog bun.)

Book Organization

This book seeks to simplify the complexity by providing a collection of real-life narratives that describe how systems thinking can be employed to influence change to ensure adoption, implementation, and sustainability. There has been much published on the importance of systems thinking for successful change, but very few through the perspective of the practitioner. Most of the published work explores theoretical foundations and mechanisms of systems thinking. Actual cases of systems thinking for change are rare. Through an instructional design perspective, these narratives will highlight an interactive and systematic process of analysis and decision-making to address both problems and actions. This collection of cases provides relevant examples to practitioners in the field. Cases are drawn from a broad spectrum of settings. This broad approach portrays the many variations of systems thinking and innovative approaches taken for change. As such, the aim is to present a book that is a useful resource for scholars and professionals alike. Though the array of cases represents a variety of settings, it only scratches the surface of the many instances in which a systems thinking approach can be applied.

Each chapter in this volume addresses a case analysis of a complex problem from a systems thinking and change perspective. Each case is purposely short to allow for quick reference and to be accessible by many audiences. While many of the cases exemplify holistic views, they have been grouped according to their emphasis: visionary change, strategic planning, implementing change, managing change, and evaluating change. As systems are complex, so are the associated change efforts. By grouping cases by process stage, the editors hope to make it easy for readers to locate cases most relevant to their own change efforts. In each grouping there are cases from K-12 education, high education, industry, and health care.

Storytelling is a great way to break the complex into understandable chunks. Authors in this edited volume were encouraged to write their cases by describing all parts of the system and the problem b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Endorsements Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Integrating Systems: A Practical Guide
• Part I Visionary Change
• Part II Strategic Planning
• Part III Implementing Change
• Part IV Managing Change
• Part V Evaluating Change
• Index