
Systemic Insight
Systemic insight is a way of thinking and acting in situations marked by ambiguity and complexity. It is a process framework when many things seem intertwined, or we are unsure how our decisions cause ripples in a broader system. Systemic Insight harnesses the different perspectives and agencies of the people involved to explore the possibilities in a system.
Systemic Insight is designed around six postures that invite us to pay attention and behave differently. The postures can either be used as a template to design a change process or add another dimension to a conventional project planning process. Individual postures are helpful for guiding a reflexive process and agreeing on subsequent actions. Systemic Insight is used by individuals, teams, organisations, and networks.
PAUSE AND REFLECT
The Pause and reflect posture allows us to slow down momentarily to assess our biases and assumptions. How are our biases and assumptions playing out? Do we have any doubts, contradictions, or mixed signals to which we should pay attention? Is there anything we should consider before proceeding?
DISCOVER
The posture of discovering what is going on puts the focus on building situational awareness while not necessarily revealing every detail of what is going on. Complex situations can only be understood by engaging with them. But first, we must explore some of the patterns, constraints and variations in the system that are shaped by the history and emergent pressures on the system. We can map constraints, connections, exchanges, attractors, identities, habitual practices and rituals, diversity, understand roles and scripts, and capture and feel the aesthetics, the moods, the rhythms, etc. Instead of combining many different kinds of discovery, we recommend that only enough discovery be done to enable coherent decisions. In other words, we don’t try to analyse the system from all angles before deciding. Instead, we collect sufficient information to shift to another posture.
MAKE SENSE
Making sense is about exploring what is happening beneath the surface so we can act meaningfully. In this posture, we explore the patterns and constraints beneath the surface that cannot be expressed in data or facts but are revealed in behaviours, anecdotes, and decisions. It recognises that indecisions, contradictions, or compromises also shape the patterns in the system. What is going on cannot be completely known, but we can calibrate what we observe and think this means in a group or team. We should also invite dissenting views to diversify the response to an issue or situation. In a complex system, we make sense by taking small actions and then carefully observing our effect on the patterns in the system. We ask how we can amplify or dampen the patterns that we believe are best for the context.
DEFINE DIRECTION
Defining a direction is a posture that focuses on figuring out what we consider a “better” situation than the one we perceive now. It is not about describing an ideal future or developing a plan to reach Utopia. We need to get an idea of what stories we want to hear more of and what stories we want to hear less of. Defining direction is about having a broad conversation about what “better” could look like, or where we want to head towards. Defining direction also includes agreeing with other actors on what we can do together and what is desirable for all of us. However, the strategic intent is not an attempt to get everybody to agree on a specific action or plan, but to create a structure that allows a common direction of travel to emerge, a sense of direction that brings different people and organisations together on a shared journey.
ACT WITH
Acting meaningfully with others in a complex living system is a delicate matter. Yet we do so all the time. Indeed, we cannot fail to influence a system we are part of. The questions to focus on through this posture are: What do we do next? How do we act based on what we know? What are different things we could try to explore in the space of the possible? We need to understand how to intervene in a complex living system. Directly fixing problems leads to unintended consequences and is generally counterproductive. Change often occurs because of a change in perception or relationships between different nodes in the context. Possible ways to act are adaptive moves, portfolios of safe-to-fail experiments, or bringing people together in dialogue.
ADJUST
Adjusting is what we need to be constantly doing; all the other postures feed into this. Learning is about monitoring and measuring change. We need to be able to assess the consequences of our actions, most notably the unintended ones (there are always unintended actions). We need to be able to capture weak signals to react early to unintended changes. We need to amplify positive patterns and damp down negative patterns. Yet learning and adjusting are about much more than monitoring; they are about learning how to be and act together and adapt to and with each other.
Additional Resources
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Training event on Systemic Insight
Join the Mesopartner Academy this July for a five-day training event themed: Facilitate change that matters.
This new event will enable facilitators of economic and social change processes to guide and shape the collaboration of stakeholder groups and networks. Register soon to ensure your space!
Order a Systemic Insight Facilitation Kit
The Hexi Kit is a facilitation method that enables individuals and groups to understand a situation or improve situational awareness. Systemic Insight enables bottom-up innovation and decision-making based on a shared understanding of what is happening, what is possible and what is changing in the immediate context. The Hexi Kit can be used on a flat surface, such as a table or the floor. The 2025 version of the kit consists of six posture cards and twelve provocation cards. Contact Annelien