"The greatest promise of the systemic perspective is the unification of knowledge across all specialties, since the same archetypes are repeated in biology, psychology, family therapy, economics, social sciences, ecology and business administration." Mark Paich.
In coaching and in any learning, the systemic approach is more necessary today than ever because complexity overwhelms us:
- We have the capacity to create more information than anyone can absorb. An interdependence is being encouraged that is very difficult to manage. The current economic-financial crisis is a clear example of this. It is very difficult to follow the speed of the changes that we are promoting. This escalation of complexity is unprecedented in our history.
The complexity can be of two types: the dynamics and that of details, with many varieties.
In dynamic complexity, cause and effect may not be close in time or space. In this case, the obvious interventions do not produce the expected results.
The systemic perspective coaching methodology is designed to understand dynamic complexity.
Its tools help us to identify the underlying structures and patterns of behavior that are hidden by the daily activity and incessant hustle and bustle that characterizes the organization in new realities. They show us that, many times, conventional solutions fail and we do not take valid actions.
The expression of Charles Kiefer with his metaphor of the switch is very pedagogical:
“When this switch is activated unconsciously, one is forever transformed into a systemic thinker. Reality is automatically viewed in a systemic as well as linear form, although many problems remain for which linear perspective is entirely adequate. The unconscious reveals as solutions certain proposals that are impossible to see linearly. Solutions that were outside of our feasible set are part of it. The systemic becomes a way of thinking, almost a way of being, and not just a methodology to solve problems ”.
The complexity of details makes all rational explanations incomplete. Human systems are very complex. We cannot fully understand them. There are enough experiences that we have "cognitive limitations." Our conscious mind can only address a small number of variables at a time.
The complexity of details is resolved in the unconscious. This is what we call the inner game of coaching.
When the conscious shifts the burden of a task to the unconscious, it takes over and becomes automatic, natural. This frees the conscious mind to focus on dynamic complexity.
The unconscious is programmed with experience:
Cultures program the unconscious.
Beliefs do too.
Language, communication, has very powerful and, at the same time, subtle effects.
But how do we teach the unconscious to structure information?
We usually give up on it.
However, this changes when we begin to dominate the systems perspective.
The unconscious is subtly reeducated to structure data in circles instead of straight lines. It happens like when we learn a foreign language. The unconscious mind deals with many more details than our conscious mind. You are not limited by the number of feedback processes you can examine. So you can integrate dynamic complexity and detail complexity.
Experimentation and training are essential for the inner game between the conscious and the unconscious.
The conceptual learning is not enough. In the same way that it is not enough for learning a language or using a computer.
The learning approach, of coaching with a systemic perspective, addresses three levels:
- Theoretical content for understanding: Disciplines, tools, guiding ideas, patterns and principles. Experimentation: dialogues, practices, nano-experiences and prototypes. Essences: the state of being of those who reach a great mastery of each discipline.
The theoretical contents of the disciplines are important for those who want to learn and even more so for the coach, for the professional. For anyone, they are the basis for understanding the disciplines and their own experimentation. For the coach, they constitute a support to continually perfect the practice of the disciplines and also to explain it to others.
Mastering any discipline requires an effort to understand the contents and to experience it.
It is a great mistake to think that when the guiding ideas and certain principles have been understood, the discipline has already been learned. It is a widespread trap to confuse intellectual understanding with learning. Learning always implies new understanding and new behavior. It implies thinking and doing, both elements are indispensable.
Almost always, the difficult thing is not knowing but doing, behavior.
In experimentation, practitioners of a discipline concentrate time and energy. It requires a conscious and constant effort.
Gradually the experimentation of a discipline becomes automatic.
We check it after a dialogue: we acknowledge our assumptions. After a nano-experience or in a coaching session: we confirm the objectives or identify spontaneous feedback processes.
At the level of essences, we do not have to focus our conscious attention to learn them.
In the same way that we make no effort to love or experience peace or joy.
The essence of the disciplines consists of a state of being, a way of being.
It is genuinely experienced by individuals and teams with a high level of mastery of the discipline.
A coach with a high command of systems thinking identifies and develops systemic tools in a natural way.
At this level the disciplines begin to converge. A common sensitivity unites them.
The sensitivity of being learners in an interdependent world.
