If we look for it, we can find evidence of our deep interconnectedness to all things every single day. Whether it be as old friends and contacts pop back into our lives and we realise they were ‘always there really’ or when we take a business decision thinking we’ve fully considered its range of outcomes and impacts and we discover that in fact it’s touched people or situations far beyond our initial thinking. It could be that we gave someone a supportive hand and think nothing more of it but maybe discover (or not) that in fact it was a fundamental factor in their lives.
The point is that our connections can be visible and every day, and they can extend much more widely and be subtle or even seemingly invisible to us. As leaders it’s vital that we consider this web of connection within our system. A system that we may call our team, or the organisation as a whole or even more widely the stakeholder groups and communities that our activities impact.
Thinking in systems terms rather than in isolated interactions and transactions gives a much more diverse and real insight to how our ‘world’ functions. If we contemplate the butterfly effect which invites us to consider that even the smallest, seemingly insignificant action can have the most profound impacts then we may be inclined to open our awareness to the potential impacts of our own actions in a different way.
When we then translate that to the system in which we lead we can start to consider the web of connections, relationships and linkages (visible and invisible) that could provide insight into changes, help us define more sustainable pathways for improvement or reflect differently on some of the cultural or human factors we see present within the system. In other words, see a new level of cause and effect.
We may think we don’t have time for this given the amount of concrete activity that sits on our plate day in day out. The reality is that thinking in terms of connectivity and systems isn’t about a time overhead, it’s a mindset that shapes our leadership behaviours and our capabilities. We start to think differently, we sense more broadly and perhaps most importantly we take more care over our thoughts, words and actions knowing that they will have longer lasting impacts than maybe we had contemplated.
If we were willing to accept that in the universal world of energy that governs our planetary and human life, our thoughts, words and actions had nuclear style half-lives – in other words they stay in the system for eons – then we may consider that our leadership responsibility is to ensure that we only ever contribute from the heart.
Regardless of whether we accept the macro picture, the call remains strong for us to see ourselves moving and leading within a powerful interconnected web of relationships – processes, thoughts, culture, human, groups and so on and to measure our leadership against the yardstick of long-lasting effects and ask ourselves ‘are we making the system and people’s lives within it, better or worse?’