Organizations are systems of interrelated and often interdependent parts.To decode the workplace, to have insights into what is happening around you, start with this key.The workplace is a system made up of smaller systems and is part of larger systems.This is a fundamental aspect of organizational life.Parts, activities, people, and resources are interrelated.Thinking about how aspects of the workplace are related to other aspects can give you insights.How does my work affect other people?How is my work affected by activities in other parts of the organization?How is our organization affected by changes in the external environment, such as the economy, government, or changes in society?Systems thinking can be powerful.Ludwig von Bertalanffy, a biologist, developed the tenets of General Systems Theory in the 1950s.1 He noticed that his research was continually being affected by the research of other biologists.He realized that there was interdependence among biological research.Laws of growth and adaptation applied to all aspects of biology.Then it occurred to him that the same was true for all of existence.Everything is part of a system.For Bertalanffy, a system was any entity maintained by the mutual interaction of its parts, from atom to cosmos and everything in between.2We live our lives in systems but we rarely think about the systems.You are a biological organism with a circulatory system, respiratory system, nervous system, reproductive system, and others.Develop a problem breathing and you will think about your respiratory system.Develop a problem with your heart and you will think about your circulatory system.A system running smoothly probably will go unnoticed.A system that has a problem comes to the forefront.The same is true in the workplace.You are a physical system composed of atoms and molecules.You are a symbiotic system.Do you know what percent of the total cells in your body are actually human?About 10%.3 Most of the cells in your body and on your body are microbes, such as bacteria and viruses, many of which depend on us for their existence.We need most of them.Likewise, the workplace is a system that depends on other systems, some obvious but others that might not be readily apparent.If you are at the equator, you are on a spinning top turning slightly more than 1,000 miles per hour.Unless you are standing at the North or South Pole, you are riding a top that is spinning at a tremendous speed.This spinning planet is moving around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour.The sun with its solar system in turn is moving through the Milky Way galaxy at 52,000 miles per hour.The Milky Way galaxy is moving at a whopping 1.3 million miles per hour toward what is being called The Great Attractor, an area of the Universe that seems to be denser, and hence has greater gravity.We are bound to our planet by gravity.We only notice small changes.The Earth spins us around creating the appearance of celestial objects rising and setting as we rotate.We might see the sun’s position in the sky change with the seasons.Or we could live our lives in such a way that we do not notice celestial changes.If you so choose, however, you can watch the moon rise or sun set and experience the grandeur of this solar system.Likewise, if you so choose, you can see aspects of your workplace that otherwise would go unnoticed.Organizations are social systems.By attending to what goes on around us in the workplace, we can gain insights that we might otherwise miss, insights that might improve our job performance.Bianca had been in her current position for more than a year.She worked mostly on her own.Occasionally she developed a productivity improvement proposal that she floated up her management chain.These would come back with a few comments but none were implemented.One day Marissa invited Bianca to join her for lunch.Bianca always ate at her desk but decided today it might be good to go out.So Marissa and Bianca dropped by a local lunch spot popular with company employees.Bianca had never been there.While they were eating lunch, Bianca noticed that one of her coworkers, Juan, was sitting with the Assistant Vice President for Operations.That’s Juan over there with the Ops guy, isn’t it? Bianca asked.Yeah, I often see them eating here.I heard their kids are on the same soccer team, replied Marissa.Juan liked the idea and agreed to support her.This time her proposal was accepted and implemented.It is through interactions within a system that new system characteristics emerge.A system is more than the sum of its parts.It grows, adapts, or dies.Organizations that interact with their external environment and learn from changes in that environment are open systems.4 They grow and adapt and are healthy.Organizations that do not interact and learn from environmental changes are not healthy and can die.These chains of stores were great places to buy and listen to music.Today they are out of business.Most people buy music online.The environment changed.How is your company functioning as a system?What about your workplace?Are you staying abreast of changes in your business and the external environment?Are you in a workplace that is proactive or one that just responds?The clues are all around you.If you have a systems perspective, then you probably will make better decisions.Thinking of organizations as being systems and integrating this perspective into your decision making can be a strength.Too often people see their parts of the organization as fiefdoms or silos separated from the rest of the organization.They do not consider how others are impacted by their decisions.Sometimes people do not take a systems perspective because they are concerned that it will take more time or more energy.I am not suggesting that all decisions you make should be from a systems perspective, but I am suggesting that you should use a systems perspective for the big decisions, the important decisions.Who is going to be affected by this decision?Do you need to get their inputs?Would their inputs improve the quality of the decision, the product, or the service?The prototype of the aircraft was sleek, fast, and fuel efficient.Potential sales were large.Nick was a late addition to the team evaluating the new aircraft.His job was to determine how much time and how many people would be needed to maintain the aircraft and then determine how much that maintenance would cost.To do so, Nick contracted with a company to simulate maintenance on the aircraft with efficiency experts timing the various tasks as they were being performed.Nick had difficulty comprehending the results.One maintenance task involved removing a component from the aircraft to make sure it was operating correctly.Removing this one component took more than 15 minutes and it took another 15 minutes to reinstall it.Nick asked the engineers to try removing this component.Finally one of the engineers stated, You know, if we would have thought about the folks who have to do this, we could have designed this differently.It really should not take more than five minutes to remove this component. The prototype showed that an otherwise great aircraft was going to be more costly to maintain simply because the engineers had not thought about the maintenance activities and how to make them easier to accomplish.They did not have a total systems perspective.My guess is that you have encountered this scenario as a consumer.There have been many Christmas Eves when Santa had trouble following the directions to prepare a toy for the following morning’s early risers.Any product or service can be improved when the consumer’s input is included in product or service development.I have been surprised in my consulting and managerial experience at how often managers make decisions without considering those who will be affected.The odds are significant that you will be impacted in the workplace by a decision for which the consequences were not foreseen.If you pull on one cylinder, the cylinders nearby are affected.But, actually, all of the cylinders are affected.The ones nearby are impacted the most, but the cylinders farthest away are pulled to some degree.In making decisions we easily see the parts of the system affected most directly.It is more difficult to think about the more remote aspects of the system and how they might be affected.A systems perspective also can involve being aware of other systems.Sometimes we are unaware of systems that might be useful simply because we have not looked for them or asked the right people the right questions.During part of my Air Force career, I was responsible for maintaining certain data on Air Force personnel, including test scores on language proficiency.We maintained these scores in a master file of computerized personnel data.Want someone who can speak Spanish to do a particular job?I could have the names in minutes, if not seconds.So when an Air Force agency needed people who could speak Spanish, did it ask for a list?It did not realize that the system existed.Instead, planners went through names of personnel looking for people with an Hispanic surname who happened to do the type of work needed.Never underestimate the importance of the informal systems or networks that exist in the workplace.The workplace has formal and informal systems.Sometimes these informal networks are called informal organizations.5 The formal system is prescriptive.The informal organization is descriptive.It is how things actually work.This is a very powerful distinction.It is relatively easy to learn about the formal organization and how an organization says that it functions.Coming to understand the informal system and how things really work takes more time.Nara joined an office of 20 employees.All of their jobs were the same and were fairly routine.They processed a standard form submitted by many client businesses throughout the United States.Nara found the form to be cumbersome and fairly complex.Her job, like that of the other office employees, was to insure each form had been completed properly.She hoped to do well with this job and move on to bigger opportunities.After a week the office supervisor called her into his office.Nara, we are glad to have you with us.Overall you are doing a good job.Just one area you need to work on.You are processing about 50% fewer forms per day than the other people in the office.You are going to need to increase that.Think you can do it?Nara thought for a moment.She had no idea how she could do more than she was already doing, but she knew she had to try.I am sure I can do better.Thank you for bringing this to my attention.Sally had been in the office for several years and seemed to process forms quickly.Nara approached her.Sally, I was wondering if you could give me some pointers on checking these forms.It is taking me about 30 minutes for me to do one.30 minutes?That just isn’t good enough around here.Tell me what you do.Nara starting explaining in detail how she processed the form.Sally immediately saw the problem.No one here does that.If you do, you will get farther and farther behind.