‘If you want to understand a system, get the entire system into the room.’

This advice is often offered when you embark on a systems thinking project: bring together the multiple stakeholders impacted by a situation or a problem, experts who have studied it in depth, and sponsors who have the means to solve it. Tap into their multiple perspectives and collective intelligence to develop a deeper and well-rounded understanding of the situation, and this will help you come up with more robust solutions.

It is something I strive for on every project, and something I have pursued throughout my professional journey, first as a research scientist, then as a marketing professional and later, as a systems thinking educator.

In theory, it’s no-brainer.

But in practice…

Have you tried bringing multiple stakeholders in the same (virtual or physical) room? People with different perspectives, different incentives? People using different jargon, and driven by different incentives?

It’s not that simple, is it?

 I’ve been in situations where…

…people refused to be in the same room as each other.

…people were so polite to each other that they nodded to everything that was said, and ended up adding very little value.

…people attacked each other’s ways of thinking, mocked their points of view and tried to discredit them.

…some people took over the entire conversation, imposing their point of view and leaving no room for others’ perspectives.

 I’ve also been in situations where people came in with a deep desire to talk to each other and collaborate to solve a common issue. But I have learned (in some cases, the hard way!) not to take that for granted, and to always be prepared to deal with reactions to differences in perspectives and beliefs.

Once you get the ‘system in a room’ , how can you ensure that the difference and diversity among the multiple stakeholders is not a hindrance, but an asset for the benefit of all?

This is a topic that I’m researching on an ongoing basis. Today I want to share two ideas with you, and a related thought experiment.

I’d love to know your thoughts on the subject, so once you’ve read the below, hit reply and let me know.

1.The Robbers Cave Experiment

This was an experiment conducted in the 1950s. A group of twelve-year-old boys who had never met before were observed during a three week stay at a summer camp. As part of regular camp activities and competitions, the researchers split the boys into two groups, and created conditions that led to the formation of conflict between them. This conflict developed into hostile attitudes towards the other group, including pranking, name-calling, negative stereotyping, and sometimes, physical violence.

Then the researchers tried to bring the boys from the two groups together, to resolve the conflict. They encouraged them to mix, eat meals and play with each other. It didn’t work. The boys identified strongly with their respective groups and the divide persisted.

The researchers then tried to introduce a ‘common enemy’ in the form of an outside summer camp. This didn’t work either. The two groups remained hostile to each other.

Finally, the researcher introduced what they call superordinate goals. These were goals that were important to the summer camp but could only be achieved if both groups worked together, for example, finding water when there was a water shortage in the camp, or pooling funds to watch a movie that both groups wanted to watch but neither could pay for separately.

This worked. It reduced conflict between the two groups, and increased cross-group cooperation and friendships.

 Although the situation of induced conflict is a bit extreme, the lesson I took from this experiment is as follows:

Before bringing the system into the room, it’s important to consider the goal of the collaboration, and to ensure that is something that none of the stakeholders can achieve on their own. Is there a way to highlight each stakeholder’s role as instrumental to achieving the goal? Is there a perception of a zero-sum goal, in which one party’s gain is another’s loss? 

Such considerations help articulate the common goal, discourage competition and encourage collaboration before anyone has even entered the proverbial room.

2.The four stages of listening

You may have heard of Theory U, developed by Otto Scharmer at the Presencing Institute. It’s a framework for creating conditions for innovation at a systemic level. My favourite learning from Theory U is that in any conversation, there can be four stages of listening, summarised very briefly below:

1. Downloading

At this level of listening, we look for information to confirm our beliefs, what we already know, and confirm that we know what we’re doing.

2. Factual listening

We focus on learning things that we don’t know. We want to broaden our knowledge; we are inquisitive and focus on the facts and data presented to us during the conversation.

3. Empathic listening

We connect with the person we are speaking to. We pay attention to their emotions, their motivations, and the circumstances they are in. We open up to seeing things from their perspective. This level of listening provides us with a more nuanced understanding of the situation than factual listening.

4. Generative listening

This is considered to be the highest level of listening. At this level, we are not only engaged with others in the conversation, but we are also deeply engaged with the ideas and ambitions being discussed. We are committed to co-creating and supporting the ideal outcome. We are energised for action.

The idea is that, in order to make the most of having representatives of ‘the system in the room’, you need to move people from a downloading mode to a generative mode.

How do you do that? How long would it take? This is something that I am exploring and experimenting with, and will share with you if you’re interested. 

In the meantime. Here is your thought experiment for this month:

3. August thought experiment

I have been working as a connector for multidisciplinary teams and silos for over a decade. I never really thought about the way people listen until I read about the four levels of listening (Downloading, Factual, Empathic and Generative). Once I started to pay attention, I realised that in most situations, Downloading, and Factual Listening were by far the most common.

In fact, I now expect Downloading to happen every time I bring a group of people together for the first time. It works in two ways: people ‘download’ their favourite thoughts and ideas as they speak, and others listen out for what confirms their views of the world and reject/ ignore the rest.

So I incorporate ‘Downloading’ time at the start of my workshops - kind of to let people get those things off their chests and help them to feel listened to and valued.

So your thought experiment this month is to pay attention, next time you are in a group setting or teams meeting. What is the dominating mode of listening? What is your level of listening?

Over to you.

Hit the reply button and let me know what you think.

How do you maximise collaboration between different teams? What types of a listener are you? Let me know if anything in this post resonated – or not.

 Until September…wishing you all the good things!

Houda

p.s. I am still experimenting with the format and content of this newsletter. Feel free to send over any comments, criticism, ideas, etc. I’ll be most grateful.