Map the system around a problem, not its single cause

Trace the people, rules and feedback loops (chains in which an effect feeds back into its own cause) around a recurring problem, and where its boundary seems to sit, before you settle on its cause.

Pourquoi ça marche

The third habit, seeing systems, shifts a leader away from cause-and-effect narratives toward the patterns and emergence within a whole system. The Integral Leadership Review’s summary describes seeing the system as recognising “ever changing and shifting boundaries and patterns”. This page’s inference, not the review’s: a single-cause account closes the question early when the cause is itself part of a pattern, while a map keeps the situation open to what the interactions produce.

Comment faire

1. Write the recurring problem in one sentence, then list the three to five people, rules or loops that influence it.
2. Draw an arrow for each influence, and mark the arrows that loop back to where they started.
3. Mark where you think the boundary of the system sits, and name what sits outside it.
4. Note one thing that would change if you moved a single piece, then test it on a small scale if you can.

Données probantes

The third habit, seeing systems including emergence, is named in the Integral Leadership Review summary and in the Cultivating Leadership summary of Garvey Berger and Johnston (2015). The phrase about shifting boundaries and patterns comes from the review. The mapping method in the steps is a practical suggestion, not a method reported by the authors in the sources read. (anecdotal)

A map is a simplification too. Its value is in showing where a single fix will not hold, not in being complete.

Sources

• Integral Leadership Review (2015). Book review of Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston, Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders.
• Cultivating Leadership, book page for Simple Habits for Complex Times (Garvey Berger & Johnston), accessed 2026-10-14.

Erreur fréquente

Drawing the map once and treating its boundary as fixed, when the review describes boundaries as shifting.