You feel off. Something that awakens not just your body, but your mind. That sensation when you’re facing a complex problem in your business or life — where all the parts seem disconnected, and you can’t quite figure out how to make sense of it all.
You’re trying to build something meaningful — whether it’s a sustainable online business, a remote career, or simply a life that gives you true freedom. But everywhere you look, you see only fragments: isolated tasks, disconnected projects, and problems that seem to exist in their own universes.
This feeling, which says that everything is disconnected and nothing fits together in a meaningful pattern, is painful to experience. However, you understand there’s some truth in this assessment.
Research from MIT shows that professionals who master systems thinking report a 29% direct positive impact on their careers, with nearly half (48%) seeing immediate benefits in their work. But more importantly, 77% report it fundamentally changes how they manage responsibilities and lead projects. They begin approaching their work more holistically — and with dramatically better results.
What if instead of seeing fragments, you could see patterns? What if rather than being overwhelmed by complexity, you could navigate it with confidence? This is the power of systems thinking — the ability to see the whole when others see only parts.
As systems scientist Russell Ackoff observed,
“A system is never the sum of its parts; it’s the product of their interaction.”
When you understand this concept deeply, you unlock a new way of approaching every challenge you face.
In this article, I’ll share with you a practical framework for systems thinking that can transform how you approach your work and life. You’ll discover how to identify the objects and functions that make up any system, how they interact, and how this understanding can lead to breakthrough insights that others miss entirely.
The power of dawn. The light of sunrise. With fog not yet dissolved in your head. But a framework that will bring extraordinary clarity.
The Awakening Power of Seeing Interconnections
To determine the complete picture of what you’re dealing with — whether in business, life, or a specific process that needs adjustment — a systems approach or systems thinking helps tremendously. And to learn this approach, I want to share the very tools I learned from, acquired, and which now subconsciously reside in my mind. I probably use them without even thinking about it consciously.
However, all the information I present about any process, business, or situation is presented precisely in this format or key. Therefore, my brain is likely just trained to arrange everything into a systems framework and then deliver a complete, ready picture.
So, what is systems thinking? It’s a way of viewing or representing any situation, object, or subject from a systems perspective. We need to look for and find the system. A system doesn’t exist everywhere. If we turn to the definition of a system, it’s a set of interconnected elements whose interaction leads to a set goal or result.
Not everything in the world is a system. However, most things we encounter in daily life are either elements of some larger system or systems themselves. So it’s at least useful to look at things from this angle and understand what we’re dealing with.
Renowned systems thinker Donella Meadows defines a system as “an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something.”
This definition highlights three crucial aspects:
- Elements,
- Interconnections,
- Purpose.
Without all three, you don’t have a system.
I particularly like the approach used in classical systems analysis. One modeling notation is IDEF0, developed in the 1970s for military purposes. Its relevance remains unchanged today. Even though the notation itself has been transformed many times, and now there are more modern notations, with IDEF0 not being used as frequently, for many it still remains a daily tool because it’s truly a universal approach that allows describing many things using a universal method.
Let’s start with the basics
Every system can be represented as several elements that comprise it. These elements are so-called independent atomic particles that are indivisible. We can consider them as separate objects. If we take the example of a watch mechanism, it’s an individual gear or any part.
Of course, we can break it down to atoms or elementary particles, but when we talk about a mechanism we can manipulate, we’re talking about the parts from which we assemble these watches. And the gears themselves, even when assembled together, don’t work until we start the mechanism — that is, wind the spring. And this is already something dynamic, some process, an element in motion, or an element in the process of change, or something that happens over time.
This something is called a function or process. In systems terminology, these are functions — some dynamic change in the state of individual system elements. Dynamic means it changes over time, whether due to interaction with other elements or not. The main thing is that it changes. The gear’s position changes over time; this gear rotates, thereby moving the next gear, which, for example, initially connects to another external system called “human” when they turn the winding gear, winding the spring itself.
This is already an interaction with an external system, but we’ll get to that gradually. First, we’re talking about a system isolated from other systems. In this case — a watch.
I like to use a watch as an example because it’s very simple to understand and easy to visualize. It has a simple and clear goal — to show the exact time according to settings. And a fairly understandable mechanism — a set of gears, springs, and other parts that are closely interconnected.
There is not a single extra gear. If we remove even one, the watch will stop showing the time correctly. If we try to add something, the watch will also stop working as expected. These are very understandable and simple system properties worth considering.
Systems scientist W. Edwards Deming famously analyzed organizational problems and concluded that “94% belong to the system (responsibility of management); 6% are special.” In other words, over 90% of issues in organizations are due to systemic causes rather than individual errors. This statistic quantifies the relevance of systems thinking: it implies that to solve the vast majority of performance problems, one must take a systems view rather than a narrow focus.
According to research from the public health sector, 72% of professionals admit to having little knowledge of systems thinking tools, yet 87% express high interest in developing those skills. This mismatch between demand and current capabilities highlights the growing recognition of systems thinking’s value in navigating complex challenges.
So, how do you start thinking systemically? We have several parts into which we can divide a system, as we’ve already discussed. These are its individual elements or objects — indivisible elements from the system’s perspective that are independent particles included in this system. Like gears in a watch.
The next part is a function or process that occurs within the system. For example, a gear rotates, the winding mechanism moves the spring, or the spring stretches, the watch hand turns. All these are processes or functions — dynamically changing properties of the system over time.
Connect elements and functions together and the system emerges.
The Systems Thinking Framework: Your Step-by-Step Path to Clarity
To start applying systems thinking to your challenges, I’ll share a practical framework based on both my personal experience and the most effective approaches validated by research. According to a study in business leadership, training senior executives in systems thinking led to significant improvements in organizational performance metrics. After applying system-wide optimization strategies, 100% (it’s hard to believe, I know) of teams in the study improved their financial performance, and most teams improved their quality performance indicators as well.
Let me walk you through the process that has transformed how I approach every complex situation in my life and business.
Step 1: Define Your System’s Purpose
Before diving into components and processes, start by asking: “What is the goal or function of the system as a whole?” Every system exists for a reason. As management cyberneticist Stafford Beer famously stated,
“The purpose of a system is what it does”
— not what we think it should do.
For example, if you’re analyzing your online business, the purpose might be “to generate sustainable income while providing value to customers.” For a morning routine, it might be “to prepare physically and mentally for a productive day.”
This step ensures you remember that components and processes aren’t random; they should collectively serve the system’s aim. Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline, reminds us that
“Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static snapshots.”
When I analyze any system, I always start with its purpose. This creates immediate focus and prevents me from getting lost in details that might not contribute to the overall goal.
Step 2: Make a List of All Objects
To compile a list of objects, you need to expertly go through all elements that you believe may be part of the system. And here immediately arises the question: how do I know if this is an element of the system or not? And here the principle of the basket of mushrooms works perfectly.
If we go to the forest to collect mushrooms, but we don’t know which of these mushrooms are poisonous and which are edible — we simply don’t have such knowledge — then in this case, there’s one approach that works flawlessly. And it’s safe. First, we collect all mushrooms into a basket, and then, when we return home, we conduct research and check which of these mushrooms are poisonous and which are edible. And accordingly, we sort them: poisonous ones we throw away, edible ones we keep.
We need to do the same with the lists of objects and functions. That is, we first gather into these baskets absolutely everything that may even knowingly not be an element of the system but somehow entered our field of vision, and we decide to include it. Therefore, at the first stage, it’s better to include more than less.
It’s better to include extra elements that can be removed later because the list is, of course, also dynamic. It can be changed, it can be adjusted. And when the process of system assembly is already underway, that is, its description in its final form, some of these elements are excluded.
So, compile a list of objects. Objects, as a rule, are something that can be described, something from the real world that can be described with a noun. That is, it’s precisely some object, some physical object, as a rule. An object can be non-physical, but it’s still an object, and it should be indivisible. That is, again, using the example of a gear — it’s a separate object. If this object has, let’s say, some internal mechanism arranged within the system that works by itself, it’s necessary to understand whether it works by itself as an independent system, that is, if, for example, it’s extracted from this system, or it’s part of it. And in this case, it can already be defined differently: either as a separate system that is embedded in a higher-order system, or as a separate element that is itself only an object within this system.
This step creates a concrete inventory of what you’re working with.
In a remote work setup, objects might include your
- workspace,
- communication tools,
- contracts,
- workflows,
- and team members.
For an e-commerce business, objects include
- products,
- website,
- inventory management system,
- marketing channels,
- and customer database.
Research from MIT shows that professionals who take time to explicitly list all components in a system before attempting to solve problems are 46% more likely to identify hidden bottlenecks that others miss.
Step 3: Create a List of Functions
For describing any function or process, verbs are best suited. These are individual verbs or phrases. Yes, as a rule, these are phrases consisting of several words that answer the question “what to do?” in an indefinite form. Yes, that is, “what to do.”
So, the list of functions is easy to compile either empirically, that is, simply knowing how the system works and thereby describing it using the already existing list of objects, that is, the set of those elements that interact in it. And we can immediately see and note which of these elements participate in functions, that is, they are dynamically changeable over time. And those that don’t participate are already the first candidates for elimination from the list of objects. That is, looking at the list of objects, you can also compile a list of functions. And vice versa, if we suddenly see that there’s some function, and we missed some object, it can be added to this list.
Functions are the dynamic activities or processes within the system — what the system does. IDEF0 explicitly represents functions as verbs (e.g., “rotate gear,” “display time”). Every function uses inputs and resources to produce outcomes.
For a freelancing business, functions might include:
- acquire clients,
- deliver services,
- manage finances,
- improve skills,
- and scale operations.
For a content creation system, functions include:
- generate ideas,
- create content,
- distribute content,
- engage with audience,
- and monetize content.
In Toyota’s production system, a famous example of systems thinking in action, managers identified that improving one piece of the process in isolation doesn’t improve the whole system. Instead, they focus on synchronization between stations, implementing Just-In-Time production where the function “deliver part to assembly” is timed precisely to reduce inventory sitting idle.
Step 4: Connect Objects to Functions
Now, draw the lines or arrows of connection — determine which components participate in which functions and how the outputs of one function become inputs to another. This is where the “static list” of parts turns into a structured model.
Using a notation like IDEF0 can be helpful: depict each function as a box and show components as arrows going in or out as inputs, outputs, or resources. Essentially, you’re wiring up the system: who does what? What flows where?
This step reveals the network structure — the dependencies and information or material flows. It’s crucial here to identify any feedback loops (does output of one function circle back as input to another?) and any external interfaces (does the system take input or give output to external systems?).
By mapping interactions, you heed Ackoff’s and Deming’s advice to focus not just on parts but on their interrelationships. As Deming stated,
“Management of a system requires knowledge of the interrelationships between all the components within the system and of the people that work in it.”
In a hospital system, for example, administrators discovered that treating the pre-surgery, surgery, and post-surgery phases as one system led to implementing a simple checklist that coordinates functions (anesthesia check, instrument count, patient ID verification) and drastically cut complication rates — an improvement only visible when viewing the whole operating room process as a system.
Step 5: Analyze the Whole System
With a map of components and functions in hand, step back (zoom out) and look at the system as a whole. Ask: Is the system as designed accomplishing its purpose effectively? What patterns emerge? Are there bottlenecks where one component is overloaded with too many functions? Are there functions that don’t directly contribute to the stated purpose?
This is the analysis phase where systems thinking really shines — often revealing that a process is producing unintended consequences elsewhere. At this stage, one might use other tools that we’ll discuss later in future articles.
The key mindset is holistic: improvements should be made with awareness of the entire configuration. If a particular component-function link is weak, that’s a leverage point for system improvement.
R. Buckminster Fuller introduced the concept of “synergy” to explain why we must study systems at the whole level:
“Synergy is the only word in our language that means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the separately observed behaviors of any of the system’s separate parts.”
Finally, and most importantly, how do we get information about what is included in the system, what is not included in it, and where to get data about elements, system composition, and its functions? And here there are different approaches. The simplest is observation, that is, without interfering in the very action and operation of the system. We simply observe from the side. There’s also the principle of photographing, for example, a working day, when we research the system of any process, or an interview, when we ask. If we are not direct observers, then we can ask about it. These are all methods of researching systems.
Your New Sunrise: Clarity Through Systems
The power of dawn. The light of sunrise. With fog not yet dissolved in your head. Take the first steps of today. Towards the horizon, from behind which the sun will rise in a few minutes.
You now have a framework that transforms how you see the world. Instead of isolated parts and disconnected processes, you see systems — dynamic, interconnected wholes that serve specific purposes.
This magical state that I urge you to at least try to feel and see; perhaps you’ll experience the same effect. Since I started applying systems thinking to my work and life, I simply cannot stop — it has become my favorite approach to any challenge.
As Donella Meadows wisely noted,
“A system is more than the sum of its parts; it is an indivisible whole.”
When you begin to see the world through this lens, everything changes. The seemingly complex becomes manageable. The overwhelming becomes clear.
Remember that in a world where 94% of problems come from system design rather than individual errors, your ability to think in systems gives you an extraordinary advantage. While others fixate on symptomatic fixes, you’ll be addressing root causes and creating lasting solutions.
Whether you’re building an online business, managing a remote team, or simply trying to create a more intentional life, systems thinking provides the clarity to see what others miss — the connections, the patterns, the possibilities.
Forward! Observe the glow, which is unique every day. See how the light begins to fill all the space. See the first rays of the sun rising from beyond the horizon. This is your new view — a systems view that reveals the whole when others see only parts.