Hard Systems, Soft Systems

We live in a world of systems, complex and increasingly disconnected. Our times require vision, connection, and collaboration.

Natural systems and technical systems compete, conflict, and collaborate over resources to feed, house, and provide us water, food, and energy. Our hard systems.

Our human systems, family, organizations, corporations, and governments, provide us with our sense of belonging, a common purpose, and a reason for getting up every morning. Our soft systems.

A balance between the two brings wholeness and resilience to our lives, communities, and organizations.

It is the leader, as Mary Parker Follett observed nearly a century ago, who “must see all the future trends, and unite them.” Follett, best known for her distinction of power over versus power with, would perhaps be amused at such transformational thinking a century after her seminal work. Peter Drucker considered her his intellectual mentor. Most organizations have still not caught up to what she was saying.

As Jefferson wrote to Madison: “What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.” Whether three centuries or one, the lessons are timeless.

My own mind's default is what I call the “systems thing.” More commonly, systems thinking. As one wisdom guide told me, gently, during a FaceTime call in the pandemic: “Brad, you are wired differently.”

Several years ago, a walk in Acadia National Park became a catalyst. Unlike the current “law of the jungle” in modern capitalism, the law of the natural world is disruptive and steadfast, competitive while cooperative, self-correcting and healing, regenerative, not extractive. It seeks equilibrium, not more.

Organizations that treat themselves as living systems rather than machines tend to embrace complexity and create the future in doing so. Others tend to run from it. Until it is too late.