What is a system, really? Why systems need purpose, structure, and slogans
The fundamental obstacles to systematization and how to get past them
I recently left a job where I felt my efforts at systematization had limited success. Some clearly successful implementations in my core teams, but an inability to make fundamental change stick in other aligned areas across the department.
And it got me thinking: why did we struggle to build those systems?
I think one obstacle was that we had some conflict in different conceptions of what a system really was.
What even is a system anyway?
We had a lot of documentation tucked away in a knowledge base and a whole host of complex process maps displaying every permutation of how and where activity could happen - but it wasn’t systematized.
Our trusted friend Wikipedia gives us the most general overview:
A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and expressed in its functioning.
What this captures nicely is that a system should be able to be seen as a single entity. It might be those multiple systems when combined together form a larger system, but that doesn’t detract from any given system’s need to be defined and exist as an entity in and of itself.
The quote gives us a few core things to consider:
The elements of the system interact and are intertwined with each other.
There are a set of clearly defined rules to the system and how it functions.
A system has a clear scope with boundaries and limits.
The system has a purpose and its structure is formed to deliver that purpose.
But one area which the quote doesn’t touch on - which I think is important - is that a system in this context is not a wholly organic thing. A system involves agency and decisions to shape the system and define its structure.
There are two rough definitions to the word; one could be described as active and one as passive:
An active form might be the London underground system. Here, we have a series of things that work together through design to achieve an outcome. It’s there to provide transport for London and each choice needs to be made with that in mind.
A passive form might be the private school system. Here, system is used as a grouping for a set of shared aggregate practices, each different and not working together, but distinguished as a system by ways of operating distinct from other ways of operating. This system is more of a model or sometimes a template.
The practice of change management when encountering a disorganized team or department would be to first understand the existing system (passive) and then attempt to create a system (active) through which things are managed.
It’s all very confusing as it’s one word but multiple potential meanings.
This is where, in philosophy, we’d turn to Latin or ancient Greek for some more specific wording - but as it happens we don’t have to go that far back. StackExchange user FouSheng gives us a nice breakdown of the Italian:
…in Italian, sistemizzare [literally to systemize] means "to quickly and cheaply make something safe and well working, weeding out 'noise' or errors", "to clean up a set of notions or actions". Sistemare [literally to system (!)] instead means "to tidy up", "to settle". Sistematizzare, literally to systematize, only means "to make something work like a system, like an organism", implying that the something was not originally supposed to be able to do it and it cannot happen without human work.
Systematization in the Italian can be contrasted with “to system” to display the difference between active construction of a system with an act of grouping or categorization.
When we talk of systems in the active sense we’re talking of the outcomes of systematization.
So, what is a system, really?
It’s where the whole set of activities is designed toward a goal.
And I’d argue that all the elements should contribute toward that goal. Documentation that no one looks at? Not contributing. Checklists that guide you through a task? Contributing. “Can anyone add this into Hubspot for me?”. Not conrtibuting. Follow-on tasks appearing in the inbox of the right person at the right moment automatically? Contributing.
In a system, everything is intended to work toward the goal. Disparate things are brought together. Waste - the seven muda - is cut. And the people within the system have a shared concept of what they’re doing and why.
Why is it useful to spend all this time quibbling over semantics?
Because I feel most miscommunication or confusion is caused not by a failure to understand complex ideas or requests, but from the failure to find shared meaning in the most fundamental elements of a discussion.
We see this in politics all the time. People can spend a lifetime arguing with each other over policy detail with neither making any progress because the root of the disagreement is in their core premises; the fundamental beliefs which make up their worldview.
This problem is a core part of change management. When you want to change the way people operate - particularly when that comprises 8 hours of their day, 5 days a week, which they’ve done for multiple years - you need to understand whether you’re asking them to tweak things or change things.
If your system relies on follow-in-realtime workflows built on a foundation of effective task management and ruthless prioritization of core activities, set to a regular recurring cadence that must be kept to, then you need people to (a) understand what all those things are, and (b) understand why they’re doing those things.
If someone doesn’t see task management as part of their job and instead as an unnecessary time-waste, then you’re not going to have a system at the end of it.
You’re faced with the challenge of figuring out where shared understanding does not exist.
Ray Dalio, in his book Principles, talks extensively about the aggressively Socratic culture he created in his firm Bridgewater Associates. There were a number of purposes behind this - one being the ability to establish a Shared Truth. The more people were able to be radically transparent and challenge anything and everything in the workplace, the more those fundamental confusions were ironed out.
Less radical than Dalio’s approach, would be a commitment to trying to find those disagreements or knowledge gaps earlier.
It’s common practice for senior managers when entering a new department to conduct a bit of a skills audit, to understand what tools the team is working with and whether new hires might be needed for new planned initiatives.
But - to keep on the philosophical bent - you could even go further than this. What about an epistemic audit? An attempt to try to drill deep into the shared assumptions across your team and the fundamental premises that individuals bring to work with them each day.
That way, you can begin to talk to people where their disagreements or differences really are, rather than talking over them. You can begin to communicate your ideas more effectively and people can be more responsive to them.
Why communication is a challenge and possible ways to overcome it
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had a lot of fun quotes:
If a lion could speak we would not understand him
By which he’s broadly referring to the idea that language is not a universal tool in and of itself. Communication is rooted in shared meaning and understanding, without which we cannot use language effectively.
So it’s not just a lion that we cannot understand - we fail to understand what other people are saying all the time. What people say or write is only an approximation of what they want to communicate, and is vastly outweighed by all the other unsaid things which could have added depth and extra context.
One of Wittgenstein’s big critiques of philosophy was that much of it is word games and people talking past each other; they hear the same word and take away different depths of meaning.
To go even further, words do not only add meaning - they are capable of obfuscating meaning. Words form sentences, sentences have grammar and punctuation, and one sentence could be read multiple different ways.
So how do we communicate in the realm of core premises and fundamental assumptions?
Slogans.
I’m serious.
I’m a marketer and I should have employed slogans in the workplace, given how effective they can be elsewhere. In politics and in marketing, we can see how the right slogan frames everything else. It aims to communicate the core ethos and premise of a thing - effectively communicating in the world of symbols as much as in the world of language.
The other theme of this newsletter is football and there are often useful parallels to be found.
Pep Lijnders - Jurgen Klopp’s assistant manager - regularly speaks about the team’s internal slogan:
Our identity is intensity
It’s a motivational slogan. But it’s more than that.
Liverpool’s play is based on pressing, fast transitions, and supreme fitness.
“Intensity” is core to what the team needs to do on the pitch to execute tactical plays, and what the players must do on the training pitch to deserve a role in the squad. It communicates the most fundamental demand and required mindset.
And it wouldn’t work the same for other teams. It wouldn’t work for Burnley.
This word “intensity” becomes a totem and will be shouted by players in a game when they feel standards have dropped. The slogan is presented constantly; reiterated over and over to confirm its importance. It’s even emblazoned on the wall of the training centre:
The players there are depicted inside the word - the language of symbols even more apparent.
The player issues a coach will tend to face; laziness, lack of pressing, not working as a unit; are all clearly unacceptable in an environment where that slogan rings out multiple times a day like a call to prayer.
But what if your issues are:
Inconsistent task management
A resistance to re-engineering, dressed up as agile
A desire not to document
A desire to document for the sake of documenting
Directionless automation
Poor process management
What’s your slogan then?
What gets to the heart of these issues and tackles the fundamental premises and assumptions that reproduce them?
I wonder whether I should have gone in hard with a Sam Hinkie mask on and stuck to the name of this Substack: “Trust The Process”.
With a single slogan to repeat endlessly, I’m sure I would have been just a little bit cringe, but it would also have been drilled into folk that this is how I think about things and it’s how I’d like them to think about things too.
“What’s the process by which we’re getting from A-B here? Does that process seem good to you or is there a better process? If the process needs you to move that task then move that task. Follow the process and it should all work. If you don’t follow the process you break the system. Trust the process.”
Starting a meeting? Repeat it as a core value at the beginning. Someone asks a question? Open your answer with it. Posting a message in Slack or sending an email? Sign off with it.
Obnoxious repetition. And with each time you give further context for what it means in that environment. Even where it’s not very relevant.
“Trust The Process doesn’t mean blindly trust, it means the process is super important, so we want the best process we can have!”
“But would you like the order to eat in or takeaway, sir?”
It’s reductive, sure, and maybe it misses some of the core premises, but I do wonder if I could have achieved more of a mindset shift if I had led with it hard from the beginning…
So what is a system in the context of systematization?
A system in this context is a defined web of actions which occur and recur with sequential patterns to acheive a desired outcome. It has boundaries to its scope and is predictive so that you can estimate future actions and outcomes, and learn from past ones given its controlled environment.
Creating these systems is the path to success. The role of a manager, in most environments, should be to focus on the construction, maintenance, and communication of these systems - along with the people in them.
My system has learned from that experience and hopefully I can take those learnings into the next challenge.