Module 0: Introduction

Study Map: Sustainable Strategic Success the systems thinking approach®

Module 0: Introduction

Common business problem or Situation:

High potential or current leaders who want to move their strategic skills forward in all aspects of leadership.

Systems Question for Leaders:

Can I learn to think more strategically?

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Not thinking – but going straight to action.

Learning Objective:

Develop strategic thinking skills by intentionally pausing to reflect on systems-level questions before acting, so high-potential leaders avoid rushing into action and instead build comprehensive strategic awareness across all aspects of leadership.

Essential Readings:

  • Article: Systems Thinking – The Winning Formula
  • Template: ABC Model Strategic thinking Canvas PRINT A3-size

Strategic Hacks:

  • Strategic Hack #1: The Systems Test 
  • Strategic Hack #2: System clarity first!
  • Strategic Hack #3: COAs Framework
  • Strategic Hack #4: The ABC Model & five strategic questions

Bonus Readings:

Module 1: Holism: Living Systems are whole entities with unique characteristics

Common business problem or Situation:

Frustrated by lack of support from the people you need to help get the results that you want to achieve?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

What are the desired outcomes?

What time frame should be considered as we view the system?

Common Mistake for Leaders to avoid:

Focusing on and optimizing the parts.

Learning Objective

Students will be able to apply systems thinking to a common leadership problem by clarifying desired outcomes and appropriate time frames for the whole system, and avoiding the trap of optimising individual parts at the expense of overall results.

Essential Readings:

  • Article: Systems Thinking Template Worksheet

Strategic Hacks:

  • Strategic Hack #5: Know Your Destination
  • Strategic Hack #6: Strategic Positioning

Bonus Reading:

Module 2: Open Systems: Living Systems are Open Systems

Common business problem or Situation:

Frustrated by your inability to make a convincing case for making the changes that we need to?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

What is changing in the environment that we need to consider?

What patterns or trends have emerged over time?

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Not adapting proactively to the changing environment.

Thinking and working in isolation.

Learning Objective

Students will be able to use systems-based environmental scanning to identify key changes, patterns, and trends, and communicate a compelling case for proactive adaptation, while avoiding the myopia and potential blind spots possible from working in isolation or reacting too late to a changing context.

Essential Reading:

  • Article: ASFE Scanning the Future Environment

Strategic Hacks:

  • Strategic Hack #7: SKEPTIC
  • Strategic Hack #8: Trend Analysis

Bonus Reading:

Module 3: Boundaries: Living Systems Have Defined Boundaries

Common business problem or Situation:

Frustrated that your life feels like one long game of Whack-a-mole?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

What is IN and what is OUT for this strategy? Why does this matter? To whom? In what context? A system's boundaries determine what is included and excluded, and reflecting on these choices is essential for comprehensive analysis and effective action.

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Focusing efforts on the wrong system or system level where decision making power and interest are low. Not asking WESK – Who Else Should Know?

Not including stakeholders who have high decision- making power and influence.

Learning Objective

Students will be able to define and set appropriate system boundaries for a given strategy, identify which stakeholders fall inside and outside those boundaries (including using WESK – Who Else Should Know?), and focus efforts on the system level where decision-making power and interest are highest, rather than be condemned to ‘whack‑a‑mole’ responses in the wrong parts of the system.

Strategic Hack:

  • Strategic Hack #9: Boundary Setting

Bonus Reading:

  • Article: Using evaluative thinking to achieve better results

Module 4: Input/Output: Living Systems Transform Inputs into Outputs

Common business problem or Situation:

Frustrated by the feeling that you are always failing to achieve your goals?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

“What am I doing (or not doing) that is helping to cause the problem?” If we are doing things right, then are we still doing the right things? 

Have we been too focused on being good at something that the customer doesn’t care about anymore? Are we really good at things that don’t add value for our customers?

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Thinking linearly – still doing things right without checking that we are doing the right things.

Learning Objective

Students will be able to critically examine their own habits and assumptions using systems thinking to distinguish ‘doing things right’ from ‘doing the right things’, identify activities that no longer create value for customers, and adjust goals and actions accordingly so they stop repeating linear patterns that keep them from achieving their desired outcomes.

Strategic Hacks:

  • Strategic Hack #10: SWOT Framework
  • Strategic Hack #11: Matrix of relationships

Bonus Reading:

Module 5: Feedback: Living Systems Require Feedback to Continue Living

Common business problem or Situation:

How will we know we’ve achieved our goals? Do you have a network of critical friends that are willing to give you the gift of honest feedback?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

How will we know we’ve achieved our goals?

What indicators will we expect to see as we look for progress?

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Unclear or ambiguous feedback measures.

Unclear on how to get the feedback.

Learning Objective

Students will be able to define clear, observable indicators of goal achievement and progress, and build a network of ‘critical friends’ to provide timely, honest feedback, so that success is measured with specific evidence rather than vague or ambiguous signals.

Strategic Hacks:

  • Strategic Hack #12: Feedback is a Gift
  • Strategic Hack #13: Process all meetings
  • Strategic Hack #14: QBL & Measures of Success

Bonus Reading:

Module 6: Multiple Outcomes: Living Systems Pursue Multiple Outcomes

Common business problem or Situation:

Are you frustrated by making accidental or unintended adversaries? Need to find the "win-win" necessary for others to help to achieve your goals?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

Are we considering all possible goals?

How can I maintain balance between the big picture and important details? “What is our common higher level (superordinate) goal?”

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Not defining the common and subordinate goals (Win-Win & WIIFM).

Learning Objective

Students will be able to identify and articulate shared super-ordinate goals and individual ‘win‑win’ benefits (WIIFM) for key stakeholders, so they can balance big‑picture aims with critical details, reduce unintended adversaries, and gain the collaborative support needed to achieve their objectives.

Essential Reading:

  • Article: ABST 2025 BECOMING A STRATEGIC THINKER
  • Article: AMAE Means and Ends Filter 2025

Strategic Hacks:

  • Strategic Hack #15: Helicopter zoom in zoom out
  • Strategic Hack #16: Backwards thinking to the future

Bonus Reading:

  • Article: ARCE Archetypes Unintended Consequences 2025
  • Booklet: A practical guide to de-biasing strategic decision making 

Module 7: Equifinality: Living Systems Display Equifinality

Common business problem or Situation:

Are you frustrated by your inability to be fast, lean and flexible in the way your organisation gets things done? There is usually not one “best” way to solve most problems

Systems Questions for Leaders:

What do we centralize (outcomes) and decentralize (means)?

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Ends are not clear or not consistent enough (lack direction) or means are too tightly controlled (micro-managing).

Learning Objective

Students will be able to distinguish between centralizing key outcomes (for consistent direction) and decentralizing methods (to enable speed, leanness, and flexibility), so they can clarify ends, avoid inconsistent goals, and empower their organization to adaptively solve problems without a one-size-fits-all approach.

Strategic Hack:

  • Strategic Hack #17: Operational Flexibility

Bonus Reading:

  • Article: AGOV_The Systems Thinking Approach® to Effective Governance 2025

Module 8: Entropy: Living Systems Are Subject to Entropy

Common business problem or Situation:

Are you frustrated by your best made plans stalling?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

How do you maintain the initial enthusiasm for the change that you have started with?

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Thinking that strategic initiatives, efficient operations, and valuable relationship will sustain themselves without support.

Learning Objective

Students will develop capability to apply a systems thinking lens to sustaining change by identifying the systemic causes of stalled initiatives, designing supports that maintain enthusiasm over time, and avoiding the assumption that strategy, operations, and relationships will thrive without intentional, ongoing leadership.

Strategic Hack:

  • Strategic Hack #18: Booster Shots

Bonus Reading:

  • Handout: 2025_Survival Hacks for change leadership

Module 9: Hierarchy: Living Systems are Hierarchical

Common business problem or Situation:

Are you frustrated by your best planned and resourced efforts never yielding the benefits that justify your investment? How do you find the tipping points within the system that you can target to maximise the leverage of your efforts?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

What are the new structures and processes we are using to ensure successful change?

How are the current mental models advancing our desired results?

How are the current mental models hindering our efforts in this area?

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Not understanding what our customers are trying to achieve, or making wrong assumptions about it. Not considering how these assumptions may change.

Learning Objective

Students will develop capability to identify leverage points (structures, processes, and mental models) within complex systems to maximize the impact of investments, by challenging customer assumptions, aligning new designs with desired results, and avoiding the trap of static mental models that hinder adaptation.

Essential Reading:

  • Article: ABIC: Building Organisational Innovation Capacity 2025

Strategic Hack:

  • Strategic Hack #19: The Iceberg Theory of Change

Bonus Readings:

Module 10: Interrelated parts: Living Systems Have Interrelated Parts

Common business problem or Situation:

Are you frustrated by your inability to address "wicked problems"? These challenges have many interdependent factors that feel impossible to resolve.

Systems Questions for Leaders:

What are the unintended consequences? What are possible long and short-term consequences of the proposed actions?

What are the relationships among the parts of the system and how do they affect understanding of the whole?

How do parts affect one another?

How do different perspectives of a systems work together to benefit the system?

Am I open to other points of view?

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Not involving stakeholders to avoid unintended consequences. Making wrong assumptions when making changes to a system

Learning Objective

Students will develop capability to tackle adaptive challenges using systems thinking by mapping interdependencies and relationships among system parts, anticipating unintended short- and long-term consequences, integrating diverse stakeholder perspectives, and avoiding the pitfalls of unilateral assumptions or excluding voices that reveal hidden dynamics.

Strategic Hack:

  • Strategic Hack #20: A web of relationships

Module 11: Dynamic Equilibrium: Living Systems Tend Toward Dynamic Equilibrium

Common business problem or Situation:

Are you frustrated by your inability to anticipate unintended outcomes (positive or negative) from your chosen actions?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

What’s the real problem, not a symptom?

What are the root causes?

What is it that I contribute to the problem and can change to be a positive and proactive leader on this?

How do my past experiences influence the development of my theories and assumptions?

How can we identify the role of time delays in the effects we expect to see?

How can I help others to be patient while living with unresolved issues?

Common Mistakes for Leaders to avoid:

Not focusing enough on engagement and culture, which are the driving forces for maintaining dynamic equilibrium

Learning Objective

Students will develop capability to anticipate unintended outcomes in complex systems by distinguishing root causes from symptoms, uncovering personal contributions and biases shaped by past experiences, accounting for time delays in effects, fostering patience amid unresolved issues, and prioritizing engagement and culture to sustain dynamic equilibrium.

Essential Reading:

  • Article: 2025 AROC rollercoaster-of-change

Strategic Hacks:

  • Strategic Hack #21: Rollercoaster of Change (CODRIC)
  • Strategic Hack #22A: Root Cause Analysis
  • Strategic Hack #22B: The Goal-Gap Matrix

Module 12: Internal Elaboration: Living Systems Produce Internal Elaboration

Common business problem or Situation:

Are you frustrated by complexity and red tape hindering your ability to get things done?

Systems Questions for Leaders:

What can be done to guard against organizational complexity and bureaucracy?

What can be done to ensure that complexity is continuously resisted as it occurs naturally?

Common Mistake for Leaders to avoid:

Letting complexity get out of hand or adding complexity unnecessarily

Learning Objective

Students develop capability to combat organizational complexity and bureaucracy using systems thinking by proactively designing structures and processes that resist emerging red tape, continuously monitoring for unnecessary additions, and avoiding the mistake of allowing complexity to spiral unchecked.

Essential Reading:

Strategic Hack:

  • Strategic Hack #23: Simplicity

Bonus Reading

  • Article: ASOST The Simplicity of Systems Thinking
  • Article: ASIL Simplicity in Leadership

Summary of Strategic Hacks

  • Strategic Hack #1: The Systems Test
  • Strategic Hack #2: System clarity first!
  • Strategic Hack #3: COAs Framework
  • Strategic Hack #4: The ABC Model & five strategic questions
  • Strategic Hack #5: Know Your Destination
  • Strategic Hack #6: Strategic Positioning
  • Strategic Hack #7: SKEPTIC
  • Strategic Hack #8: Trend Analysis
  • Strategic Hack #9: Boundary Setting
  • Strategic Hack #10: SWOT Framework
  • Strategic Hack #11: Matrix of relationships
  • Strategic Hack #12: Feedback is a Gift
  • Strategic Hack #13: Process all meetings
  • Strategic Hack #14: QBL & Measures of Success
  • Strategic Hack #15: Helicopter zoom in zoom out
  • Strategic Hack #16: Backwards thinking to the future
  • Strategic Hack #17: Operational Flexibility
  • Strategic Hack #18: Booster Shots
  • Strategic Hack #19: The Iceberg Theory of Change
  • Strategic Hack #20: A web of relationships
  • Strategic Hack #21: Rollercoaster of Change (CODRIC)
  • Strategic Hack #22A: Root Cause Analysis
  • Strategic Hack #22B: The Goal-Gap Matrix
  • Strategic Hack #23: Simplicity


The Overarching Goal

How a leader thinks, is how they plan, which is how they act and that determines the results that they and their organisations get. It is difficult find any other topic more important.  

Atkinson and Collins (2023) posit that all strategy is a hypothesis and its implementation is an experiment in execution. Hence, the strategic actions selected for implementation should be those with the greatest likelihood of moving the organisation closer to achieving the results it wants to get.

Target market – High potential or current leaders who want to move their strategic skills forward in all aspects of leadership

Problem – They have some leadership skills but realize “strategic thinking” could be improved

By the end of this course, students will be able to use The Systems Thinking Approach® to preparing for, creating, executing and leading the strategic action.

For best results, the use of the systems thinking approach® is recommended and it is the core universal thinking framework for all 13 modules in this course. An organization is better equipped to design a system with the right inputs, throughputs, outputs, and feedback within a dynamic and rapidly changing environment when inviting leaders to reflect on five key strategic questions within our 5-phase ABCDE model:

  1. PHASE A: Where do we want to be?
  2. PHASE B: How will we know when we get there?
  3. PHASE C: What are the inputs required for action?
  4. PHASE D: How do we get there?
  5. PHASE E: Ongoing: What will/may change in your environment in the future?

You will learn

  1. How to use a “yes/and” rather than an “either/or” mindset to clarify your desired outcome and identify those of others whose help you need to achieve yours.
  2. How to zoom in and out to identify where to focus your efforts for maximum leverage on what needs to change for the organization to achieve success.
  3. How to develop a personal leadership style that is open to learning and accepting of feedback to allowing you to be more agile and adaptive in response to continual change.
  4. How to re-design organisations to improve collaboration and communication by breaking down silos of self-interest and building supporting processes and structures for sustainable strategic success.
  5. How to resist “quick fix solutions” for the symptoms of an issue rather than digging deeper to reveal the root cause and the less obvious leverage points for sustainable strategic solutions.
  6. How to design effective processes and structures to maintain momentum for change and work against; the unseen forces that impede implementation and tendency toward complexity and rigidity over time.
  7. How to keep a bigger picture mindset that constantly monitors the external environment for relevant patterns emerging that you need to adapt to and adjust plans to maintain relevance to your customers and their customers too.
  8. How to anticipate individual resistance to change as natural, normal and highly predicable and respond by using CODRIC content model to guide your leadership of others dealing with change.
  9. How to design delegations and boundaries of authority that hold shared goals tight whilst also being loose, flexible and adaptive about the means of achieving them.
  10. How to shift your thinking patterns because How you think…Is how you plan…Is how you act…And that…Determines The Results You Get in work and life!

All of these lessons will be supported by universal thinking scaffold called the ABCs of strategic and systems thinking.

You will be given a reusable canvas to use over and over again in your response to any strategic challenge you will confront in future…

Once you shift your thinking in this way you will never look at the world in the same old way again!

Our theorem is: If you take a system and take it apart to identify its components, and then operate those components in such a way that every component behaves as well as it possibly can, there is one thing of which you can be sure—the system as a whole will not behave as well as it can. The corollary to this is—if you have a system that is behaving as well as it can, none of its parts will be. In essence, the systems thinking mindset seeks to find common ground and combine multiple perspectives rather than choosing one part over the other. They are calling for their collaborators to have a more inclusive and holistic approach to problem-solving and thinking.

Haines (2011) believed the capability of leaders to be able to think like a system is an evolutionary process. The diagram above shows that it is a cumulative cognitive progression. It builds on a reactive events-focused reductionist “fixer” mindset (#1events), to beginning to recognize trends and cycles of these events (#2 patterns), into appreciative inquiry to understand the prevailing culture (#3 mental models) dominating the current system design, culminating in a synthesis of understanding how these observed patterns of behavior are a consequence of the inner workings and dynamics of the enterprise working as a system (#4 holistic).

Note how this progression integrates what can be seen – by analysis of surface-level symptoms/events visualized as points on a change-over-time-graph (i.e. time series patterns) and influenced by emerging trends in the changing external environment – with what is unseen – the interactions between other supra-systems and nested sub-systems and the multiple and delayed feedback loops that surround each cause-and-effect relationship arising due to a system’s parts interrelationships and interdependencies with other parts. 

Now think of what that means when an enterprise operates as a system. The systems thinking paradox is that if you break it up into its component parts (manufacturing, production, purchasing, public relations, law, finance, personnel, and so on) and get each of these business units operating as efficiently as it can, the enterprise as a whole will not be as efficient as it could be. So, it follows, that if we get the enterprise operating as efficiently as it can, none of its business units will be.

Structure of the course

This course consists of 13 modules of learning in which we will address the concepts of the systems thinking approach®. We have used adult/experiential learning models in the form of the watch-try-do simulations in most modules. The intent is to encourage you to apply these concepts to a hypothetical case study and within the context of your own work. By completing the template below using the 24 "strategic hack" worksheets provided.


Summary of Strategic Hacks

1. Strategic Hack #1: The Systems Test

2. Strategic Hack #2: System clarity first!

3. Strategic Hack #3: COAs Framework

4. Strategic Hack #4: The ABC Model & five strategic questions

5. Strategic Hack #5: Know Your Destination

6. Strategic Hack #6: Strategic Positioning

7. Strategic Hack #7: SKEPTIC

8. Strategic Hack #8: Trend Analysis

9. Strategic Hack #9: Boundary Setting

10. Strategic Hack #10: SWOT Framework

11. Strategic Hack #11: Matrix of relationships

12. Strategic Hack #12: Feedback is a Gift

13. Strategic Hack #13: Process all meetings

14. Strategic Hack #14: QBL & Measures of Success

15. Strategic Hack #15: Helicopter zoom in zoom out

16. Strategic Hack #16: Backwards thinking to the future

17. Strategic Hack #17: Operational Flexibility

18. Strategic Hack #18: Booster Shots

19. Strategic Hack #19: The Iceberg Theory of Change

20. Strategic Hack #20: A web of relationships

21. Strategic Hack #21: Rollercoaster of Change (CODRIC)

22. Strategic Hack #22A: Root Cause Analysis

23. Strategic Hack #22B: The Goal-Gap Matrix

24. Strategic Hack #23: Simplicity

Watch-Try-Do Simulations

Adult/experiential learning is learning that occurs naturally when a person engages in some activity, looks back at the activity from a critical stand point, extracts some useful insight or knowledge from the analysis, and puts the result to work through a change in behavior. Of course, this process is experienced spontaneously in everyone’s ordinary life.

People never stop learning. With each new experience, we consciously or unconsciously ask ourselves questions such as, “How did that feel?” “What really happened?” or “What do I need to remember about that?” It is an inductive process, proceeding from observation rather than from a priori “truth” as in the deductive process.

Learning can be defined as a change in behavior as a result of experience or inputs, and that is the usual purpose of training. The effectiveness of experiential learning is based on the fact that nothing is more relevant to us than ourselves. Your own reactions, observations, and understanding of something are more important than someone else’s opinion about it. Research has shown that people learn best by doing. You remember what you do better than you remember what you know.

WATCH (Experiencing)

In the WATCH (Experiencing) mode, we show you how to work with the systems thinking approach®. For this, we have recorded the step-by-step actions that need to be performed in a series of modules. These steps are demonstrated using case studies, examples and whiteboard/flip chart explanations as a video or through a reading in the online course.

TRY (Processing)

Participants are encouraged to try executing the demonstrated steps in the TRY (Processing) mode. They will see options and highlights illustrated in the readings to help them. This acts as reinforcement and facilitates learning by doing.

DO (Generalising & Applying)

In the DO (Generalising & Applying) mode, participants execute the steps in the process on their own, without any hints. If someone gets stuck at any point, there are readings and case studies to refer to. Practice makes perfect. Participants can view the simulation videos and try any number of times till they gain the confidence to perform the steps in the systems thinking approach®.

Required text

The prescribed text for course is:

Haines, Stephen G., Systems Thinking: The New Frontier- Discovering Simplicity in an Age of Complexity Systems Thinking Press - https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Thinking-Discovering-Simplicity-Complexity-ebook/dp/B005Z32NOI

Please refer to the study map in this module as a checklist on the required readings and tasks for each module.

We will also provide additional readings and resources throughout the subject which you will be able to access through the Learning Management System platform.

Want more? – optional readings

See our publications on www.systemsthinkingpress.com 

Learning Objective

Students will understand the rationale for the course and be able to use the study map to navigate through the learning objectives and the Watch-Try-Do simulations for each module.

WATCH


Essential Readings

  • Article: Systems Thinking – The Winning Formula
  • ABC Model Strategic thinking Canvas PRINT A3-size: Strategic Thinking Canvas

Article Systems Thinking – The Winning Formula.pdf
Download
Article Systems Thinking – The Winning Formula.pdf
strategic-thinking-canvass-general.pdf
Download
strategic-thinking-canvass-general.pdf

TRY

Strategic Hacks for application to your own projects:

  • Strategic Hack #1: The Systems Test
  • Strategic Hack #2: System clarity first!
  • Strategic Hack #3: COAs Framework
  • Strategic Hack #4: The ABC Model & five strategic questions


SSS_Hack #1.pdf
Download
SSS_Hack #1.pdf
SSS_Hack #2.pdf
Download
SSS_Hack #2.pdf
SSS_Hack #3.pdf
Download
SSS_Hack #3.pdf
SSS_Hack #4.pdf
Download
SSS_Hack #4.pdf

DO




Bonus Readings

  • Book Chapters: Systems Thinking: The New Frontier chapter 2 & 3

B-STNF-CH_2_&_3.pdf
Download
B-STNF-CH_2_&_3.pdf

Resources


Sustainable Business Success TSTA_FINAL_Introduction.pdf
Complete and Continue