Systemic perspective in OD work

Bernd Schmid (Dr) a pioneer in organizational development always insisted on building a systemic orientation for the employees when facilitating a workshop. Theater can be used, as a metaphor, to understand what a systemic perspective is. An individual can be a part of the play and enact his role without even knowing the story. When every participant enacts his role but does not have an orientation to the whole story, one can imagine what will be the outcome of such a play.

An example of non-systemic approach in an organization context, “A manager was watching a huge amount of wastage happening in the production floor but the employees continued to focus on their routine duty and were not willing to look at how to reduce the wastage. When the manager shared his observation about wastage of raw material and checked with the employees why they are not addressing it, the employees said, “We have not been told to look at wastage. This is not part of our SOP.” This shows how employees are not oriented with the systemic view that they are part of the whole organization.

When there is systemic orientation, people not only play their roles but also align with the whole story and not focus on individual performance only. When a systemic perspective is built and learnt, the employees can focus 70% towards their sop or to their roles and 30% towards the overall benefit of the organization. When the organization culture has a space and accounts for employees’ responsibility towards the overall growth of the organization, the productivity multiplies beyond imagination.