When we want to change, build, or improve something we often only look one step in. That is, if we take action A we will get result B. End of story.
That’s only the end of the story because we stop looking.
Sometimes we only look that far because of a lack of imagination. Other times incentives are misaligned. Or when change comes at us too quickly. We also often only look one step in because considering more steps is difficult or impossible. The attempt to go beyond those problems is sometimes called “second-order thinking.”
Here are some recent events and proposal that clearly involve more than a single step when it comes to outcomes. Let’s look at ways the first step can result in unintended second steps and ways to change how we assess outcomes. Continue reading “A Second Step (to Systems Thinking)”