Why does systems thinking benefit our business? Because a lasting and impactful change occurs when we understand our systems fully and are willing to change our systems to create the desired results. With systems thinking, we can get a better idea of what’s happening, what works, and what doesn’t work. The following paragraphs details some benefits of systems thinking.
Organizing thoughts – If our systems are outdated, incomplete, or non-existent, it can be very difficult to have a good overview. Business owners often lack this overview and peace of mind due to the million other things they need to do. Therefore, planning to go through our systems can be of benefit. We can set aside 2-4 hours each month in our calendar to make sure we take the time to go through our systems regularly. Once our systems have been updated and completed, we will feel more organized and at ease since we know our systems are doing what we designed them to do.
Visualization – After we have updated and completed our systems, it is smart to represent them visually. By doing this, we make our thinking and thought process visually and we can easier detect bottlenecks, value-creating activities, and whether or not our systems are designed to give us the desired results. Some ways to make our systems visual can be by creating workflow diagrams, checklists, non-ribbon cord diagrams, Gantt charts, tree diagrams, or picture mapping. It does not matter which thought visualization we utilize as long as we choose one that works for us.
Communication improvement – Having clear systems with visual representations can help us communicate better with our teams, clients, and customers. The clearer we are in our communications and the more streamlined our systems are, the more professional we are perceived. In addition to this, detailed and updated systems will make our hiring and training process much smoother and time efficient, which will enable us to save costs and lots of energy.
Do you consider yourself a systems thinker? Share in the comments the last time you took some time to go through the systems in your business 😊
- Sofie
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