System logics and their limitations in a changing world
Sysruption explores how traditional systems fail under the pressure of innovation and crises. Discover how adaptive strategies can help overcome challenges with resilience.
Understanding systemic
disruptions in times of change
System meets disruption and becomes ’sysruption‘. Sounds logical, doesn’t it?
For me, the term captures the systemic transformation of entire value chains and networks, as well as socio-technical systems, through the simultaneous interplay of multiple technological, institutional and market-related innovations. As a result, entire cultural, social and economic patterns of interaction are being reconfigured, and the scale of change and transformation may not be easy to grasp.
Dealing with disruptive events and their effects calls for answers that may still be found, because the questions themselves are framed differently as a result. We need to be prepared to accept ‘illogicality’ – or at least to anticipate it – because the established ways of thinking regarding our understanding of and control over systems no longer apply under disruptive conditions.
Vorankündigung
Vorankündigung meines Buches zum Thema „Umgang mit Sysruption, Multi-Krisen-Management mit VUCA & Konsorten“
Demnächst erscheint mein neues Buch. Als kleinen Vorgeschmack gibt es bereits jetzt einen ersten Appetithappen zum Inhalt. Zudem besteht die Möglichkeit, das Buch unverbindlich vorzureservieren.
Sysruption Workshop
“The future needs its roots” – a phrase I have used for a long time and am increasingly questioning. For would the logical conclusion then be that “the future secures its roots”? Definitely not! In a VUCA world, clinging to old ways of thinking and habits can be a risky trap.
Future-readiness does not arise from passive endurance, but from determination and active shaping, even if uncertainty can never be completely resolved.
Traditional methods such as forecasts essentially only extrapolate the past in a linear fashion. To explore possible futures, other approaches are more suitable:
foresight and backcasting, which work by thinking backwards from a desirable vision of the future to the present and deriving concrete steps. The interactive workshop format “Day of Orientation” offers precisely this opportunity.
Unspoken issues come to the surface and thus become “tangible”. You gain a quick and effective analysis of the current situation whilst simultaneously strengthening the spirit of optimism for joint future action!
Systemic thinking: pathways to adaptability
When systems work correctly but are still wrong
‘Sysruption’ refers precisely to this moment: the environment is changing so fundamentally that, although the familiar system logic continues to operate, it no longer leads to appropriate and effective decisions. The company remains active, yet its activities lose touch with the environment. It continues to plan and make decisions, but these are of poorer quality. It continues to exercise control, yet achieves less clarity and effectiveness. Despite even greater effort and focus, further disruption and interruption of success ensues, which in turn creates frustration, demotivation and a perceived sense of hopelessness. In a broader academic context, sysruption describes the systemic transformation of entire value creation networks or socio-technical systems, triggered by the interplay of multiple technological, institutional and market innovations and disruptions, resulting in the reconfiguration of entire industry structures and patterns of interaction. Sysruption should be understood as a tipping point. It not only shifts markets or environments, but puts such pressure on the familiar system logic that it no longer functions as a guiding and controlling principle. Sysruption is thus less a matter of change than a crisis of meaning-making and decision-making. It significantly affects the implicit ‘grammar’ of a company – the previously prevailing system logic on which the unspoken rules are based, which generates relevance, legitimises decisions and coordinates action. As long as the environment is ‘sufficiently’ stable, system logic functions as reason itself.
“Fortunately, it’s only VUCA!”
Guided by the idea that by identifying and understanding the effects of VUCA, we can find approaches to solutions by replacing the four original letters of VUCA with Vision, prudence, clarity and adaptability, I continue to see this so-called VUCA-Prime, as proposed by Bob Johansen, as a source of answers to sysruption, making it a suitable framework for action and a navigational tool in an environment full of the unexpected.
