The Beginner’s Guide to Systems Thinking: Core Mindsets for Seeing the Big Picture

In this episode of Creative Confidence Podcast, we delve deep into the world of systems thinking with Deirdre Cerminaro – Creative Strategist and Human-Centered Systems Thinking Course Instructor. She explores three fundamental mindsets of systems thinking and how to apply them to reframe any challenge. Deirdre shares valuable insights on why reframing is such a powerful tool for complex problem-solving and provides practical tools and techniques that anyone can apply to tackle complex problems in their own work and communities.

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What is Systems Thinking?

The Power of Reframing Questions

Three Mindsets for Reframing Questions

Mindset 1: Zooming In and Out

Mindset 2: Shifting Perspective

Mindset 3: Being Aware of Your Own Lens

Advice for Navigating Challenges in Systems Thinking

Learn more about applying human-centered systems thinking to complex problems in our online course.

What is Systems Thinking?

Deirdre defines systems thinking as both a mindset and a methodology. At its core, it's a holistic problem-solving approach that helps make sense of complexity. Systems thinking is especially useful for problems that are ambiguous, messy, and interconnected – the kind of challenges where there's no one right solution, and you may need multiple solutions and stakeholders to figure it out.

The beauty of systems thinking lies in its versatility. It can be applied to a wide range of challenges, including:

User Experiences: such as redesigning digital platforms or service experiences to better meet needs
Organizational Challenges: such as transforming workflows or structures to foster collaboration or new mindsets
Social Challenges: like climate change or healthcare reform

Complex challenges like these don't exist in a vacuum – they're all part of larger systems. This means you can't solve one piece of the puzzle without understanding how it relates to and impacts the whole. That's fundamentally what systems thinking is about: understanding the whole and the interconnectedness between all parts.

However, systems thinking on its own tends to be abstract and analytical. That's why it's also important to view problems through a human lens, understanding what drives people, their motivations, behaviors, and unmet needs. To address this, Deirdre recommends blending the analytical tools of systems thinking with the more creative methods of human-centered design. This combination results in a problem-solving approach that's both holistic and human-centered, leading to solutions that are more effective and responsible.

To illustrate this concept, Deirdre uses the example of traffic congestion – a problem many of us have experienced. An obvious solution might be to build more roads to accommodate more cars. But systems thinking encourages us to look at the whole picture of what influences traffic and what could reduce it. This broader view leads us to consider factors like public transit, biking infrastructure, and even how traffic lights are timed.

But remember, it's not just about infrastructure. Traffic, like many systemic issues, is shaped by human behavior. We need to understand how and why people make daily decisions about their commutes. Cities like Copenhagen have successfully tackled traffic problems by investing in cycling infrastructure, smart traffic signals, and better public transport. On a human scale, this approach makes it safer, faster, and easier for people to choose bikes or buses, ultimately reducing traffic and carbon emissions while reflecting an understanding of traffic as a system.

“Systems thinking is a holistic problem-solving approach that helps make sense of complexity."
Deirdre Cerminaro—Creative Strategist, International Speaker & Human-Centered Systems Thinking Instructor

The Power of Reframing Questions

At the heart of systems thinking lies the powerful tool of reframing. Reframing is about changing how we look at a problem to expand the space of possible solutions. It's one of the most potent tools for leaders and teams to open up fresh thinking, especially when facing complex challenges.

Deirdre likes to quote her favorite systems thinker Russell Ackoff to underscore the importance of reframing: "We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem." This is why the initial question you ask is so important – it frames the possible solutions you'll consider.

For example, asking "How do we reduce traffic?" might lead to obvious solutions like building more roads to accommodate more cars. But reframing the question to "How might we help people move through the city?" opens up a range of solutions like improving public transit, encouraging biking, or developing rideshare systems.

But getting the question right at the beginning is almost impossible. Instead, Deirdre advises starting with a question that's good enough to give direction and help you get started. As you learn more and run experiments, you can keep coming back to your question. Each time you refine the question, you get closer to understanding the root cause of the problem and thinking more expansively about how to solve it.

This iterative approach to reframing is crucial because it allows for continuous learning and adjustment. It's not about one-time reframing but using these techniques repeatedly as you make progress, revisiting and reframing and refining your questions along the way.

“Reframing is about changing how we look at a problem to expand the space of possible solutions."
Deirdre Cerminaro—Creative Strategist, International Speaker & Human-Centered Systems Thinking Instructor

Three Mindsets for Reframing Questions

To help us understand and apply reframing, Deirdre introduces three core mindsets of systems thinking. She uses the analogy of a camera to explain these mindsets:

Zooming In and Out: Like a photographer capturing both close-ups and wide-angle shots, this mindset helps us see both details and the big picture.
Shifting Perspective: Similar to a photographer moving around a venue to take photos from different angles, this mindset gives us new ways of looking at the same challenge.
Being Aware of Your Own Lens: Just as a photographer brings their own style and background to how they take photos, we all bring our own biases and viewpoints when looking at problems.

Let's explore each of these mindsets in more detail:

Mindset 1: Zoom In and Out

Zooming in and out is one of the most important mindsets in systems thinking. It's all about looking at problems from different scales. When facing a complex challenge, it's easy to feel stuck or overwhelmed. One of the fastest ways to get unstuck or unlock a new insight is to take a step back and look at your problem from a broader context, or to take a step forward and look at it in more detail.

This mindset isn't linear. You're constantly toggling back and forth between these two viewpoints. Staying zoomed out for too long can lead to over-analysis and losing sight of the people in the system. But staying zoomed in for too long can result in over-focusing on one part of the problem and missing the bigger picture.

People often feel more comfortable in one mode or the other – either focusing on the details or looking at the broad picture. This mindset is about building fluency in intentionally switching between these modes and spotting new patterns between them.

Tool: Systems Mapping

To practice this mindset, Deirdre recommends using systems maps. These visual tools help make complexity visible and show how things are interconnected. For example, when addressing food waste, a systems map might include stakeholders like households, grocery stores, farmers, restaurants, municipal waste facilities, and government agencies.

Taking a step back to look at this whole picture might reveal that many of these stakeholders are disconnected from each other. This broader view could lead to reframing the question from "How might we reduce food waste?" to "How might we bring partners together to address food waste?" This reframing might spark ideas like creating regional compost centers or building partnerships between food banks and restaurants.

At the same time, a systems map can help you notice details to zoom into. You might identify hubs of activity that lead to more focused questions, such as "How might we help individuals or families reduce food waste in their daily lives?" This could lead to solutions like an app that helps people make meals from what's already in their fridge or awareness campaigns for households.

Deirdre stresses that the outcome of a systems map isn't the map itself, but the learning it facilitates. It's a tool for zooming in and out, helping you situate your initial question in a larger context and identify areas where you want to dig deeper.

“One of the fastest ways to get unstuck or unlock a new insight is to take a step back and look at your problem from a broader context, or to take a step forward and look at it in more detail."
Deirdre Cerminaro—Creative Strategist, International Speaker & Human-Centered Systems Thinking Instructor

Mindset 2: Shift Perspective

Shifting perspective is about seeing a problem or challenge from multiple angles. Just as changing a camera's position allows you to see a scene differently, this mindset helps you see things that weren't visible before. We often naturally get stuck looking at problems from a single angle, which can limit our understanding. By intentionally shifting our perspective, we can understand the problem more deeply, spot new patterns, and reveal insights we might otherwise miss.

Tool: Analogies

One creative tool for shifting perspective is using analogies. Deirdre walks us through this process using the food waste example:

Start with the traits of what you're focusing on. For food waste, think about things that are unwanted, discarded, useless, or not needed.
Think of other things that share those traits. This might include fallen leaves, weeds, broken electronics, old furniture, or old clothing.
Choose one of these analogies and explore it further. Take old clothing as an example.
Consider what happens with the analogy. Old clothes might be thrown away, but they're often donated to secondhand stores, repurposed or upcycled into new products.
Apply insights from the analogy back to your original problem. Instead of viewing food waste as something to discard, we might see it as a resource to harness – not the end of a cycle, but the beginning of a new one.

This shift in perspective can lead to reframing your question in a different way. Instead of asking "How might we reduce food waste?", you might ask "How might we generate new value from food waste?" or "How might we transform food waste into new resources?" This reframing opens up different solution spaces, like composting, turning waste into biogas, or donating surplus food.

Deirdre also mentions other ways to shift perspective, such as considering different time scales (How would this problem be approached by future generations?) or looking to nature for inspiration (What can we learn from how natural ecosystems deal with waste and resources?).

“We all get stuck when looking at a problem from a single angle. By shifting your perspective, it can help you break out of familiar patterns and gain insights you might have missed."
Deirdre Cerminaro—Creative Strategist, International Speaker & Human-Centered Systems Thinking Instructor

Mindset 3: Be Aware of Your Lens

The final mindset involves recognizing that who is behind the camera matters. We all see the world through the lens of our experiences, identities, privileges, and power, which means we all carry biases. This doesn't just apply to individuals – it happens at the level of teams, companies, and even entire industries.

Deirdre explains this with a simple example: HR professionals tend to see HR problems, while finance people tend to see finance problems. Our expertise shapes our mental models, influencing what we notice, the questions we ask, and the solutions we develop.

Mental models tend to be rigid and hard to change. They often operate invisibly – we're usually unaware of them. This combination of rigidity and invisibility is dangerous. It can lead to naive solutions or unintended consequences, which is why it's so important to be aware of your own lens and biases, especially in relation to the people you're designing for.

Tool: Reflective Questioning

To practice this mindset, Deirdre recommends making intentional space for reflection and inquiry. She suggests asking yourself questions like:

What are my lenses?
What assumptions am I making?
What's here that I designed for myself?

These questions might seem simple, but taking the time to reflect on them can uncover hidden biases and shift your thinking. Let's apply this to the food waste example:

Imagine you're a sustainability expert working to reduce food waste. That expertise is one lens you're bringing to the issue. You might ask yourself what assumptions you're making as a result of that lens. For instance, you might be assuming that:

People know what a big problem food waste is for climate change.
If people knew about the problem, they'd care as much as you do.
Caring about the issue would automatically translate into behavior change.

By challenging these assumptions, you might realize that many people don't know how serious an issue food waste is, and it's often invisible in our daily lives. Even if people do know and care, behavior change is often driven by other factors like convenience, time constraints, and social pressure.

Identifying and challenging these assumptions can lead to reframing your question once again. Instead of just asking "How might we reduce food waste?", you might ask "How can we make reducing food waste fun, convenient, or even profitable?" This opens up new ways of thinking and ideas that go beyond raising awareness, such as:

Gamifying food waste reduction with neighborhood competitions
Making it easier by reducing steps in the process, like home pickup of compostables
Offering financial rewards for reducing food waste, such as discounts or tax breaks

By slowing down to make space for inquiry and reflection, you can use these types of questions to become aware of your lens and biases. This process helps you break out of mental models that might otherwise limit your thinking, even if you're not aware of them.

“Blending the analytical tools of systems thinking with the creative tools of human-centered design gives you a problem-solving approach that is both holistic and human."
Deirdre Cerminaro—Creative Strategist, International Speaker & Human-Centered Systems Thinking Instructor

Advice for Navigating Challenges in Systems Thinking

Deirdre also addressed several common challenges that arise when applying systems thinking:

How to engage hesitant stakeholders and navigate cautious decision-makers?

This is common when introducing new mindsets and methodologies. Deirdre suggests identifying and starting with your champions – people who are open-minded and excited about what you're trying to do. For hesitant stakeholders, be curious and listen. Make space to understand their concerns, which often hold valuable insights you can design around. Find ways to bring key stakeholders along, even if it means separate communications outside of main meetings. Identify quick wins to demonstrate the power of the methodology tangibly, then tell big stories about these successes. Deirdre notes that people who are hesitant at the beginning, if listened to and brought along, can become your biggest champions later on.

How to know when to make changes in a system and how to decide what changes to make?

Deirdre offers two approaches to this challenge. First, make it smaller: Break big ideas into smaller experiments. This provides more data and stories about whether you're heading in the right direction. Second, consider your sphere of influence: While understanding the big picture is valuable, focus on areas where you can actually make changes. Use this as a constraint to make your efforts more manageable and actionable. Systems are big and complicated, and having a set of constraints can be helpful. You might understand the big picture, but from your position in your team, organization, or industry, you may not have the ability to institute large-scale changes. That's fine – use your understanding of the connections to inform where you can act within your sphere of influence.

How to encourage organizations to adopt systems thinking when they may be resistant to change?

Lead with outcomes rather than processes. Instead of pushing for systems thinking directly, focus on shared goals like understanding the bigger picture or aligning on impact areas. Bring people into the practice of systems thinking through collaborative activities. Have them create a systems map with you or discuss how their work connects with others'. Build shared language over time, which can help bring in the mindsets and use the tools more effectively. Deirdre notes that a lot of adoption happens by doing – instead of trying to get people to think differently, have them engage in systems thinking activities. This automatically starts to build the mindset, and over time, you can introduce more explicit language and concepts.

How to help teams avoid getting stuck and feeling overwhelmed in the complexity of systems mapping?

Remember that the map is not the solution – it's a learning tool. Know why you're making the map and what you hope to learn from it. Avoid getting stuck trying to do it "right" or make it comprehensive. Instead, focus on what you're learning by looking at the problem more holistically.

Use the mindsets to get unstuck. If you're stalled, try zooming in or out, shifting your perspective, or checking your own biases. It's normal to feel overwhelmed – complex systems are hard. With practice, you'll become more comfortable navigating this uncertainty.

The goal isn't perfection but gaining new insights and asking better questions. While systems thinking can't eliminate the difficulty of complex problems, it gives you tools and mindsets to approach them more effectively.

By building your fluency in these tools and mindsets, you can reframe your questions, expand your solution space, and tackle complex challenges more holistically and responsibly. Whether you're tackling organizational issues, designing new products or services, or working on large-scale social problems, these systems thinking approaches can help you see the bigger picture, uncover new insights, and develop more impactful solutions.

This summary was synthesized with the assistance of generative AI.

About the Speaker

Deirdre Cerminaro
Creative Strategist, International Speaker & Human-Centered Systems Thinking Instructor

Deirdre was an Executive Design Director and co-lead of the Systems & Strategy practice at IDEO. As a former architectural designer with a background in business and psychology, she has a knack for breaking down complex systems and finding simple levers to drive lasting change. Passionate about the power of systems design to create a more equitable future, much of her work at IDEO had focused on designing education systems—from reimagining student services at a community college in Ohio to creating programs to deliver quality, affordable education at scale in Peru.

Deirdre holds a B.A. in Cognitive Science from Yale University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. In her spare time, she can usually be found outside with her dog or off on an adventure. She's ridden her bicycle across the U.S. twice and hiked the 211-mile John Muir Trail.