practicing with doing for systems leadership

systems are made and remade in the small things we do, again and again

in our systems leadership program with Dana Shen, we are working through a series that takes the systems practice framework one area at a time. the framework names six areas of systems practice, knowing, being, doing, relating, thinking and perceiving, and the capabilities each asks of us. we explore a practice area through concepts and methods, and through mindfulness meditation. we also run peer coaching clinics where participants bring the leadership challenges they are working through. having practised with knowing, being and perceiving, we come now to doing.

much of what creates and sustains the systems we live in is the millions upon millions of micro-decisions and actions we make and take every day. their effect carries on long after any single one. so when we bring our attention to the most consistent ways we engage, across all situations and contexts, the daily doing, we are working with one of our greatest leverage points for change.

we can think of the act of doing as the enactment of our systemic values and intentions for the systems we hold dear. but so many of the systems we live in run on a different logic, so we are often working against the ingrained approach. this is why we practise at it, setting intentions for how we want to do. the practice is close to building a habit: start small, give ourselves grace to correct when we inevitably run off course, and come back to centre. we can liken it to turning a ship, too heavy for sharp turns, where a one-degree correction of the rudder, held steady, still arrives somewhere entirely different. this is how the enduring practices take hold.

in these sessions we introduced a doing practice, exploring unintended consequences ahead of our actions and decisions. it invites one question, what else might happen?, and then follows the possible downstream effects, surfacing new insights, systemic dynamics and connections. it can take only a few minutes, or open into something longer. either way it surfaces what is otherwise hard to see, and not only the risks, but the benefits and resources too.

small, repeated doing is the whole of it, turned inward as a practice we build and outward as a question we ask, and over time it moves a system, and moves us with it.

so, before your next step, ask: what else might happen? and work with what emerges.