Systemic thinking: a key to coaching effectiveness

First of all, we need to understand what a system is? a set of people or things functioning as one, as parts of a mechanism or a network; we can understand it as complex whole. In our life as individuals we are all part of multiple systems: a company, a team, a family, a group of friends, a couple… Each of these systems has its own way of functioning, in which we play a particular role that is often difficult to transform.

As a coach, my clients to become aware of the roles they occupy in their systems.

They get to understand the difference between the role they play in a given system and who they are. We often identify ourselves with these roles, which tend to limit our possibilities to act or be. By realizing these are only roles, we can find the space to consciously decide to behave differently, finding original and effective pathways to express ourselves and make a difference.

Some roles that we have developed in specific circumstances tend to go on, even after these very circumstances have changed or could have changed. This is particularly true within families but this also applies at in the working environment. You may have forgotten about how you have come to assume so much extra work. While this originally has to do with the unforeseen sick leave of your colleague, it has continued without proper justification, now that the company can hire someone else to support you after he left the company.

Furthermore, system thinking allows us to move between apparent linear causality to identify the real problems, their root causes and the best solutions. They are not necessarily the ones we think a priori. As surprising as it sounds, it is no secret among public health experts that the main levers of performance are rather social and economic rather than in terms of access to healthcare. In my experience as a coach, I have often found useful to question the causality links we often implicitly take as granted and, by doing so, I have helped my coaches access deeper understandings, finding the real issue behind their problems. Behind frustrations over career stagnation may lie a lack of meaning for one’s work, and doubts over one’s partner may rather reflect a lack of self confidence or an issue about one’s place in the family.

By choosing behaviours that disrupt a system’s logic, we can change the whole system’s dynamic.

One of my clients was going to be fired, together with many colleagues. She was afraid of losing the good relationships she had built with her colleagues over several years as there will be competing in the market for similar jobs. During a coaching session, she realized competition was not compulsory and she decided to form a discussion group with her colleagues to share their difficulties and support one another in this transition. Not only, this improved considerably the working environment over the last few months of contract, but this helped them to build a relationship capital that proved instrumental for many of them to find a new job.

I help my clients developing more fulfilling attitudes and behaviours within their different environments. In some cases, this has the power to radically transform these systems, as other individuals have to adapt to this new dynamic. In other cases, in which this does not translate into a new equilibrium, they have to decide whether there is a place for them in this system or if they have to leave it.