Week 2– Senge Systems Thinking
The Currents Beneath: Week Two – Systems Thinking
Over the years I’ve coached, led and developed thousands of leaders. My work is grounded in real conversations, behavioural change and performance psychology born from practice, not theory. I’ve read hundreds of books. Interrogated so many models – but I rarely talk about them. Behind the questions I ask and the shifts I help create, there’s a body of knowledge that’s shaped my approach, and theories I haven’t committed to memory but which inform how I work.
This series is my way of surfacing that – one model at a time.
These models are the currents beneath the waves of my coaching – the quiet but powerful forces that shape each leadership journey I walk alongside.
This week, a lens that shifts how we see stuckness – Systems Thinking, through The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge.
Why the problem is rarely the problem
You fix one thing… and something else breaks.
You ease pressure here… and it pops up somewhere else.
Sound familiar?
In The Fifth Discipline, Senge writes:
“Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions.”
It sounds simple – but it’s a revelation for many leaders.
It means the quick fixes we apply often create the very issues we’re now trying to solve.
The restructure that improved efficiency… but killed morale.
The process that sped things up… but reduced ownership.
The hire that stabilised the team… but made others stop stepping up.
Systems thinking asks us to look underneath:
What ripple effects have our past decisions created?
What patterns keep repeating – and why?
Where are we treating symptoms instead of shifting systems?
It challenges leaders to stop fire-fighting and start system-shaping.
And reminds us: we are not just in the system – we’re shaping it every day.
Why I use it
When a leader says, “We’ve tried everything”, I often ask:
“What have you been solving – the surface issue, or the structure underneath it?”
This model helps us step back.
It opens up different questions.
It invites us to look for feedback loops, not just causes.
Sometimes I’ll sketch patterns on a board. Other times it’s a quiet reflection – the moment a leader realises their team’s tension isn’t personal… it’s structural.
As a Change Leader
As a leader of change, I know that I could be wonderfully frustrating.
Think John Nash in A Beautiful Mind – notes pinned all over the walls, everything connected with string. That was how my brain operated.
I was always searching for the hidden threads – the operational shifts, the attitudinal ripples, the questions no one had yet voiced. I wasn’t just managing tasks. I was mapping the interdependencies: who needed to talk to whom, where a message might get lost, what conversations needed to happen before a system could move.
It took time. It took license. It took serious thought.
But it meant change happened – and more than that, it stuck.
And somewhere underneath that obsessive map-making was a deep-seated belief that this is the work. That connecting the dots, sensing the whole, and shaping a system with intention… is leadership.
Coaching Examples
One - In one coaching session, a senior leader described a flatness in their team – a sense of hesitancy, low energy, and growing mistrust. On the surface, it looked like underperformance. But as we explored it, what was missing wasn’t effort or clarity – it was rhythm, agreement and shared ownership. There was no live, co-created team charter. No container that held the values, rituals and boundaries that turn a group into a culture. What they needed wasn’t another intervention – it was to breathe life back into the system itself. And to recognise that they were ‘sitting on icebergs’, disconnected from land and one another.
Two - In another conversation, a Director was frustrated by the lack of collaboration across functions. Despite clear processes, things kept stalling. But as we zoomed out, it became clear the issue wasn’t the system – it was the signals. She held a quiet belief that asking for help suggested weakness and attempted to lead from a facade of strength. That mental model had seeped into the culture: people operated in silos, overcompensated, and rarely shared unfinished thinking. Once we named it, she began to lead differently. Not by reworking the org chart – but by reshaping how trust flowed through the system.
This is what Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline teaches so well.
Systems Thinking isn’t a solo practice – it lives alongside other disciplines like Personal Mastery, Shared Vision, Team Learning and Mental Models. Together, they offer leaders a different lens.
Not just for fixing what’s broken – but for seeing what holds the whole together.
Sometimes the most systemic thing a leader can do is stop solving and start listening.
Systems thinking helps leaders shift from blame to design.
From reaction to awareness.
From parts to whole.
Reflection for the week:
Where in your world is the solution just a smarter version of the same old cycle?
What might change if you zoomed out, looked at the patterns – and noticed the rise and fall within the waves?
This Series
This series shares the models that quietly shape how I coach. I hope it’s useful. And if it lands – let’s talk.
Next week, we turn from the system around you to the space within it – and the power of presence to shape how others think.
—Stefan
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For now; thank you
I am…
An executive coach who specialises in helping good people lead great things.
Good people care about others, our planet and beauty. Great things are changes for the betterment of society and all that lives within an around it.
It sounds big and fun - it is.
I'm also an endurance racing cyclist and a go. getter.
You can read more about me and what I do; how I work here