Now, just having a reactive mindset is not, in itself, a bad thing. For instance, if we don’t react immediately to putting our hand on a stove burner that has been turned on, we are going to get burnt! We use this reactive mindset in many areas of life. A machine breaks down so we buy a new machine. Or sales drop so we launch a new ad campaign. This is called event-driven behavior, which in itself is not a bad thing. | Global Knowledge Expert Reference Series ofWhite Papers Finding Solutions by Being Aware of the Way You Think 1-800-COURSES Finding Solutions by Being Aware of the Way You Think Karl Fischer Senior Principal MA MEd PMP Introduction It is the task of the project manager to be aware of the larger environment in which her his project is operating. One approach that helps the project manager achieve this insight is systems thinking. Being a systems thinker enables us to perceive the interplay of forces that surround and interact with us. Systems thinking asks us to go beyond our reactive mindset and our knee-jerk reactions to life. Now just having a reactive mindset is not in itself a bad thing. For instance if we don t react immediately to putting our hand on a stove burner that has been turned on we are going to get burnt We use this reactive mindset in many areas of life. A machine breaks down so we buy a new machine. Or sales drop so we launch a new ad campaign. This is called event-driven behavior which in itself is not a bad thing. In contrast to this event-driven behavior systems thinking calls us to see the world as patterns of behavior over time using Peter Senge s phrase1. For instance there are patterns of machine breakdowns and there are patterns of buying cycles in which there are sales slumps. If we think about cycles rather than events we have a better chance to anticipate what is coming rather than just reacting to it when it happens. However if we look at the structure of the pattern of behavior read - the structure of the cycles we have just described then we begin to see what creates the cycles that spawn the events. And once we see at this level says Senge we can take actions to change the structures that cause the cycles to happen. 2 Attention at this level allows us to alter the source of the cycle rather than just deal with its symptoms which are the events to which we normally respond. These structures of the patterns of
