My life is a system to...?

“The purpose of a system is what it does.”

(Stafford Beer)

I’ve been reflecting on this quotation as I pause for a few months to take stock of what I’ve learned in two Systems Thinking modules through the Open University. It’s perhaps the systems thinking quotation that you’ll see shared most frequently on social networks. While simple on the surface, it hints at a deeper, mysterious truth.

‘Purpose’ is a curious word. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary It can mean:

1. Why you do something or why something exists (“The purpose of the research is to try to find out more about the causes of the disease”)
2. On purpose (“I didn’t do it on purpose – it was an accident”)
3. Determination or a feeling of having a reason for what you do (“I’ve always admired her for her strength of purpose”)
4. A need (“We haven’t yet managed to find new premises that are suitable for our purposes”)
5. To have a use (“These small village shops serve a very useful purpose”)

This is only my interpretation, but I had assumed “The purpose of a system is what it does” referred to the first of these formulations: that there is sometimes a hidden intention behind a system. For example, if the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has a system for benefits payments which is discriminatory and cruel, that there was an underlying cause to this which was intended.

But, if you look at the third formulation of ‘purpose’, there’s a nuance that we recognise in everyday life. Having a reason for what you do is different to setting out with an intention. For example, the DWP might have a discriminatory and cruel system because of factors such as:

• Political expediency
• A need for efficiency
• Inter-departmental competition
• Implementation of particular algorithms
• Hiring of people with a particular mindset

My point is that ‘purpose’ is a slippery word that usually conveys intention, but can also be used to convey reasoning for the continued existence of a thing.

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Whether intentionally or unintentionally, I’d argue that one way of understanding the way we live our lives is as systems to promote a particular thing.

For example, there have been times in my adult life when the ‘system’ was intentional: to promote physical fitness. But there have also been times when it unintentionally promoted poor mental health. We are products of our environments, but we also get to choose and shape those environments.

As I near my mid-forties, I’ve come to realise that the fundamental underpinning system for my life is “a system to prevent migraines.” As a migraineur, the way I live my life is shaped by forces often unseen by others. It’s the same for anyone with a chronic condition. For example, I’ve learned that for my system to promote the prevention of migraines, I need to:

• Reduce the amount of stress in my life
• Increase the amount of quality sleep
• Ensure I get enough exercise (but not too strenuous)
• Avoid ingesting substances which trigger me
• Stay away from anything which causes ‘glare’

It’s perhaps easier to represent this visually:

I can then outline how I’m going to achieve this:

1. Reduce stress by controlling the number of hours that I work, avoiding relationships with people and environments which cause me stress, and taking a daily dose of L-Theanine.
2. Increase sleep by going to bed relatively early and investing in things (e.g. sleep earbuds) which promote quality of sleep.
3. Avoid food triggers by identifying what they are, checking labels, and not asking staff in restaurants and other food outlets about ingredients.
4. Reduce screen glare by limiting the amount of time I spend on screens in one sitting, ensuring my environment is well-lit, and changing the screen temperature of my monitor.
5. Increase exercise by having a plan for each day of the week to differentiate my activities, as well as an overall target for the year to work towards.

The purpose of the above system is what it does: helps reduce the frequency and intensity of my migraines. I’ve iterated towards it over time. However, it’s also something that I could have intentionally sat down and created.

Sometimes, the easiest thing to do is to think about a bad situation that you’re in, identify what’s causing it, and then turn those arrows upside down.

For example, early in my career, I was off work due to anxiety and depression. In fact, I was on anti-depressants for about three months, and ultimately resigned from a job which was causing me huge amounts of stress. At the time, I saw this as a huge personal failure, but now understand that my perfectionist tendencies coupled with the environment I was in had conspired to create “a system to cause Doug stress.”

I could have used a diagram similar to the above to identify the things in my life which were causing stress and poor mental health, and then thought about the actions which I could take to change them. For example, what am I maximising in my life that I should minimise? What am I (intentionally or unintentionally) trying to increase when I should be trying to decrease it?

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In this post, I’ve focused on physical symptoms as they’re perhaps the easiest to understand and are more tangible than some of the forces at work within organisations. But the same is true everywhere. The purpose of a system may be what it does, but that doesn’t mean it was intended to be like that, nor does it mean that you have to leave it how you found it.