Welcome to the "Leadership for Systems Thinking" guide!

Since the writing of the first SAI System’s Thinking Survival Guide, it has been well documented by Liker and Meier (2007) that a system-thinking approach can improve performance in business, health care, and/or education if you include these three key ingredients:

1. Identify critical knowledge.
2. Transfer knowledge using job instruction.
3. Verify learning and success.

This update on “Leadership for Systems Thinking” will focus on the role of the principal in the implementation of these three broad areas of system improvement. Specific systemic ideas suggested and supported by Michael Fullan’s “What’s Worth Fighting for in the Principalship” (2007 Second Edition), and “The Six Secrets of Change: How Leaders Survive and Thrive” (2008) will be combined with practical artifacts to offer ideas on how to take systems thinking from theory into practice.

Also since the inception of the first guide, the Iowa Core Curriculum has been adopted and with it comes an even greater need for systems thinking on the local, regional, state, national, and global levels. This requires what Liker and Meier describe as “intentional mindfulness” rather than “mindless conforming.” To illustrate this, the researchers describe how the successful Toyota company places a high value on creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving. At the same time, they focus on “consistency of practice” and a set of non-negotiables that have been identified as crucial to success.

“Consistency of effective practice and continuous improvement are decidedly not mutually exclusive,” says Michael Fullan. This guide will focus on specific, targeted actions that will empower principals to harness the energy of systems thinking that results in improved student achievement. To aid in that effort, the original information from the first Systems Thinking Survival Guide has been left in place as a reference point for implementation progress. In addition, each key point from the new guide is linked to a component of the Iowa Core Curriculum. This crosswalk will hopefully provide talking points as districts use systems thinking to do the “Right Work at the Right time with the Right People.”