I spent the first half of my career firefighting. Something would break, I’d fix it. Something would break again—usually in exactly the same way—and I’d fix it again.

I thought speed was sophistication. I thought certainty was competence. It took me a long time to understand that I wasn’t solving problems; I was managing the most visible symptoms of complex systems I’d never sought to understand.

Now look around. The systems we all depend on—organizational, political, economic, ecological—are breaking down in real time, faster than most of us can process. And we are watching, on a global scale, what happens when leaders mistake the surface for the whole picture: fighting symptoms, ignoring causes, somehow shocked when the same crises keep returning.

Ready for some good news for a change? There’s a smarter, more sustainable way to lead.

“The future can’t be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can’t be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned.”

—Donella Meadows, systems thinking pioneer

TRUTH #3: CHANGE IS COMPLEX

The Essential Leadership Skill Nobody Knows About

[excerpted from my book-in-progress, How Change (Really) Works: 10 Truths for Living and Leading in Transformational Times]

If I could wave a magic wand and gift every leader in the world one core skill, it wouldn’t be emotional intelligence, communication or resilience—as important as each of these are. It would be systems thinking.

We are used to “surface thinking.” When a problem presents itself, we rush to solve it. When a question arises, we feel pressure to answer it. When something breaks, we move fast to fix it. We treat change the same way, looking for the shortest, straightest line from where we are to where we want to be. We do this in pursuit of (or perhaps, more accurately, in the performance of) certainty.

But as we know, in a complex system, certainty is not a thing.

Systems thinking, on the other hand, is powered by curiosity. It starts with an assumption that we don’t know the solution, that perhaps we can’t know it. And it is precisely that not knowing, paired with a desire to understand, that allows us to dig below the surface and get to know the system we’re working with.

When we practice systems thinking, we become curious about three dimensions of our system:

1. Connections: how the elements in the system connect with one another
2. Behaviors: the patterns that emerge in those connections over time
3. Causes: what root causes perpetuate that behavior, and what interventions might cause it to change (emphasis on “might”)

You can see how taking a bit of time to dig below the surface of the system—leaning into curiosity over certainty—makes for smarter strategies with more informed interventions. So, how do we do it?

The systems thinking iceberg is a classic tool for getting under the surface:

RESULTS: These are the system’s events, the outcomes it produces. There will be positive results, negative results and neutral results we might overlook. We tend to pay most attention to negative results, and move quickly to address them. We ask, “what’s happening?” “whose fault is it?” and “what’s the fastest fix?” This reactivity keeps us stuck at the surface of the system, fighting the same fires day after day without addressing—or even acknowledging—their causes.

I’m speaking from personal experience. This is where I lived for the first half of my life, and how I operated throughout much of my career. Firefighting. I’m willing to bet it feels familiar to you too, since many organizations operate at this level most days.

PATTERNS: Though they may seem like one-off events, a system’s results are produced by patterns of behavior in the system over time. If we are willing to take a beat to get curious about patterns, we might ask “have we seen this before?” “is it likely to happen again?” and “is there a pattern here?” Sometimes patterns are obvious, but most of the time you have to go looking for them, especially when patterns are unplanned and unintended—or when you’ve been a part of the system so long it’s hard to see.

For that reason (and many more), it’s wise to do this digging with other people, ideally people with different roles and perspectives, areas of expertise and tenures in the system. This is how we get a more complete picture of the system, its patterns and the structures that support them.

Many strategic planning and change management initiatives stop here, setting a goal (result) and defining new behaviors (patterns) that will be necessary to achieve it. But as we’ll see in Truth #4—that’s next month for you, lovely newsletter subscriber—we human beings don’t like being told what to do, in fact we’re wired to resist it. Plus, while changing behavioral patterns is important, it’s not enough.

STRUCTURES: Patterns don’t arise out of nowhere. A bit more curiosity reveals that structures in the system are making them practically inevitable. W. Edward Deming said, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” The designing mostly happens at the level of structures. Here, we ask questions like “how are the elements of the system (e.g. individuals, teams, technologies, resources, etc.) connected to one another?” “how are they impacting and influencing one another?” and “what rules or norms guide these relationships?”

Structures can be pretty much anything in a system that is designed—intentionally or unintentionally—to influence behavior. Office buildings are structures, of course, as are the hierarchies we find on org charts. Incentive programs are structures, and so are processes like product testing and performance reviews. If we change a structure, we are likely to shift a pattern and get different results. But structures are not always easy to change. To understand why, there’s one more layer to explore.

PARADIGMS: The structures at play in your system were designed according to conscious and/or unconscious beliefs about how things should be, and how they have to be. So we ask “what old assumptions, beliefs or values created these structures?” (these are often unconscious and implicit) and “what new mindsets or principles can shift this system?” (these will need to be conscious and explicit).

Conscious beliefs may be articulated in organizational values or core principles, whereas unconscious beliefs are more likely assumptions or narratives we’ve internalized to the point where we no longer question them. Our conscious and unconscious beliefs do not always align—after all, one of Enron’s corporate values was “integrity.” So it’s important not to limit our curiosity or our creativity to the professed principles we put up on the wall or post on the website. Unconscious beliefs are harder to change, and much more powerful.

If you can shift a core paradigm, though, the whole system shifts with it. Structures will be redesigned to align with the new beliefs, creating new patterns of behavior that yield new results. That’s because paradigms frame everything in a cohesive and compelling story of how things work. “That’s just the way it is.” Whether we’re talking about organizational power dynamics, cultural norms like individualism, or global systems like democracy or capitalism, this story is interwoven with our own identities, which are in turn stories about ourselves.

Change the story, and you can change everything.

“I see the world through the lens of stories: stories we have inherited that tell us who we are and how to make sense of our place in the world.
​
And I think that the moment in time in which we’re living now could be characterized as a moment at which the story that has shaped – dominated – our self-perception for almost a century has started to break down.“

—Jon Alexander, author of the must-read CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us

What Story is Your System Running On?

This systemic inquiry is the first, crucial step in any sustainable transformation strategy. If we aren’t doing this digging, unearthing deeper levels of connections and causation in the system, we don’t know what has to change. Our plans will stay stuck at the surface and we’ll be continually frustrated by the same results.

But if we can start our planning process with curiosity, we can use systems thinking to understand the complex system we’re in and the story it’s running on. Here’s what that might look like in 3 different systems:

SYSTEM A: No “I” in Team

• Result: A star team member resigns.
• Pattern: Low performance is tolerated, high performers are over-tasked and burning out
• Structure: Incentives reward individual performance; no feedback or accountability in place for underperformance
• Paradigm: Avoidant individualism. Performance is a solo game—but not everyone can be a star.

SYSTEM B: Speed to Scale

• Result: Team misses key product deadline.
• Pattern: Unrealistic plans, slipping timelines, poorly scoped projects, task switching
• Structure: Sales driving product timelines, under-resourced product team with limited bandwidth, lack of feedback loops and checks on timing
• Paradigm: Fast is more important than good, because more is better.

SYSTEM C: Competing with Ourselves

• Result: Team loses new business pitch it was well-positioned to win.
• Pattern: Lack of team chemistry, interdepartmental competition over collaboration
• Structure: Divide-and-conquer approach to the pitch materials, lack of unified leadership skillfully managing tensions around competing perspectives and priorities
• Paradigm: Winning is what matters most—internally and externally.

The paradigms at the heart of these systems are all but invisible to the people within the systems. To them, this is “just the way it is” and there is no other option.

The leaders in System A don’t realize that they have created the conditions to lose the very talent they’re celebrating. To System B, it seems like a risk to slow down or pause to design a process that supports the best possible outcome. System C has operated competitively for so long that collaboration feels downright dangerous.

[end of excerpt]

This month, I challenge you to dig beneath the surface of your system, ideally with a few other curious minds who will bring different perspectives to the table. Can you discover what story your system is running on?

Want to get a feel for systems thinking in a safe and structured space? Join my next Mini-Retreat, coming up Friday, April 17.

April Mini-Retreat: SYSTEMS THINKING | What’s Under the Surface

The problems we can see are rarely the problems we need to solve.

The Systems Thinking mini-retreat will teach you to look beneath the surface of the challenges you face and the changes you’re looking to make, to understand the patterns, structures and paradigms that create them.

Learn to think like a systems architect instead of a constant firefighter, and make real change your system can sustain.

Friday, April 17, 2026 ​
5-6:30 p.m. GMT
12-1:30 p.m. ET
9-10:30 a.m. PT

Zoom link sent upon registration

Mini-Retreats are free for RadiantChange.co members, who can RSVP here.

Your Turn

I want to thank you for the amazing feedback coming in on these first few book excerpts—and openly invite your thoughts on this one. Hit reply and let me know what new connections you’re seeing in your systems. What patterns are persisting? What paradigms are at play?

And as always, I’m curious about what’s resonating, challenging and inspiring you here… and anything that can be clearer, more concrete or more compelling. Deep gratitude.

Onward together.

Kristen Lisanti
​Radiant Change​
​How Change (Really) Works