Systems are sets of rules with predefined purposes, designed to streamline processes in various aspects of life, from vehicle operations to metro ticketing. They serve as the foundation for our decision-making processes and shape our outcomes. The beauty of systems lies in their interconnectedness; each system can serve as both a building block and a backbone for others, creating a cascade of interlinked structures that form the basis of how our society functions.
To Understand the need for systems, we need to view systems not as a standalone idea but as the amalgamation of blocks that form how our society works. The reasons for the system are either to optimise what exists and make it perform better, faster or safer or to create a whole new paradigm, that is different and better.
The Need for System Innovation
System innovation becomes necessary under two conditions:
- When society faces a systemic challenge requiring a systemic response.
- When society encounters a systemic opportunity to create a new kind of system.
Systemic challenges push for change for example Climate change pushes for innovations in renewable energy; systemic opportunities pull innovations for example the invention of the internet led to the creation of Bitcoin. The first is about tackling a problem, and the second is about realising a possibility. While linked they are quite different activities. Systemic challenges expose fundamental issues about a system’s purpose and organization, revealing structural weaknesses in society’s current modus operandi.
Systematic Opportunities: Creating $BOOM
Systematic opportunities are the opportunities that arise not from the problem of society but by sighting a gap that we don’t know needs to be filled. A systemic opportunity is fundamental because it is based on a completely different operating model to achieve a different goal. it takes time to unfold because it is generative, it creates a mass of new value, economically and socially.
It requires the collaborative approach of combining multiple blocks of a system to create a new system that enhances and provides a new way of accomplishing a different goal. It is not born out of a need, as the society will function as normally as if it hadn’t been built but creates adds a whole new value to the system leading to a better way, faster and easier way of doing new things. Generative AI is the prime example of a systematic opportunity, before going mainstream in mid-2022, there was not a gap to fill in the need to create new content, there are already functioning ways of the way it is being carried out but with the advent of generative AI, there is a better, faster way and also leading to a whole abilities and needs that aren’t imagined before.
Systemic opportunities are fundamental, unfolding and collaborative. Spotting and then taking such an opportunity, however, requires both imagination and courage. That requires radical leaps, not just small steps. A mass of innovation is always going on within a system to prolong its life, raise productivity, improve quality and reduce waste.
The backbone of systematic opportunity is increasing innovations, combining existing knowledge and systems of doing things and then imagining a new way it can be accomplished. It is an act of radical innovation.
System innovation can start from the challenge or the opportunity. It does not need both. However, the case for system innovation becomes much more powerful when the challenge and the opportunity work together. The first step in systems change is always to be clear about the challenge and the opportunity. We think the opportunity is more important than the challenge.
Further Reading: