Systemic Design for Strategy and Future-Fit Organisations

Bernd Herbert

Organisations often struggle to agree upon, align, and effectively implement their strategies. This talk addresses these challenges by presenting the language of systemic business design. Through visual representations, Bernd Herbert demonstrates how strategy can and should be visual, simple, engaging, co-creative, and tangible. To illustrate strategy-making through systemic design, a simple framework, such as a circle, is utilised to make relationships visible. In this talk, a comprehensive systems map representing each strategic area by at least one core tool or approach is examined. The elements are depicted as canvases that can be co-created, visualised, and integrated with other tools, each with a tangible measure and objective attached. As a systemic design strategy artefact, such maps facilitate the co-creation of strategy from diverse parts into a unified whole.

Strategy, in essence, is an adaptive and continuous process that aligns the critical determinants of any organisation, including purpose, value proposition, business model, structure, capabilities, and culture. These drivers influence and build upon each other. Historically, much emphasis is placed on aligning a few of these factors to tackle complex problems in an organisation’s markets, aiming to minimise harm, drive ecosystem creation (such as circular economies), and identify areas for innovation. However, these efforts typically remain limited to short-term and profit-driven initiatives, often following an annual strategy review cycle. The outcomes of such transformations are poor, with BCG reporting a 75% failure rate, particularly in the face of urgent challenges like climate change.

Organisations function as living systems by aligning strategic determinants systemically and recognising how they interact, achieving an impact where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Understanding these relationships means recognising how these areas interconnect and reinforcing them to drive desired outcomes. Leveraging the potential of purpose, value proposition, and customer needs into a regenerative business model influences corporate development from the inside out. Aligning purpose with culture, capabilities, and structure drives the internal evolution of the organisation. Leadership, learning, and vision become tangible, exciting, and motivational forces for all stakeholders. This internal alignment fosters higher employee engagement through more open co-creation models, as suggested by sociocracy, generating new ideas for innovation, competitive advantages, new partnerships, and desired outcomes. While this approach requires time, it ultimately drives profit, retention, customer satisfaction, and new growth.

The proposed approach, delivered through a visual, systemic, and narrative style, highlights the pivotal role of systemic design in strategy-making, demonstrating its alignment with business needs. Integrating methods from diverse disciplines into the strategy framework establishes a cohesive systemic language understandable to all organisation members. The approach fosters long-term sustainability and continuous learning within the organisation, and strategic initiatives, including foresight, sustainability, and digital transformation through AI, are effectively supported when viewed through the lens of systemic business design principles. Without this systemic perspective, such strategic transformations are prone to failure. However, since the organisation’s purpose adapts to respond to signals from shifting customer needs and its internal compass, it thrives and becomes future-fit, thus ensuring that we all thrive in the future.

KEYWORDS: systemic design, strategy, future-fit organisations, playbook, toolbox, framework, methods, business model, value proposition, purpose, culture, leadership, sociocracy, transformation, systems map, management innovations.

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