The Importance of Systems Thinking in Running and Life

Systems Thinking

A Self-Assessment for Anyone Who Is Part of a Team

coachweber.org  |  Coach Larry Weber

Something happens to people when they finally understand systems thinking. They go quiet for a moment. Then they say something like, "That's been happening to us for years and I never had a name for it."

I take this assessment myself regularly. Not because I've mastered the concept, but because I haven't. I still catch myself making decisions that feel personal and private, only to discover that they touched five people I forgot to consider. I still create consequences I didn't intend from efforts I genuinely believed in. The discipline is not in getting it right every time. The discipline is in coming back to the mirror honestly.

I developed this over more than four decades of coaching, grounded in one belief: formation comes before performance. But these ideas belong to everyone who leads, manages, coaches, is a parent, or builds anything that requires people to function well together. That includes athletes and parents. It also includes business owners, department heads, pastors, and anyone who has ever made a decision that affected people they forgot to include in the conversation.

Helping others reach their God-given potential requires honest self-assessment by everyone — including coaches. Take your time with this. Write honestly. The answers you protect most carefully are usually the ones that matter most.

— Coach Larry Weber

Most breakdowns — in teams, businesses, families, and organizations — don't happen because people are selfish or incompetent. They happen because good people stop seeing past the edges of their own role. A well-intentioned decision creates a consequence nobody tracked. Individual effort never develops a language for collective impact. The damage builds quietly, and by the time it's visible, people are pointing at each other rather than at the system.

Systems thinking is the most underused skill in organizations. Here is what working through this honestly can give you:

•        You'll see specific decisions you are currently making that affect people who don't even know you made them.

•        You'll recognize consequences you created through good intentions that you've never fully examined.

•        You'll gain plain language for the conversations most people avoid — the ones about impact, not intent.

•        You'll carry three questions that, asked at the right moments, will change how you operate in every team you belong to.

None of this requires a course or a certificate. It requires honesty — and a willingness to write the things you've been carrying quietly.

This is not a quiz. There are no scores, no grades, and no one watching. This is a mirror. Read each section, sit with the questions, and write if you want to. What you do with what you find is entirely up to you.

Here is the thing about systems thinking that nobody warns you about: once you see it, you can't unsee it. You start noticing how the decision you made on Tuesday is the reason something broke on Friday. You start recognizing that the person you're frustrated with isn't the problem — the structure they're operating inside of is.

But to get there, you have to accept one uncomfortable truth first: almost nothing you do happens in isolation. Every action — no matter how personal, no matter how small — enters a system that other people live in too. Your decisions ripple. Always.

Systems thinking asks a different question than most of us were taught to ask. Instead of "What's the problem and how do I fix it?" — it asks: What happens downstream when I make this decision?

That single question, asked honestly and consistently, changes everything.                                                                                                      

Three Things to Recognize

First: the walls between roles are thinner than we pretend. In a relay race, the first-leg runner isn't just running her leg — she's setting conditions for every runner after her. In a business, a staffing decision in one department quietly determines whether the team next door can hit its deadline. In a family, a parent's choices affect an athlete's sleep, which in turn affects training, which in turn affects a team. Nothing is truly separate.

Second: cause and effect rarely sit next to each other. When you skip a team meeting in September, the consequence might not surface until February, when a teammate doesn't trust you in a pressure moment. When a business delays a hard conversation, the result shows up eighteen months later in a resignation. The delay is what makes it so hard to learn from. Systems thinkers look for the hidden distance between action and consequence.

Third: short-term fixes often borrow against a future you haven't arrived at yet. A runner who pushes through pain to compete may break down for an entire season. A business that cuts training to hit a quarterly number pays for it in turnover costs that dwarf the savings. Systems thinkers don't just ask "Does this work?" They ask: What does this cost — and when does that bill arrive?

Systems thinking is love in action. Thinking about how your decisions impact others downstream can prevent a lot of heartache and conflict.

Reflection 1: The decision you almost missed.

Name one decision you made this week that felt completely personal. Trace it forward. Who else was inside that system with you? Did they know your decision had touched them?

Reflection 2: The consequence that arrived late.

Think of something in your life right now that isn't working. Can you trace it back to a decision made months or years ago? What was that decision — and who made it?

Reflection 3: The bill you haven't paid yet.

Where have you applied a short-term fix that may have borrowed against a future you haven't arrived at? What was the fix — and what might it cost?

A silo decision is any choice made without considering how it affects others in the same system. The person making it usually isn't trying to cause harm. They simply aren't thinking beyond the walls of their own role.

This is one of the most expensive patterns in any team environment — relay squad or sales department, coaching staff or family. Silo decisions feel completely reasonable from inside the silo. The damage only becomes visible when you step back and look at the whole.

The three stories below are not about bad people. They are about good people who forgot they were part of a system.       

The Relay Handoff

A relay runner quietly adjusts her position at the exchange zone because it's more comfortable for her. She doesn't tell anyone. Her anchor has practiced the handoff forty times from a specific angle. The exchange fails. The team is disqualified. No one was selfish. One runner changed a piece of the system without telling the system.

The same pattern plays out in business every day. A manager quietly changes a report format to save herself time. The analyst downstream who depends on that format doesn't find out until the numbers are wrong in front of the executive team. No bad intent. Real damage.

Reflection 4: Your quiet adjustment.

Have you ever changed your schedule, approach, process, or communication style inside a shared system — without telling the people who depended on your consistency? What happened?

An athlete secretly adds extra mileage to improve faster. He doesn't tell the coach, who has been carefully building his load to peak for conference. Two weeks later, a stress reaction. He misses the meet. The effort was genuine. The disruption was real. He couldn't see the whole plan from inside his own lane.

In business, this is the team member who takes on extra client work to demonstrate initiative — without telling the project manager, who was protecting her capacity for a critical deliverable two weeks out. The system paid for a decision that felt like pure effort.

Reflection 5: Your initiative that cost someone else.

Have you ever worked harder or done more in a way that felt like personal initiative — but actually bypassed a plan someone else had built around you? What did that cost the system?

A parent shouts instructions from the sideline that contradict what the coach said before the race. The athlete hears two voices and hesitates. The parent had real knowledge and good intentions. But there are now two coaches — and the athlete doesn't know which system she belongs to. The problem isn't the advice. It's the circumvention.

In business, this is the senior leader who bypasses the direct manager to instruct a front-line employee. Or the executive who resolves a customer complaint without telling the account manager. Every instance creates two systems of authority in the same space — and the person caught between them pays the cost.

Reflection 6: The bypass you didn't recognize as a bypass.

Have you ever offered guidance or correction through a channel that bypassed the established system — at work, at home, in athletics? What was your intention? What did the system actually receive?

The harder question.

In what areas of your life — at work, on your team, in your family — do you most consistently act as if your decisions belong only to you?

An unintended consequence is an outcome nobody planned and nobody wanted — produced by a decision that made complete sense at the time. The decision wasn't wrong. The reasoning wasn't flawed. But the system responded in ways nobody anticipated.

This is the harder lesson of systems thinking. Silo decisions can at least be fixed by adding communication. Unintended consequences require something more difficult: intellectual humility. You have to be willing to say, "I did the right thing — and it still created a problem I didn't see coming."

Unintended consequences don't mean you were wrong. They mean the system is more complex than your model of it. The goal isn't to stop acting — it's to stay curious after you act, notice the unexpected, and adjust.                                                                         

Every Solution Shifts the Constraint

A coach, after losing two athletes to injury in back-to-back seasons, designs an extremely conservative training plan. Athletes are healthier than ever. They're also not fit enough to compete at their peak. He solved the injury problem and accidentally created a performance problem. The solution contained the seeds of the next constraint.

In business, this is the manager who, after a painful project failure, builds in so many approval layers that the team can no longer move fast enough to compete. The failure rate drops. So does the innovation rate. The constraint moved — it was never removed.

Reflection 7: The problem you solved created a new one.

Where have you solved a problem — at work or at home — and in solving it, shifted the pain somewhere else without realizing it? What did you fix, and what quietly broke as a result?

Parents who love their children deeply solve every problem before their child has to struggle. The child grows up unable to tolerate failure, manage frustration, or persist through difficulty. The very thing that felt like good parenting — protection — made them less prepared for the world.

Leaders do the same thing. The manager who always steps in to resolve conflicts before her team has to work through them. The executive who makes every hard decision so his people never have to make their own judgments. The mentor writes the proposal instead of coaching the mentee to write it. Every one of them is acting from genuine care. Every one of them is quietly fostering dependence rather than capability.

The system needs friction to produce strength. Remove all friction — remove all growth.

Reflection 8: Who have you protected from the struggle they needed?

Is there someone in your life — an athlete, a child, a direct report — you've consistently shielded from difficulty? What did you believe you were building in them? What might you have inadvertently prevented?

The hardest question.

What is the most significant unintended consequence you've created — not from carelessness, but from genuine effort or love — that you've never fully acknowledged?

Systems thinking is not a personality type. It's a set of habits. Anyone can practice them. What follows is an honest look at where you currently stand — not where you want to be.         

You ask 'Who else is in this system?"

Before a significant decision, you pause and name the people who share the same space. The coach asks who else the schedule affects. The manager asks who the policy change touches. The parent asks who the household decision ripples into. Not to get permission — but to acknowledge that the system is bigger than your role inside it.

How often do you actually do this?   1 — Rarely     2 — Sometimes     3 — Half the time     4 — Usually     5 — Consistently

Your honest rating: ______

Reflection 9

Name a decision you're facing right now. Who else lives inside it with you?

Every system sends signals. A team's energy in practice is a signal. An athlete's declining motivation is a signal. Employee turnover in one department is a signal. A customer complaint pattern is a signal. You look for what the system is trying to tell you before the outcome arrives — rather than waiting for the crisis.

How consistently do you pay attention to early signals?   1 — Rarely     2 — Sometimes     3 — Half the time     4 — Usually     5 — Consistently

Your honest rating: ______

Reflection 10

What signal is a system you belong to currently sending — that you've been minimizing or ignoring?

Because cause and effect are often far apart in time, you resist the urge to assign blame quickly. You ask "What contributed to this?" rather than "Who caused this?" A coach who asks this builds better athletes. A manager who asks this builds better teams. A parent who asks this builds better relationships.

How quickly do you typically assign blame?   1 — Immediately     2 — I find the obvious cause     3 — I try to consider multiple factors     4 — I usually delay     5 — I consistently investigate first

Your honest rating: ______

Reflection 11

Think of something that recently went wrong. What was the obvious cause you identified first? What might the real contributing factors have been if you looked further back?

Most people stop watching once they make a decision. You keep watching. You ask: Is the system responding the way I expected? What am I seeing that I didn't predict? The best coaches aren't the ones who designed the perfect plan. They're the ones who noticed fastest when the plan needed to change. The same is true of the best executives, the best teachers, and the best parents.

After you make a decision, how closely do you watch what the system produces?   1 — Rarely     2 — Sometimes     3 — Half the time     4 — Usually     5 — Consistently

Your honest rating: ______

Reflection 12

Name one decision you made in the last three months. What unexpected result did the system produce that you weren't watching for?

This is the habit that separates good leaders from great ones. You understand that "I didn't mean to hurt anyone" and "I hurt someone" can both be true at the same time. You don't defend your intentions when the impact is the real issue. You take responsibility for what your actions produced in the system — regardless of what you meant.

When someone tells you your action caused harm, what is your first instinct?   1 — I defend my intent immediately. 2 — I explain my reasoning first. 3 — I listen but return to my intent. 4 — I try to focus on impact. 5 — I address impact first, consistently

Your honest rating: ______

Reflection 13

Name one situation where you caused a real impact that you've been defending by pointing to your intent. Write what the impact actually was — not what you meant.

You don't need a framework to practice this. You need three questions — asked at the right moments, in the locker room, the conference room, the kitchen, or anywhere decisions get made.

Before you act:

Who else lives inside this decision with me?

 After you act:

What is the system telling me that I didn't expect?

 When something goes wrong:

What did the system produce — and what was my contribution to that?

Silo decisions — whether intentional or accidental — erode trust faster than almost any other pattern in a team. When people feel that others are deciding without considering them, they become defensive, disengaged, and protective. Culture doesn't deteriorate because anyone wanted it to. It deteriorates because the invisible connections between people were treated as unimportant.

Systems thinking is ultimately an act of respect. It says: Your role matters. Your experience matters. Before I move, I want to understand how my movement affects yours. In athletics, that's what championships are built on. In business, that's what cultures are built on. In families, that's what trust is built on.

Your Final Commitment

Write these as if someone might read them someday.

One silo decision pattern I recognize in myself:

One unintended consequence I've created that I've never fully acknowledged:

One specific thing I will do differently this week:

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

— Aristotle

Nowhere is this truer than in an organization where everyone chooses to see past the walls of their own role.

I wrote this for coaches, athletes, and parents. Then I kept recognizing myself in the business stories. Then I started sharing it with people who had never set foot on a track — and watched them find themselves in every example during my business and government career.

Every team is a system. Every family is a system. Every organization is a system. And the single most expensive assumption in any of them is the belief that what you do inside your own lane stays there.

Bring this to your staff meeting. Use it in a parent meeting. Give it to a business partner you trust. The conversations it starts are the ones most organizations desperately need and rarely have.

I'll be taking it again myself next month.

— Coach Larry Weber

Philippians 4:13

Think about how all the pieces of the system puzzle fit together. Each piece of the process puzzle needs to fit together to make a masterpiece.