## Systems thinking for strategists Strategy isn’t just about setting goals. It’s about understanding the system you’re trying to shape. Linear plans often falter because the world doesn’t move in straight lines—markets swing, usage patterns shift, and customer feedback arrives with a lag. Systems thinking is about seeing the web of connections and asking: *what pattern is really driving behaviour here?* --- ## Whole > parts Looking at the whole changes what you notice. Most organisations still manage parts in isolation—sales, product, finance—without asking how the interactions behave as a system. That’s why a push for new sales bookings can quietly undermine renewal rates, or why finance’s drive for cash collection collides with customer support’s need to build goodwill. In software, the dynamic shows up clearly in the sales funnel. If you pour in too many leads, the stock of pipeline looks healthy on paper, but sales teams can’t give each one proper attention. Follow-ups slip, qualification drops, and customer success later inherits a messy set of accounts that churn quickly. If you run with too few leads, the opposite problem kicks in: even if conversion rates are fine, there isn’t enough volume to hit targets. Teams over-react—discounting harder, chasing poor-fit prospects—and the system becomes lumpy and unpredictable. The real issue in both cases isn’t the *amount* of pipeline at the top, it’s the *flow rate* through the stages. When deals stall or cycle times drag, stocks balloon or dry up in ways that disguise the real health of the system. --- ## Loops and leverage Every system runs on feedback loops. Some reinforce growth (a well-designed onboarding experience lifts adoption, which drives word-of-mouth, which funds more product investment). Others balance against it (a stretched engineering team slows feature delivery, which dents adoption, which constrains revenue). The strategist’s job is to spot which loop dominates right now—and where a small intervention could shift the pattern. In software firms, the leverage is rarely in tweaking this quarter’s budget line; it’s in information flows (are usage signals visible to sales?), decision rules (who can discount, and when?), or the goal itself (optimising for ARR vs NRR tells the whole system what “good” looks like). --- ## Learning as infrastructure Even the best insights fade if the organisation can’t learn. Many teams adjust tactics—shifting spend, adding headcount—but fewer ask whether the underlying assumptions still hold. That’s double-loop learning: not just “did this work?” but “were we solving the right problem?” A simple discipline helps. Map the goal, the few critical factors that enable it, and the conditions beneath. In a SaaS context, that might mean one goal (sustainable NRR), a handful of critical factors (adoption, retention, expansion), and then the conditions beneath (onboarding, support response times, account health checks). Review regularly and you’ll catch conflicts before they calcify. --- ## A strategist’s checklist - **Draw the map** before reaching for the spreadsheet. - **Identify the dominant loop**—is growth reinforcing, or is something balancing it down? - **Experiment at leverage points** like goals, rules, or flows of information. - **Shorten delays** so feedback (usage, churn signals, payment issues) reaches decision-makers quickly. - **Institutionalise reflection**—after-action reviews or goal trees to test assumptions. --- ## Reflection Most strategies fail not because the goal was wrong, but because the system driving behaviour wasn’t visible. In software businesses, those loops are often hiding in plain sight: between bookings and renewals, between usage and roadmap, between cash and customer trust. The leverage usually lies not in a big initiative, but in making one loop faster or clearer. Look at your current priorities: which feedback loop, if you made it more visible, would change how decisions get made?