Today’s education challenges are more complex and dynamic than ever before, requiring education leaders and changemakers to rethink and reframe how they develop solutions. Systems thinking enables leaders to move beyond surface-level solutions to help drive deep change. However, change is not only the result of intentional actions. It is constantly unfolding all around us in ways that are far beyond our control. By adding a futures orientation to systems thinking, leaders can account for an ever-evolving external environment as they determine how to shift their systems in intentional ways.

Inbound and Outbound Change

The field of strategic foresight – a professional discipline that looks to the future to inform action today – describes two types of change, inbound and outbound. In Teaching about the Future, futurists Peter Bishop and Andy Hines (2012) describe inbound and outbound change as follows.

“Change comes from two sources – the world and us. Change from the world is Inbound because it comes at us. Change we produce ourselves is Outbound because it emanates from our actions into the world.”

Clearly, the boundaries are not absolute. Individuals and groups make choices that then have broad ripple effects, and large-scale social, economic and demographic shifts influence people’s decisions. However, treating inbound and outbound change as distinct categories can help changemakers balance their own sense of power and agency with many factors beyond their locus of control.

Leaders often base decisions on how a system behaves today without considering how inbound change might affect those plans over time. They tend to focus on present reality, past system behaviors and the outbound changes needed to shift current reality but overlook the inevitable inbound change that will most certainly shape the future. New realities, growing trends and unexpected disruptions all have the potential to introduce new opportunities, diminish the effectiveness of chosen actions or alter the depth of an action’s influence on the underlying system. 

While the future will always remain uncertain, organizations can remain adaptable as conditions evolve if they examine and challenge assumptions about the future as part of their systems thinking practice.  

Applying a Futures Orientation to a Systems Problem

In 2020, KnowledgeWorks published The Education Changemakers’ Guidebook to Systems Thinking, a resource designed to help educators, policymakers and communities apply systems thinking to create more student-centered learning environments. This publication is part of the organization’s broader thought leadership on education transformation, providing a structured approach meant to help leaders and education audiences understand challenges, identify leverage points and shape the future of learning.  

The guidebook outlines three essential steps for effectively applying systems thinking in an education setting: 

1. Framing the Focus of a Systems Problem: Examining diverse perspectives within a system and defining the behaviors that we want to change
2. Visualizing the Structure of a Systems Problem: Using systems thinking tools to visually depict system behaviors and create shared understanding about them and their interconnectedness
3. Looking for Leverage to Create Change: Recognizing that all actions are not created equal and identifying high-impact actions, or leverage points, that might fundamentally shift the way a system works 

From there, leaders can explore inbound change on the horizon and consider how they might want or need to adjust their plans.

Using Inbound Change to Check or Identify Leverage Points

Consider the very real issue of staffing shortages in schools. This is one of five key areas that are shaping how education operates today and will determine what unfolds for education systems and learners in the future.

Imagine that you are working on a staffing shortage problem in a school district. The shortage seems to be, at least in part, caused by teacher burnout. After framing the specific nature of the problem with a range of people who are part of the system – young people, families, educators, board members, counselors – and considering the many variables at work, you decide to request a new school counselor position. You believe that this position will both support student well-being and take pressure off teachers who are struggling to balance instructional workloads with students’ increasing social and emotional needs. 

This robust process is necessary. But, from a futures-thinking perspective, it is not entirely sufficient. The next step would be to consider how broader shifts in society might demand that the school district think beyond this immediate solution to consider the evolving external factors that might influence its impact. The questions below illustrate some inbound changes that could influence how district leaders might decide to address their challenge.

• How might the effects of accelerating technologies and climate change shift the timing, structure and delivery of learning?

• How might increasing civic polarization affect the ways schools and districts approach students’ social and emotional well-being?

• How might a changing economy affect both public and private funding for education?

• How might shifting beliefs about the purpose of education, influenced by economic and social changes, change people’s expectations and priorities for the educational workforce?

These emerging shifts could reshape the staffing challenge in unexpected ways. They invite leaders to consider alternative approaches or possibilities such as those reflected in the questions below.

• Will a traditional counselor role remain the most effective solution? Or could a newly imagined position better address the evolving needs of both educators and students? 

• What priorities for different constituent groups, such as parents or school board members, and possible political dynamics might emerge? How might those relationships and priorities change over time?

• How might possible funding realities impact the feasibility of this decision? What types of circumstances would make the decision to hire a new role sustainable – or not?

• What shifts in mental models might be necessary to ensure that the solution remained relevant as beliefs and circumstances shifted over time? 

These questions do not have right and wrong answers. They may even highlight how much uncertainty about the future remains, underscoring the need for continued discussion and monitoring of the external environment. While seeking the new counselor position might still prove to be the best action for the school district to take at this time, having conversations about the changing landscape in which the system operates will surface new possibilities, including potential challenges and emerging opportunities, that could be worth watching.

The interconnected nature of systems means that there is no perfect answer and that every choice will have both intended and unintended consequences. Bringing systems thinking into the decision-making process provides a framework for navigating complexity. Adding long-term foresight to near-term decision-making processes can help education leaders take more informed and enduring action. 

Systems Thinking Habits That Promote Futures Thinking

Systems thinking and futures thinking strengthen each other. Thinking about systems enables leaders to consider future possibilities with more rigor and depth. Considering future possibilities raises important questions about how systems behave and why and how they might change. The following Habits of a Systems Thinker are also habits of a futures thinker when approached and applied in certain ways. Considering the future-oriented dimensions of these habits can support and deepen both leaders’ systems thinking and their emerging futures thinking practices.

• Seeks to understand the big picture: In systems thinking, seeing the big picture is about acknowledging the breadth and interconnection among today’s existing systems. In futures thinking, the big picture is about extending the time horizon and the long-term implications of today’s decisions.

• Observes how elements within the system change over time: Systems thinkers look at how patterns of system behaviors have changed over time. Futures thinkers consider different patterns that might emerge and how system behavior could change in the future

• Considers an issue fully and resists the urge to come to a quick conclusion: A system is never fully knowable because everyone within it sees things differently. That’s why visual tools in systems thinking are so valuable – they help create a shared understanding. The future is also uncertain, but instead of seeing that as a problem to solve, futures thinking encourages leaders to embrace uncertainty and consider all possibilities, which equips them to be ready for change and discover new opportunities.

• Surfaces and tests assumptions: Understanding a system requires making assumptions because its components will never be fully transparent. Similarly, there are no facts about the future – only assumptions and possibilities. Bringing these assumptions to light from people involved in the system – how the system works, what they expect to happen and what they want to happen – can lead to powerful conversations about shaping change.

Systems thinkers are already well-primed to be futures thinkers. They are already deeply considering their own actions and how they might create meaningful outbound change. Considering inbound change and infusing a future orientation to well-established systems thinking habits can ensure that education leaders are prepared to lead through uncertainty and volatility and transform their systems in ways that create a better future for the people they serve.

Works Cited

Bishop, P. C., & Hines, A. (2012). Teaching about the future. Palgrave Macmillan.

KnowledgeWorks. (2020). The education changemakers’ guidebook to systems thinking. https://knowledgeworks.org/resources/education-changemakers-guidebook-systems-thinking/