**October 22, 2024** #### #### Links [Transistor](https://share.transistor.fm/s/ac7b1d74) [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/3DBRCVFep0YbYeLPcVVXQv) [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/essential-dynamics-with-derek-hudson/id1542392917) [Podcast Addict](https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/essential-dynamics-with-derek-hudson/3153944) #### Summary Dave and Derek look at what it takes to get to system flow. It might not be what you think. #### Concepts - [[System Flow]] - [[Drivers]] - [[Constraints]] - [[Focus on improving the process rather than on achieving the outcome]] - [[Simplicity on the other side of complexity - Holmes]] ![[Episode 104 Achieving System Flow_image_1.png]] #### Quotes >I'm really excited to see if we can, in these conversations, help people get to the simplicity on the other side of complexity. > >When you focus on the process, you can improve every time you run the process. It can get better and it can get more resilient. It can take into account the things that you've learned when it didn't go well, so you get better and better and better. You can control the process; you can't control the outcome. >[To achieve flow] we have to have the right level of challenge. It has to be a meaningful activity, and it has to be at the right level of challenge - and that's a lot higher than we think. >If you care about your purpose, you care about your team, and you care about some standard of excellence, then you introduce that challenge, and that's the tension that you need to focus. >If you were in an organization where the activity is so important, and the level of challenge and accomplishment is high enough, then the organization can feel that flow as well. >If you want flow, you need two things. You need a driving force and then you need a restraining force; so then you channel it. If you want really high output, the you need to take your flow and put it in a tight constraint. >The fundamental decisions that an organization needs to make make so much sense when you think of it in terms of those forces and those tensions, and what's the best way to deploy them. And you don't get that from a static org chart or a list of goals that you call a business plan. >There's a psychological, or a spiritual, energy where people get charged up for a purpose. It doesn't show up anywhere in the financial statements, but it's there or it's not there. If you want system flow, the people have to be part of it. >The nature of a system means everything has got to be interconnected and in balance, but it is elements of that tension between Purpose X and Purpose Y, the tension and balance between drivers and constraints, and now that tension between challenging people and rewarding them, and having them know their place in it. >But all those start mixing together into a complicated soup that is your process, but you need all that working together to find your flow... Once you work through that, now we are at the simplicity on the other side of complexity and we have flow. >It's not that all the complexity goes away, it's just that the simplicity rides on top of it. And you've got people who are handling complex tasks, but they are doing it in context. And it doesn't seem as complicated anymore. ## See also - [[Episode 103 What is System Flow|Episode 103 What is System Flow?]] %% 12:50 We're trying to find the tightest tension point that's not being addressed, and we're going to put Purpose X on one side of it and Purpose Y on the other side of it.