My Journey
In my 32 years of journey, I have had two careers: one is professional and the other entrepreneurial. It was amazing...
By profession I am from a Supplier Management background with skills in Project Management, Risk Based Audits, Quality Management Systems and recently working on System Dynamics, researching methods to simplify organizational systems. In the blog section and GoodBooks section, you'll find my works in these fields.
Apart from the profession, I am also a 3 times entrepreneur and interestingly all 3 start-ups are in different industries: Restaurants, Marketing, and Technology. All have seen a bit of success before I shut them down as I felt something is missing in all those...
Systems Thinkers Community
Over the years in Supplier Management profile, I always come across the struggles of professionals to understand the QMS and importantly its essence on business as a whole, from the very first day I was pretty sure something is seriously missing in QMS but I didn't know then what it was, I just kept learning.
Often in my free time, I spent working with my suppliers in building QMS. Unlike many think, this Quality Management System does not just talks about quality, it's the most natural language of any business you name, whether it's a for-profit or not-for-profit everything operates in and as a system.
In reality, it is a broad subject to cover in any one learning session no matter how experienced the trainer is. Whenever I do a risk assessment audit of my suppliers, in my final audit notes I often write "lack of analytical skills of the team, lack of system awareness, lack of system thinking, etc." Very early in my career, I learned, fortunately, how to assess risks and I developed my own method: risk categorization—System Risks, Process Risks, Leadership Risks. It covers everything and based on the type of risk I used to work with them for improvements. Approach angle is very important for successful take-off as well as landing.
Out of my curiosity, I spent almost two years to know the underlying reasons and I recorded notes of my discussions with the supplier's management. When I put all these data together I noticed the pattern, they all had a few things in common no matter how big or small organizations they are working for:
—organizations spent less than average money on people learning, I call this "investments in ambition". It's natural to be aspirant but unless organizations—even individuals—don't invest enough aspirations will remain a wishful desire, never realize.
—self-education is a missing thing in employees, from junior engineers to senior managers, it's a missing link
—suppliers are not the suppliers and customers are not the customers
—all are working hard with years of experience but still struggling with money-mapping profitability
"education" is a one-point solution to all these issues, and concerns, or else these gaps will turn into the risks we all are carrying.
This is a lot bigger task, but as a person, I have to admit my limitations, of time and energy, to educate every individuals. On the other hand, I cannot just freak down admitting those limitations, my Guru Maharaj says "it's your responsibility to share your knowledge if you know about the subject in truth".
Community is the place where every everlasting change begins... and this is that Community platform where as a Systems Psychology student I will share best practices of Systems Thinking through blogs, articles, videos, and reading materials as I learned over the years, researched, practiced... just to make businesses better... Happy Learning...!!!
I know, as of now it is just one-way communication, but very soon I am opening it to public postings. Anyone who is interested in and believe knowledge sharing can post their ideas...
I have two suggestions:
If you want to do only one thing, then go solve a problem. And, yes, solve it, don't mess with it...
and,
Never fear to create change, only change can make the future better. If fear is your problem, then first solve that problem, "change your fear".
About Me
My name is Shivalingeshwar Naik native of the state of Karnataka, graduated in Mechanical Engineering from S.D.M.C.E.T Dharwad.
Note: There's no such field called Systems Psychology in existence today but without system psychologists, you can not build a lasting system structure and a real learning organization. You need to understand the dynamics of behaviors that cause policy resistance. Why do your people see the system as a useless adventure? Why do they see the system in just papers and procedures? How can you solve these sucking problems is what makes an aspiring learning organization a reality.
If you try to build a learning organization without a systems psychologist who understands systems structure is like you're going to climb a mountain without an expert mountain climber's guidance. In psychological experiments, we studied interviews of mountain climbers, they say, "mountain climbing is more of a psychological task than a physical one. One may think we maintain our body balance physically but know it from a mountain climber; body balancing is an act of the mind. It's not a physiology; it's a psychology.
So, though Systems Psychology is not in existence today, it will come into existence very soon as this is the most in need to create learning organizations. Only psychologists can give answers to behavioral questions. Your sessions or objectives has no meaning and can never give results unless they are designed for the behavioral needs.