Book Abstract

Keen on learning only one skill? Learn to solve problems systemically.

The Third Eye begins with a brainteaser, “Did the tree come first or the seed? Was it the chicken or the egg?”

In the book, I answered this unanswered question, “It is neither. The system came first. Without a fostering system, no tree or seed can survive.”

The system came first. Every system has three fundamental characteristics—self-maintaining, self-sustaining, and self-balancing. When the required conditions were met, the self-maintaining characteristic began the development of organisms, and the self-sustaining and self-balancing characteristics ensured the system’s continuity. This is the most basic understanding of the system.

The Third Eye is about solving problems through a systemic approach. My journey to this world of systems started when I met my first mentor, Akash Singh, during my graduation in Dharwad. He was an accident investigator in one of the Chinese agencies that conducted private investigations. He taught me how to approach problems, how investigators began their investigations, what made them different, and the various tools that help solve problems. Every systems learner knows how difficult it is to study these aspects but Akash ensured that I understood them. That’s how I entered this amazing world of systems thinking.

I met my next mentor in the form of a spiritual master and he changed the way I studied systems. Based on his spiritual ideas and philosophies, I developed various concepts to make understanding systems easy.

I have followed a different approach while writing The Third Eye. It is written in a conversational tone i.e., as though I’m conversing with my readers. I have written this book as an introduction to most of the concepts I have worked on. These include systems psychology, advanced risk assessment, and organizational learning. I have only introduced the topics here as the details of each can easily fill pages twice the size of this book. Other concepts that I have discussed in detail include systems structure, problem-solving, my four-step problem-solving framework, the Swiss cheese model, and intrinsic systems. Understanding these models is the key to becoming a systemic problem solver so that you can possess the third eye, the eye of enlightenment.

Before going ahead, I want to brief you on how this book is organized. It contains 8 chapters.

The first chapter deals with seeing systems as it is always better to start from the beginning. Systems learning begins with learning to see systems. I have presented a simple way to see and understand any system in less than 3 minutes. I have introduced the three fundamental characteristics of a system and the 6 basic considerations in building one.

The second chapter is about understanding systems. Here, I will draw your attention to my definition of a company and an organization so that you can use these words while considering systems. In this chapter, you will be introduced to concepts such as certifications are not systems, strategies alone cannot run your businesses and others. Systems thinking is about seeing and understanding systems everywhere and in everything.

The third chapter is about quality. You know a lot about quality already. Instead of providing publicly available knowledge, I am going to show you how quality improvement can be implemented in a company/organization and how systems can help you achieve your objectives. An important concept I teach here is, “When it comes to improvement, quality is a psychology.”

The fourth chapter is about problem-solving. This is my favourite field and the centre of my daily working life. Check if the method you use to solve problems is as per the systemic approach. I have divided this aspect into two parts. In chapter 4, I have explained the four-step problem-solving framework that I have developed and used all these years along with an example on which I worked a year ago. That investigation not only solved a problem but also taught a large global company many lessons. I also introduce problem categorization based on various factors. This will help you identify systemic factors clearly and explain how to take care of them in your solution. This is important as leaving any factor untouched could essentially put your system at risk.

The second part of the problem-solving aspect is provided at the end of the book where I have taken the previous example and explained it using the Swiss cheese model. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time this model is being used for operational problem-solving.

The fifth chapter is about the intrinsic system, a concept I use to make my systems analysis simple yet highly effective. Systems are complex in their entirety. Especially, the larger the breadth, the more complex they become. Hence, it is necessary to simplify them. But as a systems thinker, you should ensure that you don’t break a system randomly just for the sake of simplicity.

The sixth chapter is about organizational learning. You might have heard this concept before but I have some important and new concepts to present here such as organizational learning is different from learning organizations. You will also learn how you can create a learning culture in an organization by becoming a systems thinker. When I started working on this chapter I had a question, “Can one person change the world?” To answer this, I have developed a learning triangle. “Yes, one person can change the world!” But, how? By using the learning triangle.

The seventh chapter is about systems psychology. You will not find this word anywhere. Through my work in systems and systemic ways of solving problems, I have understood that to improve them, you need to focus not only on the systemic approach but also on the psychology of your systems. We never study systems as they should be, that’s what made me work on systems psychology.

We have complex problems everywhere because we don’t study systems as they should be. All we do is, “Follow quick fix methodologies and somehow try to shut the problems down instead of solving them.”

Akash cautioned me in 2012, “Shiva, if you don’t want to see problems, then it doesn’t mean closing your eyes, but solving them.” I always followed his advice.

To explain how to study failures I have analyzed four of the world’s worst disasters in a systemic light. These include the Titanic, the Chernobyl disaster, the Bhopal gas tragedy, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster. We should know the role of influencers in managing systems. Learning is important but not at the cost of destruction. “The school of failure is most effective for learning but the school of disasters is a costly school.”

One last thing…

In the chapter on organizational learning I have given an exclusive peek into my research, my work on intelligence. I work on three types of intelligence: generative, constructive, and regenerative. In The Third Eye, I have discussed the first two types, i.e. generative and constructive. I have explained these two concepts in scientific ways using popular examples like ChatGPT. I have also provided potential challenges and their remedial actions. I argued, “Generative artificial intelligence is a highly misunderstood concept. Machines can never have generative intelligence.” I have given scientific explanations for this along with various examples.

To summarize the whole book, The Third Eye is all about learning—systems, system structure, systems influencers, situations, behaviours, and organizational learning practices.

I have only one purpose in writing The Third Eye—to create learning influencers.

Through The Third Eye, I welcome you to the world of systems learning… it is an amazing world. Let’s learn systems and solve problems together.

In Hinduism, the third eye is called the eye of annihilation. In Buddhism, the third eye is called the eye of enlightenment, which gives a perception beyond ordinary sight. Let’s acquire this eye of enlightenment to annihilate non-systemic practices and build a systems thinkers’ community.

Remember: Every non-systemic solution incurs a debt to the system’s way of solving problems and it knows how to make us repay it. For instance, climate change is classic proof of this truth.

The Third Eye is not just another book on systems thinking, it is a blueprint of the future for problem solving. Through this book, I am beginning the process of establishing three new fields of study, specifically, the study of systems. These include organizational learning, systems psychology, and advanced risk assessment.

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