CIPA526 - Becoming a Systems Leader

Course Description

For organizations to succeed, they need to develop individuals who are constantly learning and adapting according to information on the ground. Sharing key mental models—at the organizational, team, and individual levels—is critical to creating a culture of learning that enables the organization to survive and thrive through chaos and complexity.

In this course, Drs.Derek and Laura Cabrera demonstrate how to become a systems leader; that is, someone who can use systems thinking at the organizational level, at the team level, and at the individual level. You will examine how to foster a culture for your organization that is built on shared mental models of vision, mission, capacity, and learning. At the team level, where the real work of the organization gets done, you will explore the process of building, sharing, and evolving mental models through collaborative mapping and feedback processes. And finally, you will turn your own thinking into action and ensure that your actions are aligned with key organizational mental models. With tools, techniques, and expert guidance, you can begin to implement systems thinking at all levels of the organization, creating teams and individuals upon which organizational culture, values, and success is built.

You are required to have completed the following courses or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Framing Complex Problems with Systems Thinking
• Using the Four Simple Rules of Systems Thinking
• Visualizing and Modeling Complex Systems
• Building Analytical and Emotional Intelligence with Systems Thinking
• Designing Organizations for Systems Thinking

Faculty Author

Benefits to the Learner

• Analyze an organizational change effort against systems thinking principles and describe an approach you would implement to affect organizational culture through the use of systems thinking and related culture development strategies.
• Create a visual map of a critical team project or process and share and refine that map with other team members to optimize your collective work
• Develop an actionable list of assignments and work activities to ensure that your actions are aligned with critical team and organizational mental models

Target Audience

• Managers, leaders, decision makers, consultants, and anyone responsible for projects, complex processes, and the budgets and people involved with them. Learners will come from every continent and from a diverse range of organizations, including private sector companies large and small, nonprofits, governments, and NGOs.
• For people already interested in systems dynamics or soft systems methodologies, the core principles from this program can be applied to any systems-based models.

Accrediting Associations

• Project Management Institute (PMI) Approval Number 10.0 Units
• International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) Approval Number 10.0 Hours