The Onion

MY JOURNEY
It takes me all of five minutes to share this “Onion” model with my participants at the workshop. This is of course,
after I do a two-day session covering the twelve system archetypes in Systems Thinking. Yet when I share “the
onion” with them it is over, believe me, in five minutes and every time the result is unmistakable. Participants who
had, until then been holding their breath release it with a sigh and from others you can hear a discernible gasp!

It is so simple yet when we had started walking through the archetypes earlier it had not seemed then how simple
they really are. That is the beauty of system archetypes.   They make the hardest of complexities appear so simple.
That is their job. Understand complexities.

When it occurred to me that this paradox had held me back for two years from writing this article, I smiled and I felt
‘the chains’ that had held me back from sharing the discovery drop away and I decided to try writing again. I am not
sure where I would begin but let us see where it goes. I hope you enjoy reading this.

I am presenting it in the same way that I would present in my workshops. The other reason for writing this down is
to serve as an invitation to all of you to see the twelve archetypes through this lens and uncover similar “onions”
around you and to create opportunities for you to open conversations with each other on your discoveries and to
move to new insights about a situation.

THE BEGINNINGS
For many of you who had been dabbling with system archetypes would have at some point begun to realize that
these archetypes do not appear in isolation or haphazardly. You would have seen that as you describe your story
with an archetype you can begin to see another archetype down the line already at play in your situation. Some of
you may have experienced the archetype “Shifting the Burden” and noticed stories on “Fixes that Backfire” in your
story that could have easily led you to experience the Shifting the Burden you are noticing now.

If you have noticed this, then you are certainly not alone. Several of my participants saw that too. I began to notice
this about seven years ago. I was doing a project with one of my colleagues and as the team explored the issue, we
saw the relations across the two archetypes I just mentioned here. This stirred my interest. I was riveted. What if
these archetypes unfolded in a particular manner what would that look like? And then more questions. Can I use
this to uncover archetypes before these systemic structures are upon us? Can I trace archetypes back to the
source of (the shit of) where we are today? What implications would this have when we do strategic and resource
planning?

So then what is the model all about? Well a quick story. So armed with the singular knowledge that archetypes are
related I decided to uncover as many structural archetypes as we can see. This was easier to do in projects with
larger teams of 20 or more persons. It was not unusual that we now began to see archetypes popping out like
“popcorn” out of the pot! It was pouring everywhere. This astounded many of us as we had till then struggled to
know if the one we were working on was the correct one. The reality was there were tons of them. This was the
second discovery.

The third discovery revealed the model. When I wondered what it meant to have so many of them and taking what
we already know i.e. that they are related, we began to line them up, archetype by archetype. And they began to fall
in a straight line.   That was the third discovery. With subsequent projects as we watched the way the archetypes
fell on the line-up, I began to notice there was a pattern in which they did so. The onion reveals what that pattern is
(I had rehearsed this so many times in my workshops on how I might write this down. So here goes. To make it
easier for you I have left hyperlinks to each system archetype which you can refer to as you walk through this).

REVEALING THE ONION
Balancing Loop: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S11_ST2.html Right at the core of the onion is a Balancing Loop. Now
this was not as easy to see at the beginning. We could trace them as far back as the next archetypes reveals. Yet
when we stepped back we can see how easy that it starts with a balancing loop. So here is the story.

A new leader who has just taken over the unit walks right in and says, here are the goals that are set for the unit.
Accomplish them or you are out (don’t we all believe what gets measured gets done and we know who to blame if
things don’t work out?)! We also see this at the beginning of each year when we diligently wipe our slates clean and
set up the priorities or goals for the new year. Personally it has all the marks of a New Year resolution. “I am fat, I
want to be thinner so my new year resolution is to exercise three times a week!” We set up goals all the time to get
going towards something we feel we don’t have now.

Success to the Successful: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S12_ST3.html Then here’s the next layer of the onion.
Those of us more aligned to the goal begin to garner attention and resources and those of us who are not as
aligned to the goal, notice our ability to garner resources is harder. The allocation of resources assures the leader
the goals are reached. We now have the hallmarks of the Success to the Successful archetype.

Escalation: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S13_ST4.html For those who find themselves marginalized as they did not
receive resources or have reduced levels of resources, sees their relative positions in the organization are being
threatened. She or he takes action to improve their position against the party who is ‘more successful’. The other
party perceives this as threat and takes action which leads to using more resources to improve one’s position, which
... and so on, and so on.   From their individual viewpoints each side achieves its short-term goal. Both sides
respond to a perceived threat. But their action end up creating the opposite outcome, increased threat, in the long-
run. Friendly competition is becoming endemic in the system. We have the escalation archetype that has set in http:
//www.lopn.net/Poster_S13_ST4.html within the system.

Limits to Growth: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S14_ST5.html As escalation becomes rife (signs this is happening
are pseudo-harmony and uninspired workplaces), for those who command resources are not likely to be affected as
much as those who did not have as much resources (money, time and effort) to begin with. In which case, a bout
of competition could leave them with failures and less success than they began with. This pushes them on to a path
of decline. In which case then, such persons or groups become a limit to the organization’s success as a whole (yes,
even if some others are successful). We now have the Limits to Growth archetype becoming active.

Growth and Under-investment: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S15_ST6.html A particular type of limit that can
happen for organizations, especially in manufacturing settings (it could also apply to service industries) if pushed, is
Growth and Underinvestment archetype. As we experience declining revenue and efforts, standards begin to slip as
a way to cope with backlog, leading to declining need to invest in building capacity. As there is a delay in time
between investments and actual build-up of capacity, the ability to meet demand slides again leading to a further of
decline of revenues (conflicts, missed deadlines and general animosity begin to overwhelm the organization). The
structure repeats the cycle again.

Drifting Goals: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S16_ST7.html As revenues decline, problems begin to mount within the
organization, and as our current realities overwhelm us, we do not notice that we are letting goals slip. These goals
begin to drift. Additionally there are now mounting pressures to lower the goals that were set initially. This
structure is now felt at all quarters.
Fixes that Backfire: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S17_ST8.html As problems mount, time becomes money and so
let’s get down to the first answer that comes along. Very often at this point, there are too many things on the plate
and one is often not willing to wait “to see the whole story” and takes ‘off the hip’ (reactive) solutions shooting at
problems happening around her or him. Except every decision has both short-term (solves the problem) and long-
term consequences and the two are diametrically opposed (makes the problem worse in the long-run). So the
problems come back again and again. We now have the classic Fixes that Backfire structure unfolding.

Shifting the Burden: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S18_ST9.html At this point commitment to symptomatic
solutions (the most visible part of the problem) outstrips attention to finding and working with any form of
fundamental solution (these leverages remain hidden from our view as the typical “under the tip of the ice-berg”
phenomena emerges). Everyone is scampering around as it feels the “dominos” are closing in on us and we see
successes slip out of our hands and internal mistakes become glaring to the public.

Fixes that Backfire: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S18_ST8.html As attention increasingly shifts to solving the
problem rather than understanding what's causing it, the structure inevitably leads us to find / create fixes that
reinforce and hence traps us in a never-ending spiral of 'reacting to and resurfacing of' the problem. The problem
seems to be increasingly spiralling out of control.

Tragedy of the Commons: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S21_ST12.html At this point resources fast becomes
deplete as the long-term effects of individual actions to garner common resources for oneself (e.g. human resources
or budget) at the expense of allocating resources on the needs of the whole system comes to bear.   We are now at
the brink of the tail-end of the onion.

Accidental Adversaries: http://www.lopn.net/Poster_S22_ST13.html Acting solely in self-serving ways now begin
to show up as cracks in relationship and different parties’ attempts at fixes to improve one’s’ successes leads to the
unintentional obstruction of the other party’s success. The best of friends now become the worst of enemies. At
this point organizations find themselves at the brink of organizational closures or entering into mergers or hijacking
a new CEO to find ways to salvage the situation.
And guess what the first order of events is for the new CEO. At the breakfast meeting he announces his vision
(what he really means is his goals) for the organization!

So where are we now?

You are right! We are right back on the onion where we first started. Balancing Loop! And the cycle starts all over
again. And again. And again. The pattern continues to reinforce through cycles of the organization as it
restructures, re-visions, merges and reorganizes and so on. The cycle does not quite stop. In effect, the whole
onion continues to reinforce itself!
And that is the missing loop here that stays hidden from all of us all this time is the Reinforcing Loop http://www.
lopn.net/Poster_S10_ST1.html

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE ONION
Knowing the story of our organization as it happens today: The story of the onion is a vicious cycle that is the bane
of most failures we face as organizations in our ups and downs of organizational life. The trick is to shift working
from our singular points of views (visions and goals) to seeking and working with all of the goals (that we had failed)
in the “system” and turn the story around by seeing (and working) with the whole story (shared vision).

Building Shared Visions: It is not truly “a shared vision” until it connects with the personal visions of people
throughout the organization (see Figure 2 for an example). The onion which we have revealed here now offers a
clue to the underlying structures that describes the story of our shared visions (like the metaphor Peter Senge uses
to describe Shared Vision as seeing ourselves as a hologram (http://science.howstuffworks.com/hologram.htm) – as
we continue to divide up the hologram, no matter how small the divisions, each piece still shows the whole image and
not just one side of the story). I use this principle to help teams see the multitude of goals that exist in (and
outside) the system and work those goals around into a singular positive reinforcing loop. The result is a picture of
individual visions joining to create shared visions.

Strategic Planning: In strategic planning, seeing the onion presents a way to see and understand the systemic
nature of problems and have now lined up the issues as archetypes in the onion. We can now begin to take actions
to systematically de-layer (act to remove such issues first) that are at the periphery of the onion. As the level of
problems decline and resources are freed up, we use these to intervene at issues that are lie in the core parts of the
onion. These are often central to the ways we think and interact in the system and doing so require time and
effort. Often these take the form of conversations to uncover worldviews that bringing us back in creating the onion.

Michael Goodman and Art Kleiner in “The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook” too had seen this and talk about the Archetype
Family Tree were right in saying the archetypes are related strategically to each other (p149). And the family tree
helps us see how archetypes unfold depending on the structure we had started acting from; be it reinforcing or
balancing loop. Also as we stand at a particular archetype the tree helps us look for deeper layers of structures.
Perhaps the difference between the family tree and “the onion” is the latter illustrates a distinct but typical story
which organizations use to begin the story of their life, i.e. the balancing loop. This is often in response to a need
by organizations to stabilize weakening (sales, reputation, etc.) trends. At that point, we usually become blind to
small, subtle actions that paid attention to areas that often crisp new administrative structures and procedures
neglected (such as monitoring quality, paying attention to employee needs and maintaining friendly relations with
clients), can grow into large consequences. Seeing the system allow us to influence how it works. The “onion”
reminds us of this need to find these reinforcing loops for us.

Now that (onion) did not make you cry, did it? I hope not. Cheer up! We now hold a key to open the doors to
complexity and walk through them bravely. I like Peter Senge’s quote when he says "complexity and conflicts is
really productive if we can harness it". The first is to be able to bring the conflicts out and archetypes serve a way to
do that. Next is when people come together to think together and is able to see the elephant as a whole. The
“onion” articulates a way to see that elephant.

In the process, the hope teams learn to find ways to move from positions of conflict or as we often experience
pseudo-harmony or substituting effort for intelligence, to creating high performing teams. Else, these structures
continue to “have us rather than we have them”.

About the author
Sheila Damodaran is the founder of Learning Organization Practitioners’ Network in Singapore (http://www.lopn.net)
and an active SoL member. More about her and to contact her here: http://www.loatwork.com/aboutme.html

The idea of the onion as presented by Sheila.
Drop me your thoughts, comments and
reactions here: sheila@lopn.net
First written in Jun 2005
Based on works from 2001-2011
It is work-in-progress!

A KEY TO UNLOCKING COMPLEXITY, “THE ONION”
A theory as developed by Sheila Damodaran

A clue to solving Systemic Issues Systematically
“By seeing wholes, we learn to foster health” --- Peter Senge