Systems, Choices, and the Space Between

I spend a reasonable amount of time talking about systems interacting and how that can influence behaviour in groups (ie organisations).

For example, at a certain density of crowd, people en masse behave more like a liquid than like individual beings. This can lead to safety risks.

I however want to make it clear that even though those systemic factors are very much causes of the current situations (positive, negative, otherwise), individual agency can still exist.

The balance

Each person will have their own experiences of work, the world, family, etc. Things they can and can't control. Negative and positive. Things are inherently unfair in spreading this out. For example in the world:

• I've never been pulled over due to my skin colour
  • (I am white and I live in Western Europe)
• I have had my problems not taken seriously due to my gender
  • (I am a woman)

For specifically work situations:

• Some people have worked at companies with best practices that work very well
• Some people have worked at companies where there aren't really practices at all
• Some people have seen people promoted who didn't deserve the role
• Some people have seen people promoted who did deserve the role

It's not fair to compare any of these as a like-like - it is however fair to acknowledge that life is not evenly spread in what people end up experiencing, and that other people can intentionally and unintentionally contribute to it.

Your Options

For example, lets say you send a meeting invite to someone. It's a fairly typical meeting type and at previous workplaces this role would be invited to this type of meeting.

They then reject the meeting, citing it as "not helpful for them to attend".

There are likely plenty of systemic factors pulling into their individual decision. Previous meetings of this type at other companies or in other teams, overall incentives in the organisation not making it great for them to attend. Books and blog posts or even MBA courses exist explaining why this role should or shouldn't attend this type of meeting.

But crucially... by calling out the systemic factors in your head, you have options:

• continue the existing narrative
• try to contradict it

And maybe your meeting is useful, but others of a similar type run by others haven't been. So if it is, make your case. Ask them to come, directly, with rationale. Make it worth it for them.

This doesn't negate the systemic factors... but it does give you an option to work out something useful for you and the circle of people around you.

The Disclaimer

Due to the inherent spread of life, everyone is going to have differing amounts of energy to act against a system. In addition, some people are beneficiaries of the status quo, this can often be to the extent that they don't even notice it.

Some systems are actually positive and need protecting in addition! Fundraisers use this effect by showing a "how much raised so far" meter to encourage more donations. So it's not always a "fight the system" sort of scenario. Sometimes it's about leaving it, or reinforcing it.

So... some disclaimers:

• Do what you have resources for - no one is asking you to not feed your children, not care for a relative, or to voluntarily become homeless. Being selective about which battles you engage with is extremely valid.
  • Wide example: Someone can protest environmental issues and someone can protest a genocide and someone can protest a separate genocide and none of these have to negate each other - they can all help.
    • I am excluding "whataboutism" here, which is where people intentionally add extra things to talk about with the intention of reducing space for others - and a lot of people get unintentionally duped by whataboutism arguments under the guise of "fairness".
• Wide example: Someone can focus on ensuring their own team at work does their best and not have to try to apply that across a whole organisation, they're also not obligated to write linkedin posts or blogs about it

And to conclude - the burden is not always on one group. It's a societal obligation for us to do what we feasibly can to assist others, and call out systemic issues when we can, via actions we make in the moment. It's part of being in a community.