A look at Causal Layered Analysis

So let's go back to this litany: systems, worldview, myths, and metaphors. And one of the things I try very hard to do with my work is to find a way to make a model that has been used by multinational corporations, by governments, by the largest militaries in the world, to use those models that are really good and find a way to make them applicable to us. So we can look at this in terms of anything that we want to change. If you want to change the figures— oopsie, that went quickly— if you want to change the figures on your scale, you don't just, you know, breathe out and take your jersey off so that you change the figures. You're not just addressing the litany at the top. You have to go down. What is the system? Is there a system about how I exercise, about how I eat, about what I eat? Is there a worldview based on Um, you know, consumption. I need to eat more food, or I need to only eat this kind of food. And what is the myth and metaphor below that? Is it that every time a woman hits menopause, she's going to put on weight? Is it everybody in my family is always overweight? Is it we can never lose weight? There are stories we tell each other, and if we can understand what that story is down at the bottom, we can change that, and then we can work our way up. And that is really important. We have to change what is right at the bottom. There are stories about— we can see this in small businesses. For example, you might have a small business that is run by an owner who locks up the till, who double-checks all of the figures, who escorts his people to a room to unlock the door so they can get something out, then he locks it up again. And what he's doing is he's locking and protecting everything around him. The system is nobody can do anything until the boss comes along with the keys. unlock it. The worldview is that this is a difficult, tough world because people are always trying to cheat you. Because down at the bottom, myth and metaphor has been his father telling him about how people have cheated him in his business and how he lost so much money because somebody he trusted broke his trust and stole from him. So the myth and metaphor at the bottom of that family builds the worldview of this is not a world to be trusted, which creates the systems where the boss, the owner, the the manager can't allow anybody else to do anything. It has to run through his hands so that he can control every moment. And then the litany is, we can't move forward without the boss's help and permission. We can't do anything. We can't access anything because it's all trapped. So once we've worked that out, can we change the myth and metaphor? Can we help this particular person, you know, tell different stories about people who have gone out of their way to help others, who have been self-sacrificial, people who love and adore the work that this person does. And if they have that, then the worldview can change. That sometimes there are people who are desperate and they're going to take or steal or pilfer, but there are also so many people who want to create and do amazing things and they want to create something amazing, they want to do something in their job, they want this to be an expression of themselves. And if they had that worldview, then you can create systems where people can be trusted, where people are given responsibilities, where people are mentored or coached into a position of authority. And that changes the litany to a company that is fun to work with, that trusts their staff, that gives their staff a certain amount of agency and expression, and where the boss is sitting back going, I love my people, and look at the results. Look at the profits. Look at how people just want to work with us in this company and stay here. That's how we rebuild this whole story.