3) Can you tell us why they are important?
I think the simple answer is that, if my hypothesis is correct, mixing the two methods will significantly impact negatively the quality of the TP analysis and using only the “Symptomatic” process (i.e. using the question “What actions do you feel pressure to take to deal with the UDE” for box D) will at best give us the Execution Conflict and therefore breaking it, we will only get what “old” execution rules we should STOP using and what “new” execution rules we should START using. If we want to know both the new PLANNING and EXECUTION rules, we should use both methods.
A summary of the insights so far include:
· If the stakeholder that has to deal with the UDE or UDE’s is the same as the one (Whose current rules are) causing the UDE or UDE’s, then the Core Systemic and Core Symptomatic Conflicts are the same but just swapped. In this exception, the “old 3 cloud process” would have found the core conflict.
· However, if the stakeholder that has to deal with the UDE or UDE’s is NOT the same as the one (Whose rules are) causing the UDE or UDE’s, then the Core Systemic/Planning and Core Symptomatic/Execution Conflicts are not the same.
· Breaking the Systemic Core Conflict will typically provide the new Planning Rules that should be used now (and the old planning rules that should not be used) while breaking the Symptomatic Core Conflict will typically provide the new Execution Rules that should be used now (and the old execution rules that should not be used).
· If breaking the Systemic Conflict will significantly reduce the UDE it relates to but will not totally eliminate this UDE (i.e. in the case where other external causes for the UDE also exist), then the Symptomatic Conflict should be broken to define the new execution rule(s) that will be used when the UDE re-occurs again in the future…
· Getting a person to write their symptomatic unresolved conflict resulting from the UDE (i.e. box D is the action they feel most pressure to deal with UDE) AND getting the person to write the systemic unresolved conflict that caused the UDE (i.e. box D is the action they feel caused their UDE in the first place) really helps them to understand and communicate their own problem (the unresolved symptomatic conflict) as well as understand better the problem of the one they are currently blaming (their unresolved systemic conflict)
Regarding my final choice of words –using “Systemic and Symptomatic Conflict” rather than “Cause and Consequence Conflicts” – it was probably influenced by a person that I frequently shared my thinking with at the time - Prof. Antoine van Gelder, head of the Dept of Internal Medicine at Pretoria Academic University and one of the pioneers in applying TOC to hospitals. As you know, the “Systemic” and “Symptomatic” terms are used mainly in medicine.
Systemic – an issue affecting an entire system (distinct from an issue having only a local effect)
Symtomatic – characteristic or indicative of an underlying disease; relating to a symptom
