Holistic thinking – a consulting paradigm

Mr. R. Narayanan
30-Jan, 2009

The focus of Mr. Narayanan’s talk was Holistic thinking and its role in the field of consulting. He began by describing what a complex problem is and one of the key attribute that defines a complex problem is the lack of ‘Holistic Thinking’. Holistic thinking is also called Systems Approach or Systems thinking.

In the world of business, people are always bothered about hard factors like estimation, planning schedules, tracking, costing, etc. But there are some soft factors like schedule pressure, experience, errors in estimation, political and social environment etc, which though are not easily quantifiable, influence the overall productivity and results. They cannot be ignored while analyzing a problem, especially in consulting assignments. In a consulting assignment, the complexity to the problem can arise because of the client, or the consultant’s failure in taking into account all the factors or both the parties could be equally responsible. That illustrates the need and importance of asking questions, accurate diagnosis of the problem, designing of the solution and an effective feedback process. Getting multiple perspectives of the problem by considering the needs & constraints of all stakeholders becomes the key in solving the problem.

He added that traditional approach to problem solving is a model which considers each factor independently. But systems approach is problem driven rather that factor driven. Hence, it takes into account the interdependent factors, the hard and soft factors, multiple perceptions and views. This view is strengthened by the fact that all problems have leverage points. If loops are not found in a problem, then the understanding of the problem is incomplete.

Holistic thinking follows the concept the ‘Whole is grater than the sum of Parts’. We can get a complete picture about a problem only through holistic thinking. Finally, the speaker highlighted what systems thinking offers. He concluded by saying that holistic thinking has an effect on both the top and bottom levels of an organization.

About the Speaker: . Narayananretired as Vice President (Learning & Development), Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, where he mentored the learning initiatives of TCS professionals in Technology, Domain, Management and Soft skills. Narayanan has over four decades of experience with IT and specially Software. Before joining TCS in 1995, he had an impressive stint of 26 years with the Indian Space Research Organization. He is a former Chairman of IEEE, Kerala Section and a former Chairman of CSI, Trivandrum chapter. He served as a member of the International Steering Committee on Software Engineering Education & Training (CSEET). Narayanan had earlier chaired NASSCOM’s task group on Workforce development for the IT sector.
Mr. Narayanan is currently assisting several small and medium size companies in achieving global business excellence levels.