Hari Krishna everyone welcome to the principles of Temple Administration course today we're going to be discussing systems approach and we're going to be specifically looking at systems thinking and handling problems so as you all know in our temples and centers it's like a hive of activity and excitement and so many things are going on usually there are a number of different departments and processes and locations which all need to be working in parallel systematically in this situation it's important for us to understand the concepts of system thinking and a systems approach so this will Empower
us to take a decision based on seeing the complete picture little overview of the content today we're going to discuss the characteristics of a strong organization as well as looking at systems and systems thinking the characteristics of a system the application of systems thinking handling a problem and the iceberg model and we really sincerely hope that by the end of this course you'll understand the concepts of systems thinking and the systems approach also you'll be able to understand and explain the iceberg model identify the advantages of handling problems with this approach and also apply this
concept in your temple Administration so first let's see what Sheila prabhat has to say about systems and organization so uh it's all in this gear Raj Marge can face conveys one Pastime where as Shiva prophet in his in the later years before he departed he was asking the devotees how do you think that this movement will go on and show the prophet after the devotees were saying so many different things probably by chanting purely Proud by you know book distribution and so many different things shilaprabhad said no the movement Will Go On by organization and
intelligence so it's very clear that Sheila prabhupada wanted things to be organized and he wanted us to use our intelligence in order to organize them so this is systems thinking strong organizations generally are more system dependent and less person dependent now that may sound a little impersonal and as we know we're not an impersonal movement so how can we understand that something is more system dependent and less person dependent well it takes persons to create systems for a start so persons create the systems but then the systems can run only by persons being involved running
the systems but if you create a good system then any person more or less could come in and work with that system because we often see that there's there's a changeover of devotees or persons who actually taken responsibility are doing different things so if you have a strong system in place anyone can come in and fit into that system strong organizations are also more proactive and less reactive so what does that mean it means there there are more focused on moving forward and doing things nicely rather than actually responding or reacting to situations and difficulties
or things challenges that come up so we want to kind of create these kind of organizations strong organizations are also concerned both with quality and quantity so it means that it's not either or but both in good measure so one might ask how is this possible well by creating effective systems so what is a system a system is any group of interacting interrelated or interdependent parts that form a complex and unified whole that has a specific purpose so the system is basically it's something that has a purpose and it's comprised of loads of different interacting
parts basically any Templar Center is a system but is it an organized system or are there is there a systems thinking involved or systems approach involved let's take the example of from the Shiva prabhupada is given of the elephant and the six blind wise men so each of the wise men they go to this elephant and they're each examining a different part of the elephant so one person thinks that the elephant is a rope another person thinks that the elephant is a fan another person thinks that the elephant is a spear one thinks it's a
tree and one thinks it's a mountain because they're all positioned differently and one thinks it's a snake so that's all six so they're all positioned in different places analyzing this elephant individually but when you put them all together we can we can understand that the the spear is the Tusk the snake is the trunk the Rope is the tail the fan is the ear the mountain is the back and the the leg is the trunk of the tree so we say that the elephant in itself is actually a system all of these parts together but
taken independently we don't get a clear picture of the of the complete hole so we're going to discuss now a little bit about the characteristics of the system and we're going to use the analogy of an automobile so an automobile has a purpose and the purpose of the automobile is to take you from one place to another now if we take out one part of that automobile let's say the spark plugs if it's a petrol engine on your automobile if we take out the spark plugs then the the entire automobile doesn't run even though it's
composed of so many other parts so all the parts have to be present for the system to carry out its pers purpose optimally and an automobile without its spark plugs it doesn't work so it's also important within a system the order in which the parts are arranged inside of the system that will also affect the performance of the system for example using the same analogy of a car or an automobile if the driver of the automobile is in the back seat and the tires of the car in the front seat that's not going to work
so the parts have to also be organized and arranged in a specific order in order to get the optimal benefit out of the vehicle so continuing with this example of the automobile and systems the the system or the automobile will maintain its stability through feedback so we get feedback on how the system is working now we can use the analogy of the steering wheel so while you're steering the car the car according to the the way that the road is moving or the bumps in the road and different things like this the steering wheel is
the way that we direct and clearly direct the system so in the same way feedback is the way that we direct a system because we get input of how things are working or how things are not working therefore we can move forward so therefore feedback enables the steering of the system not to create clear understanding of what a system is a system isn't just a collection of things in a place so we have the analogy of a silo like which is uh for those of you who don't know a silo is on a farm it's
a huge housing thing that looks a bit like a rocket and that's where we store all the grains so a silo versus a spider web so there's a collection of things versus a system now the collection of grains and a silo is not exactly a system but in a spider web the the creation of all these little interactive bits of the web means that if anything lands on the web immediately it affects the whole system so it's a it's it's a system versus a collection so here we have a little video a systems thinking introduction
and it's a video that you can have a little look at and see how things work system thinking and Temple Administration so the Templar Center as one big system with many Integrated Systems or various departments within it every Department may be a system in and of itself and then every member of the department has to work in harmony to fulfill the purpose of its department so in your temple you have the pujari department you have the kitchen Department you'll have so many different aspects we have a little model here that we can show you deity
care sadhana standards we have fundraising and and the accounts book distribution preaching kitchen and other needs of the devotees so these are the different Departments of a small temple in a medium-sized or larger Temple you may have many more departments but inside of each department each person has to function in a proper way in order to make that department successful and then that department has to function in a proper way in order to make all the other departments function and the temple as a whole work together so system thinking and Temple Administration we we need
to know the big picture of our Temple and Community now we know the role and purpose of each department or person in connection with the overall purpose of the Templar Community then we can take decisions based on the impact to the whole system rather than just to a singular unit feedback from our Temple or Community is going to tell us where our Temple or system needs restructuring so this is the basic layout of system thinking here's a step towards creating systems so you have a little diagram here that shows system role and then person so
we have to know the complete system so that includes the role and the person then we have to know what our role is inside of the system and ultimately we should understand that our role is a subset of the whole system or Temple Department like that handling a problem so now that you're clear about systems thinking and the approach let's see how a problem is handled by a systems approach here's an example of the iceberg now at the top you have the events and then it goes down to patterns systematic structure mental models and vision
we have a good diagram here that you can look at mental models means what are the values the beliefs the assumptions do you have about this program then the different structures and how the what is their uh what has influenced the different patterns then the patterns of behaviors what's been happening and what are the different Trends and then eventually is the events and that's what's finally happening so the part that's seen just like on an iceberg which is why this is called the iceberg model the part that's seen is generally just the top part or
the events but actually there's so much more that's going on below the surface now we have a video again which is giving the example of a fire station and shows the iceberg model very clearly so here's an action model of how leverage increases so we have the level of perspective means Vision mental models systematic structure patterns and events and then what is the action model the action mode is generative reflective creative adaptive and reactive so this way we can see how leverage increases okay here's a little illustration of how a problem a problem can't be
solved unless we go to the vision level of the problem so Shiva vyasadev he was feeling dissatisfaction this is the event he was feeling dissatisfaction because after writing so many literatures something still wasn't connecting for him so what's the pattern that he continued to write so many different literatures but he still wasn't satisfied systematic structure he provided the piranhas and all for all different people the mental model is he continued on to write the Mahabharata and the brahmasutra Dharma articama Moksha and all these different things in Vedic literatures but find them when we get to
the vision level we see that when he approached Narada Muni his vision changed and he glorified the Lord through the srima bhagavatam and then this way the problem became resolved so what are the key benefits of the system approach integration and alignment of the processes that will best achieve the desired results the ability to focus our effort in key processes and then providing confidence to interested parties as to the consistency Effectiveness and efficiency of the organization some of the advantages that come from this is that the approach always helps us in understanding the interdependency between
the processes of the system this approach will help us in structuring a system to achieve the organization's objectives and the most effective and efficient way it also can help in providing a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities that are necessary for achieving common objectives thus we reduce cross-functional barriers and generally it helps in targeting and defining how specific activities within a system should operate systems approach systems thinking it's very very detailed topic matter we've tried to provide as much information as we can but the rest is outside of the scope of this course so
we encourage if you want to look into more and understand more in depth please dive in as deeply as you can but thus far we've given some food for thought for something that you can apply in your day-to-day management of a temple or Center we thank you very much for your kind attention Hari Krishna
