Thinking books · Systems thinking · Barry Oshry, 1995

Seeing Systems — the big ideas

On the predictable blindness that comes with your position in an organisation.

Free — no account needed to read

The big ideas

Tops, middles and bottoms each experience a structurally different world — burden, torn loyalty, and vulnerability — and each concludes the others are behaving badly rather than responding to position.

Middles are pulled apart by design, and the usual personal explanations for their behaviour miss that entirely.

Seeing the structure does not remove the pressure, but it removes the personal attribution, which is what makes the conflict workable.

Practise it — no need to have read it

Write how a situation at work looks from your position, then from the position directly above and below you.

A hint: Write each as if you were in it, not about it.

Where it shows up in real life

• Conflict with management
• Being in the middle
• Understanding a frustrating colleague

Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.