There Are More Systems in the Room Than People

Some time ago, I was talking to a CEO who told me: “If I go away for a fortnight, I get the feeling that half the decisions are left waiting for me because they can’t agree.” He was referring mainly to his COO and CFO, two experienced, competent executives who were perfectly capable of making decisions.

I asked him for an example. The COO wanted to proceed with an investment he considered necessary to ensure sufficient capacity, maintain quality and meet commitments to clients. The CFO looked at the same investment and saw pressure on cash flow, an unclear return and circumstances in which preserving liquidity seemed prudent.

Both had sound arguments. Both cared about the company’s interests, and both were frustrated by the other’s apparent inability to understand what seemed obvious to them.

The CEO often ended up stepping in. He listened to both, brought in factors that each seemed to be overlooking and tried to arrive at a decision they could both accept.

It worked… until the next decision.

What if the problem does not lie with the person?

When something is not working in an organisation, we naturally look for a cause. If two departments are not collaborating, their leaders have a relationship problem. If someone is not making decisions, they lack autonomy. If a transformation is not moving forward, there is resistance to change.

This way of thinking is useful, but it oversimplifies.

People’s behaviour does not happen in isolation. It takes place within a web of relationships, expectations, incentives, histories and rules, many of them unwritten. Over time, some of these patterns become part of the culture and are no longer questioned.

One person influences another and is, at the same time, influenced by them. A leader shapes the team’s behaviour, but the team’s response also shapes how that person goes on to lead. This is how patterns develop that we later come to see as character traits.

This is where a systemic perspective changes what we see. Instead of asking only, “Why does this person do this?”, we begin to ask, “What is happening that makes this behaviour make sense?” Or, “Which system might this person be showing loyalty to through this behaviour?”

There are always more systems in the room than people

Returning to the example, when the two executives discuss the investment, there are more than two people in the room.

The CFO belongs to the executive team and, in that capacity, shares responsibility for the company’s performance. But she also belongs to a function whose purpose includes safeguarding financial sustainability, bringing discipline to investment and drawing attention to risks that others may prefer to take. Whoever represents what others would rather not see almost invariably comes to be seen as an obstacle, rather than as someone fulfilling a necessary role. And that perception is not gender-neutral.

The COO also belongs to the executive team. But he leads an operational system, is accountable to teams that have to deliver results every day and to clients for whom delays, failures or insufficient capacity have very real consequences.

Each brings other relationships, responsibilities, experiences and expectations into that conversation. The same is true of the CEO. He, too, belongs to several systems: he answers to a board and shareholders, represents a particular strategy, has made commitments and will be held accountable for results. He also belongs to the system that has developed between those three executives over time.

Physically, there are three people in the room. Systemically, there are many more.

The loyalties that shape our sense of belonging

Belonging to different systems means responding to the expectations that develop within them.

Those expectations do not always conflict. They often reinforce one another. But there are moments when they become incompatible.

A member of an executive team may agree with a transformation while knowing that, on returning to their own department, they will have to explain decisions that people will find difficult to accept. Which of these teams do they belong to first? It is a question rarely asked aloud, and one that each person ends up answering alone, silently and in their own way. That is also why the answer becomes inconsistent among people who need to make decisions together. It is better discussed as a team than settled in private.

Growing as a leader means learning to tolerate the discomfort of going against the expectations of systems we still want to belong to. It does not mean ceasing to be loyal to them. It means consciously choosing which system we need to respond to at any given moment, knowing that another may interpret that choice as disloyalty.

Listening to the person and to the system

A conversation changes when we stop listening only to the arguments of the person in front of us and begin trying to understand what that person represents.

Faced with the CFO’s resistance, the CEO can ask himself not only, “Why is she holding up this decision again?”, but also, “What is she trying to protect that is not sufficiently represented in this conversation?” Faced with the COO’s insistence, he can ask, “What can he see from where he stands that the rest of us may be missing?”

And there is a harder question still: “What am I representing in this conversation, and how is my intervention sustaining this pattern?”

Solving the immediate problem can prevent the system from maturing.

There is nothing wrong with intervening. Some decisions require the CEO, and there are moments when acting as an arbiter is exactly what the organisation needs. The issue arises when stepping in to decide stops being a choice and becomes the default. The executive team never develops the capacity to integrate different perspectives, because someone else is always doing it for them.

That is what this CEO decided to experiment with. The next time the investment came back to the table, he did not arbitrate. He said he would not make the decision and asked the CFO and COO for a joint proposal that addressed both concerns: capacity and liquidity. He made it clear that neither could be sacrificed for the sake of the other.

He later told me that the conversation had been much longer and more uncomfortable than it would have been had he made the decision himself. He also said that the decision they brought back was better than the one he would have reached on his own.

The question is then no longer how to get two people to think alike. It is how to create the conditions for them to understand the different parts of the system each sees and represents. From those legitimate tensions, they can develop a better response for the organisation as a whole.

In your next difficult conversation with your executive team, it may be worth setting aside the urgency to find an answer for a moment and asking yourself: which other systems are present in this room? What does the system as a whole need that no one here is yet bringing into the conversation?

Originally published in Portuguese in Executiva on 12 October 2026 as Há mais sistemas na sala do que pessoas.