Understanding Systems Change: Darren Yeh’s Guide for Leaders
- Cosmic Centaurs
- Oct 24
- 5 min read
Leaders everywhere, from startups to multinationals, are realizing that their biggest challenges are not isolated problems but systemic ones. No matter how hard they work, the same issues resurface because it’s not the strategy that’s broken, it’s the system.
This year’s Cosmic Conference: The System is the Strategy explores how leaders in the GCC, Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and beyond can shift from firefighting to future-building by adopting systems thinking as a mindset, methodology, and muscle.
To share more about this, our first 2025 Cosmic Conference speaker was Darren Yeh, Managing Director at Omplexity, a systems change agency that partners with global institutions to align resources for systemic impact. With over a decade of experience in systems mapping, facilitation, and organizational strategy, and clients ranging from the BMW Foundation to UNDP and global family foundations, Darren has helped governments, nonprofits, and organizations rethink how they approach complexity.
During our webinar, Darren offered a practical guide for leaders to apply systems thinking in transforming their organizations and the ecosystems they are part of.
A Holistic View of Systems
Like the famous parable of blindfolded people trying to describe an elephant, most leaders only see one part of a system. One sees the trunk and calls it a snake, another feels the leg and insists it’s a tree.
“We all see only part of the system. No one can shift the system alone.” – Darren Yeh
This is why systems change starts with collective sensemaking. Organizations investing in ESG, governments reforming policy, and foundations funding projects are often acting in isolation. True progress comes when these actors align, moving from fragmentation to integration, or as he frames it: from egocentric to ecosystem: Ego to Eco.
Seeing the bigger picture reveals complexity. Once leaders learn to see the system as a whole, the next challenge is understanding how it actually works.
Diagnosing Systems: Interconnections and Hidden Levers
A complex problem cannot be understood in isolation. Leaders need to map the whole system and its interconnections. For example, the food system sits at the intersection of biological, economic, political, and social systems. Each influences the others, and interventions in one domain ripple through the rest.
Going Deep: The Conditions of Systems Change
According to Darren, shifting systems requires aligning three levels.
Structural change refers to the explicit elements: policies, practices, and resource flows, which form the visible foundations of how work gets done and resources are distributed.
Relational change covers the semi-explicit layer of relationships and power dynamics, which determine how influence is exercised, trust is built, and collaboration happens.
Transformative change sits at the deepest, implicit level: the mental models that shape how people think and act, which often hold the most powerful leverage.
Once the system has been mapped, leaders can begin to decide what kind of change is needed.
Where Systems Change Happens
Darren distinguishes between three levels of systems change:
System optimization: improving existing structures (e.g., precision agriculture).
Partial redesign: reshaping subsystems (e.g., vertical farming, ).
System transformation: creating circular systems that fundamentally change outcomes. (e.g., regenerative circular food systems)
“In the first 5–10 years, the impact of transformation may look small. But if you hold the complexity and stay the course, the long-term impact is exponentially higher.”
Understanding where change occurs is only the beginning. To act on it, organizations need internal capabilities that help them sense, learn, and adapt as the system evolves.
Core capabilities of Learning organizations
Systems change requires organizations to cultivate three key capabilities:
Aspiration: Align on ambition and a shared vision to unlock greater potential.
Reflective Conversation: Use system maps to surface assumptions and mental models, enabling dialogue and collaboration.
Complexity Awareness: Practice systems thinking as a tool to map structures and initiate change.
Together, these capabilities shift organizations from asking “What do we need?” to “What does the system need?”
When these capabilities become embedded in daily work, they prepare the ground for organizations to move through the four stages of change.
The Four Stages of Systems Change
How do we go from where we are to where we want to be?
Set the foundation: define the problem, boundaries, and stakeholders.
See reality: map causal loops, identify root causes, surface mental models.
Envision the future: co-create a shared vision and communicate explicit commitments.
Plan the path: identify leverage points, set the actions to implement the change, and align partners.
The hardest stage? Action planning.
“The action planning part is the most difficult because people naturally think for themselves. The challenge is moving from ego to eco.” – Darren Yeh
Each stage requires tools that make complexity visible and actionable, helping leaders move from reacting to events toward addressing the structures that create them.
Systems Thinking Basics: Tools to Map Systems
To address root causes rather than symptoms, leaders must apply the core tools of systems thinking:
Dynamic Complexity & Time Delays: Many of today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions. Leaders must account for time delays and avoid repeating short-term fixes that create long-term setbacks.
Feedback Loops: Systems operate through reinforcing and balancing loops. Recognizing these loops helps leaders design interventions that close cycles and create accountability.
Iceberg Model: The Iceberg Model helps leaders go beneath the surface of events to reveal deeper structures, beliefs, and visions.
“An effective system is the synergy of yin and yang, reinforcing and balancing loops.”
While maps and models create clarity, the system comes to life through dialogue.
Why Dialogue is Essential to Sensing the System
Systems change requires shared understanding. Dialogue is how leaders and teams make the system visible. Conversations often evolve through three layers:
Seeing the Self: Reflecting on individual contributions to success.
Seeing You and Me: Recognizing interdependence.
Seeing We and the Whole: Defining shared visions, indicators, barriers, and missing stakeholders.
Through this layered dialogue, organizations move from personal reflection to collective sense-making, laying the groundwork for change.
“The most important leadership quality is facilitation: bringing out the potential in others.”
Watch the Webinar
To go into more depth, watch the full conference “Understanding Systems Change" with Darren Yeh.
About the Cosmic Conference
Since 2020, Cosmic Centaurs has been hosting its annual Cosmic Conference, a platform to inspire and enable leaders through insights, learning, and networking experiences. Each year covers a new leadership topic, from strategy execution to (re)designing the employee experience, to mastering the dualities of leadership. For the 6th edition in 2025, “The System is the Strategy,” Cosmic Centaurs explore how leaders can design systems that deliver lasting results.
From September 15 to November 4, 2025, Cosmic Centaurs host in-person events in the UAE, KSA, and Lebanon, as well as virtual sessions, bringing together peers, mentors, and subject matter experts who will share insights and facilitate transformative experiences.
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