A landslide crashed down a Taiwanese mountainside while my travel companion and our driver nonchalantly joked and laughed together as we dodged one landslide only to round a bend and face another.
“Bobby, when you grow up in Taiwan, landslides, earthquakes, and tsunamis are just part of life. We’ll be fine.” I didn’t share his confidence. I didn’t reflect on it at the time (I was simultaneously too excited and terrified), but this was a systems thinking kind of moment.
At its core, systems thinking looks at how parts interact and influence outcomes (intended or not) within the larger system. Every discipline has its own methods, but the goal is the same: understand the system before making decisions.
Small Changes, Big Consequences
Landslide processes are part of geologic systems that rely on feedback loops that weave their way into human society. Small changes ripple through larger, complex systems, sometimes with little effect and other times with huge consequences. A tree starts to lean, and suddenly an entire hillside collapses and wipes out a car travelling down the road below (or not).
How we as geologists and engineers think about and communicate about these hazards affects how people accept and tolerate their own exposure to risk. Similarly, successful communication in technical teams and with project stakeholders depends on the interaction of feedback loops: the smallest details must be communicated just as effectively as major design decisions, otherwise, you’ll suffer the consequences.
A poorly framed memo can derail a project for days, and a misinterpreted engineering report can push a design in the wrong direction.
Systems thinking helps technical writers craft messages that anticipate ripple effects the same way that geologists anticipate future outcomes from geologic processes. Good writers think ahead about the obvious outcomes and the surprises. That’s what makes their copy hit the right people, in the right way.
Typical project and product communications are influenced mostly by linear thinking. In this context, linear thinking is best exemplified by the visual-only instruction pamphlet. The steps in the pamphlet may be linear, but they’re typically incomplete and by many standards, inadequate.
And the fact that the pamphlet is visual-only isn’t the core issue. Even great visuals fail if the ideas around them aren’t written down as precise copy. Systems thinking starts with the words.
Landslides, Models, and Mission-Critical Thinking
My early career led me to Hong Kong to work with an engineering and geology team to investigate, design, and construct landslide mitigations. Early career professionals in any engineering consulting firm are subject to a “trial by fire” of sorts, but Hong Kong’s fast-paced engineering construction industry was something else!
Systems thinking was mission-critical and every decision felt like it carried a thousand tons of rock, soil, and water behind it. Our team performed geological and geotechnical investigations, collected hundreds of detailed observations, and synthesized them into conceptual and interpretive models. Those models became analytical models of hazards and risks that engineers used for design calculations.
Adding to the complexity of the various systems involved (too numerous to list here) was the need to formulate quantities for engineers. These quantities on their own were dangerous. Misused, they could lead to unsafe designs. They had to be paired with qualitative information to ensure that the numbers were understood in their site-specific and regional geological contexts.
Good writing doesn’t parrot-back the tables. It makes the numbers meaningful.
Lifting The Burden of Communication
As a geologist, I learned quickly that the responsibility for effective communication often sat squarely on my side of the table. Our work mattered most early in a project, when design choices were still flexible and a single well-placed detail could shape an entire slope.
I welcomed that responsibility. It meant time with design engineers, a chance to sharpen my own understanding, and the satisfaction of nudging projects toward better outcomes through smart collaboration.
My systems thinking shifted into high gear. I spent long hours sorting through details, classifying data, and building quantities with just enough context to make them unarguable. I also learned to stop expecting design engineers to read my full reports. For a while, I resisted this reality, to the extent that I tried reading entire paragraphs aloud in meetings more than once.
Eventually, I turned those doorstop reports into something useful with streamlined design memos. They laid out only the most important quantities, explained their context, and showed how they related to one another. Each memo followed a consistent format and focused on the specific conditions and challenges at that site.
Designing Communication Like a System
If professionals, researchers, and practitioners apply systems thinking while performing the analytical, scientific, and engineering work, then why shouldn’t the technical writer do the same when they communicate about that work?
Technical writing is part of the same system as the work it describes. Treating it that way turns a report or memo into more than documentation; it becomes a tool that shapes decisions and outcomes.
This approach still guides how I write today, for engineers, scientists, or any team that needs complex ideas turned into clear, actionable decisions.