Designed to Thrive: A Pathway to Building Resilient Systems

About the Author

Alison Gajadhar-Foster, PhD

From a young age, Dr. Alison Gajadhar-Foster has been equally drawn to the sciences and the arts — a rare blend that continues to shape her work today. She enjoys bringing people together around a common purpose and shared vision, and she channels her passion through both writing and speaking to inspire change. After years of leading and managing teams across public institutions, private companies, and her own ventures in the food and light manufacturing sectors, Alison grew increasingly frustrated with the systemic barriers that consistently hindered sustainable growth. In response, she founded KMA Consulting in 2017— a firm dedicated to helping organizational leaders and managers tackle complex development challenges at the intersection of leadership, governance, management, and operations.

Alison brings a unique blend of expertise to her work — rooted in her background in natural sciences, and strengthened by formal training in law, quality, and project management. With hands-on experience in business operations and governance standardization, she approaches every challenge through the lens of systems thinking, helping clients navigate complexity with clarity and purpose. Deeply connected to Saint Lucia and the wider English-speaking Caribbean, where she was raised and has spent much of her career, Alison remains committed to the region’s growth. She has been recognized for her contributions to quality and standards across the CARICOM community and continues to volunteer her time to national and international efforts in standards development and quality infrastructure.

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Book Reviews

What People Are Saying About Designed to Thrive

"A practical guide to not only understanding how systems function but what we can do to determine our own paths within. At its core, it’s a prompt to be open-eyed and inquisitive, a reminder to continually assess the direction envisaged and to accept core inputs (feedback loops)—all of which will ensure that we bring the best of ourselves to the fore, and, importantly, that we not lose that best of ourselves to that space we entered. Filled with easy-to-understand examples from an expert in systems dynamics, this is a worthwhile read and should be re-read each time we enter a new environment and/or question our role and/or the direction of the place we work. I do wish I had access to this insight earlier in my career."

Anton E. Edmunds

Development practitioner, former diplomat, Caribbean citizenGeneral Manager, Country Department Caribbean Group,Inter-American Development Bank

"Dr. Gajadhar-Foster provides an insightful exploration into the principles and practice of systems thinking and resilience. She effectively uses real-world examples and personal experience to illustrate complex concepts and make them accessible, relatable, and implementable. She also provides a unique perspective and practical framework to encourage the reader to apply these concepts for their professional and personal benefit. From my perspective as an international expert working in developing and strengthening quality infrastructure in developing countries over many years, Designed to Thrive is a valuable resource for anyone looking to enhance their understanding of systems and practically apply the concepts to create resilient, sustainable systems in both their personal and professional lives."

Mike Peet, PhD, MBA

International Consultant

"This book offers an excellent primer on how organizations can become self-correcting and future-ready. It demystifies systems thinking in a way that will appeal to various audiences—students, business and thought leaders, and policymakers—with a compelling narrative: resilience arises from deliberate, well-informed design and monitoring of systems. [Dr. Gajadhar-Foster] lays the foundation that system attributes of boundaries, interlinkages, and feedback loops apply universally across disciplines and are essential to understanding dynamics within a system and across various systems. Consequently, the complexities of real-world challenges (especially in a digital age) dictate a sustained attention to boundary conditions and how violating them can change the dynamic evolution of systems. [...] Looking beyond the business world focus of the book, the text provides a bridging role for advancing resilience concepts and applications in engineering and biology, in explorations of control theory and sustainability science, and for organizational and community leaders interested in translating theoretical frameworks into actionable guides for “designing to thrive”. Designed to Thrive is timely and highly recommended as an essential read for all interested in resilience as the key to long-term sustainability."

Gene Leon, PhD

Executive DirectorDevelopment Bank for Resilient Prosperity

"Global appeal! As someone who has been employed in and remains involved in standardisation, I maintain that Dr. Alison Gajadhar-Foster is a leading expert on quality infrastructure. Addressing systems and systems thinking from the perspective of the “soft side” of a quality infrastructure is just brilliant. Seeing the big picture, as well as recognizing and managing connections, are absolutely necessary for success, resilience, and sustainability. If you accept this then this book is a must-read."

Betty Combie

Quality Management ConsultantMoz Inc.

Key Takeaways

Four Main Insights Readers Will Gain From the Book

Purchase the Book

The Case for Effective Collaboration & Teamwork

Once you adopt a systems approach and mindset to solving problems, you quickly realise that no one person has all the skillsets to solve a problem. Therefore, to get the best out of everyone on the team, you should ensure that the environment you’ve created is one that cultivates trust. This can be achieved by designing a human-centred system and applying a systems-thinking methodology that fosters a culture of human respect and dignity.

The Case for Standardisation of Processes

You can only improve a process that has been stabilised, and you can only stabilise a process that has first been standardised.

The Case for Experimentation

Only put effort into standardising and stabilising a process if you have obtained independent assurance that this process achieves the quality of output and outcome you’ve set out to achieve. The only way to get this assurance is to test the process first.

The Case for Pausing and Silence

When placed in a new system, before you act, pause to understand the natural beat of the system—to feel its organic purpose. Take a moment to begin thinking in systems and to understand the psychology of the system before acting. To do so effectively, you need to understand the external and internal context of a situation before attempting to solve any problem. Try to understand the feedback loops/mechanisms within the system—how data and other information is collected, analysed, and evaluated. This will help you to understand the true purpose of the system you are dealing with.