As a System Thinketh: Architecting the IT Landscape of the Organization
I recently read the 1903 classic As a Man Thinketh. I was blown away by the short but effective book by James Allen. I wonder if what he posits that a person is the literal sum of their thoughts could be applied to an IT Organization. While often filed under "self-help," this philosophy offers a profound framework for the modern Chief IT Architect, CTO, or Engineering VP.
1. The Garden of IT Architecture and the Law of System Entropy
Allen famously compares the mind to a garden: if you do not intentionally plant "useful seeds," then "useless weed-seeds" will take root by default.
I often borrow the term System Entropy to explain this phenomenon to business leaders. If an Engineering Leadership team does not intentionally seed the organization with a "North Star" architecture and rigorous design principles, the vacuum will be filled by "useless seeds": technical debt, shortcut-driven development, and fragmented microservices. The climate is continuously changing too, doing the same kind of tasks to manage the landscape is not enough.
- The Translation: You are not a victim of your "legacy monolith." That monolith is the solidified thought-pattern of a previous era.
- The Action: To transform "outside conditions" (the codebase), I often point out the "hidden soil" (the engineering standards). Mastery begins with the internal commitment to quality before the first line of refactoring or unit test is even written.
2. Thought Crystallizes into Habit: The CI/CD Pipeline of the Mind
I loved the line in the book, where Allen argues that "thought cannot be kept secret; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance."
This is arguably the most accurate description of Software Delivery Velocity ever written. A "thought" (a developer’s decision to skip a unit test "just this once") quickly "crystallizes into habit" (a team culture that views testing as optional). This eventually "solidifies into circumstance" (a fragile CI/CD pipeline and frequent production outages).
| Aspect | The "Weed" Thought (Reactive) | The "Useful Seed" (Proactive) |
|---|---|---|
| Design Review | Create no diagrams or super complicated architecture visuals to impress | Create level 1 and level 2 C4 diagrams to communicate |
| Code Review | "LGTM" - Lets Get This Merged. | Critical inquiry; mentoring; guarding the "garden." |
| Documentation | "The code is the documentation." | "Clarity is a gift to my future self." |
| Incident Response | Find someone to blame. | Blameless post-mortem; systemic fix. Address issues in a retrospective. |
| Refactoring | "We'll fix it in Phase 2." | "Leave the campground cleaner than you found it." |
3. The Thought Factor in Achievement: Purpose-Driven Engineering
Allen suggests that Thought + Purpose = Intelligent accomplishment. Many IT departments suffer from "Resume-Driven Development" (RDD) or "Shiny Object Syndrome," where the thought (using a new GraphQL framework) lacks purpose (solving a specific business latency issue).
Without a clear purpose, engineering effort is scattered. True achievement in system design is the "crown of effort and diadem of thought." When an Architect aligns every technical decision with a business outcome, the market and the stakeholders favor that clarity.
4. The Jewel of Serenity: High-Stakes Incident Management
The final chapter of Allen’s work focuses on Serenity. He notes that "the more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success."
Serenity in IT manifests as:
- Equanimity: Staying calm when the system is down.
- Self-Control: Resisting the urge to "cowboy patch" production.
- Resolution: Methodically following the runbook instead of panicking.
