 Systems thinking was created in opposition to
scientific reductionism
 One of most brilliant specialists developing
system thinking was Jay Forrester from MIT
 This method was used by Donella and Dennis
Meadows to prepare „Limits to growth” report
 Albert Einstein
 Garret Hardin
 E.F. Schumacher
 Václav Havel
5 disciplines of learning organization:
1. Personal mastery
2. Mental models
3. Building shared vision
4. Team learning
5. Systems thinking - The Fifth Discipline that
integrates the other 4.
 A system is an interconnected set of elements
that is coherently organised in a way that
achieves something.
 System is more than the sum of its parts. It
may exhibit adaptive, dynamic, goal-seeking,
self-preserving and sometimes evolutionary
behavior.
 Optimalisation of parts does not improve
system
 System is dynamic
Managers are not confronted with problems
that are independent of each other, but with
dynamic situations that consist of complex
systems of changing problems that interact
with each other. I call such situations messes
… managers do not solve problems, they
manages messes.
Russel Ackoff
 Leverage points – are the places in a complex
system where a small change can produce big
change in whole system
 Leverage points are counter-intuitive, they
are not intuitive
 The harder you push, the harder
the system pushes back
 e.g. clients are unsatisfied because they have
to wait very long for the product supply. This
could be the “solution” of high storage costs.
 When well-intentioned interventions call for
responses from the system that offset the benefits
of the intervention.
 This is a phenomenon in Systems Thinking called
„compensating feedback‟.
 e.g. food help for African countries usually
leads to bigger demand for support. Because
the mortality rate is smaller so there are more
people waiting for international help.
 Wrong intervention cures the symptoms,
there‟s improvement or maybe even the
problem has gone away. It may be two, three
or four years before the problem returns, or
some new, worse problem arrives.
 We all find comfort applying familiar
solutions to problems, sticking to what we
know best. Pushing harder and harder on
familiar solutions while fundamental
problems persist or worsen, is a realiable
indicator of nonsystemic thinking
 It‟s like looking for a needle
 The long-term consequence of applying non-systemic
solutions is increased need for more and more of the
solution.
 For most business people the best rate of
growth is fast, faster, fastest. Yet virtually, all
natural systems, from ecosystem to animals to
organizations, have instrinsically optimal rates
of growth. The optimal rate is far less than the
fastest possible growth.
 This is a fundamental characteristic of
complex human systems: cause and effect
are not close in time and space.
 It can be seen very clearly in environmental
issues where sometimes it‟s difficult to detect
the cause of a problem
 Systems Thinking shows that small, wellfocused
actions can sometimes produce
significant, enduring improvements, if they‟re
in the right place.
 Many apparent dilemmas are by-products of
static thinking. They only appear as rigid
“either-or” choices, because we think of what is
possible at a fixed point in time. The real
leverage lies in a whole new light once you think
consciously of change over time and seeing how
both can improve over time.
Living systems have integrity.
 We tend to blame outside circumstances for
our problems. “Someone else” did it to
us. Systems thinking shows us that there is
no outside; that you and the cause of your
problems are part of a single system. The
cure lies in your relationship with your
“enemy”.