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Loading... Thinking in Systems: A Primer (original 2008; edition 2008)by Donella H. Meadows (Author), Diana Wright (Editor)This is one of those books that where it was almost useless to highlight valuable statements because I was highlighting multiple things every page. Meadows does not go into the mathematics of systems theory. As the title suggests, she focuses on the key ideas so that the reader learns to think about systems and their common properties. One of the key takeaways from this book -- if I had to choose just one -- is that systems have common properties that apply regardless of their type. There are ways of thinking about environmental, human, technological, and other systems that show their deep similarities and give insights into their differences. Overall, this book was readable and should be a required read for anyone who designs or influences systems, big or small. Recommended to me by a coworker. Tries to teach you how to view problems not in isolation but as systems - interactions of many variables at once. Tries to help you identify the likely leverage points - places where you can most efficiently effect changes in the system, hopefully in the direction you want (not guaranteed). Not having spent much time on systems I consider this a good introduction. It avoids all the math and approaches systems rather from the viewpoint of how they should be interpreted, which was delightful. I think the most important thing I learned from this book was how hierarchies emerge naturally. I had not considered the possibility that it was more natural for evolution to create simple things that connect as modules rather than complex things that serve the same purpose as a collection of modules. This point of view has certainly changed my world view to the better. I found the first half of this book to be very difficult to get through, not because it was impenetrable, but because it just didn't excite me. Once I ground through and made it to the second half, I found it more interesting. This may reflect part of how the book was written, but it also says something more abstract: the systems thinking Meadows discusses here originated in engineering, but its practitioners soon discovered that they had transcended technocracy. "(W)e found whole disciplines, libraries, histories, asking the same questions, and to some extent offering answers," Meadows notes. "...(T)he tool of systems thinking, born out of engineering and mathematics, implemented in computers, drawn from a mechanistic mind-set and a quest for prediction and control, leads its practitioners... to confront the most deeply human mysteries." The book mirrored that structure, beginning very technically and gradually becoming more philosophical — in other words, moving into my intellectual wheelhouse. This isn't a paradigm-shifting book (despite its helpful exhortations to shift and transcend paradigms) but it does offer some useful insights into how to think about complex systems and errors to avoid. (Many come down to not addressing only the symptoms of a problem, or only one aspect of a complicated problem, and expecting to achieve anything more.) Helpful for people who have a high opinion of humans' ability as active agents to control our world, or for people who have a low view of human agency and sees us as largely passive bystanders. Meadows lies in the middle, and urges us to be realistic about what we can't change easily but to recognize how we can affect change. My Practical Guide to Something of the quarter. This is also an older title, and was written before the internet was as ubiquitous, but still holds up as a way to understand how big, wicked systems work and why they go wrong. Having been part of some very large bureaucracies, this was a helpful way to step back and think about how their problems and inefficiencies may have come about. I've been meaning to read this book for years. It's a short yet insightful look into systems and it uses real world examples of how things can go bad and what can be done to fix a broken system. The book even goes as far as to make predictions about our future political & economical landscapes (in the start of the 90's) that end up being extremely accurate in today's world. I highly suggest anyone with an interest in complexity read this one. I read this because I felt that I functioned as part of many systems, that they were largely dysfunctional, and that I wanted to change that. I learned about some ways of thinking about complex systems, and some ways they fall into dysfunctional behaviors. I learned about some sorts of stimuli that seem to have more or less impact on systems. I also read about an attitude towards existing with systems that was focused on harmony and not on control. This helped articulate a new lens with which to see the world; it also illuminated another aspect of what sort of life I want to lead. Definitely worth the time spent reading and thinking. Donella Meadows's expertise and experience is a strength of this book. There are a number of inspiring examples. However, as I am already familiar with system dynamics, the book was really straightforward and didn't much consider other modeling approaches. I really liked it and would recommend it, but it wasn't as enlightening as I had expected. A concise introduction to systems thinking. It starts with diagrams (supported by a technical appendix) to illustrate key relationships, like feedback dynamics. Then the author tries to extract some basic insights from systems analysis that might be useful to businesses, policy-makers, and even personal lives. These are expressed in simple English with catchy sounding rules of thumb. Finally, the book turns to a spiritual guide ("Dance with the system.") The book was intended for a wide audience and has attractive features to that end. However, it is rather heavy on the mysticism and spirituality and rather thin on the connection between cases of systems analysis and the rules of thumb for decision-making. Also, it is always surprising to see how systems analysts ignore their own counsel when studying the economy. They assume away incentives and prices and model behavior as mechanical rules, such as always invest x percent of profits. Naturally, when mechanical rules of behavior are combined with presumed delays in perception or adjustment, there will arise nonlinear responses to shocks. Systems analysts ought to be the first to recognize that behavioral responses will adjust rather than mechanically march on. This failure stems from the engineering and computer science backgrounds of systems analysts, such as Dr. Meadows herself, where human behavior is coded as constants of proportionality, rather than (semi) rational behavior. All in all, however, I did enjoy this short book, and, at the very least, it conveys some fundamental and important insights resulting from decades of systems analysis research. A non-mathematical guide to systems theory that not only applies to engineering and design, but to social dynamics, nature sustainbility, and personal approach to life in general. We all make mental models, and this book encourages you to identify and step beyond your models, to reduce the comprehensible, but also embrace the incomprehensible, to accept what is there, and also to leverage for change. great book for how to think in life. What I really liked about this book is that it succeeds at explaining systems theory in a very basic and nonmathematical way that is accessible to the average reader. When I say nonmathematical I mean there are no equations, but there are graphs and many “stock-and-flow” diagrams that use pipes, faucets, and tanks to explain the concepts. Understanding systems is fundamental for people to be able to make intelligent decisions about the economy, the environment, and other social issues. We all grow up in a world that appears “linear”. If we push on something it moves, if we push a little harder it moves a little farther or faster. Most things designed for human use (toys, games, appliances, electronics) conform to linear principles for the very simple reason that as humans, that’s what we expect. When you turn the volume knob slightly you expect the volume to increase slightly. But most natural systems of any complexity do not operate in this fashion. They are nonlinear - meaning that there is not a linear relationship between input and output. For instance if you deplete a naturally occurring resource past its boundaries it may crash, never to recover again. The problem is that most of us don’t have an intuitive feeling for how complex systems operate. This book does a great job of teaching some of these principles. Donella (’Dana’) Meadows was almost certainly the most influential systems thinker of her generation. At barely thirty, she was the lead author of ‘Limits to Growth‘ and she remained an influential voice in the sustainability movement until her relatively early death in 2001 - which for me at least recalled an Adrian Mitchell couplet, ‘And God killed Aneurin Bevan/ And let Harold Wilson survive’. The manuscript of ‘Thinking in systems‘ has been around in draft since the early ’90s, but never completed. Now her colleague Diana Wright has edited it for publication. In the circumstances, it ought to be something of a publishing event, even if a niche one. It is, I’d say, the best single introduction to systems work that is available, especially for non-specialists. But the book seems to have surfaced with little fanfare, and barely a review. Full review at “We can’t impose our will on a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.” says Donella Meadows in her posthumously published Thinking in Systems, “We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!” Donella Meadows, the lead author of The Limits to Growth and champion of systems analysis for social problems, died in 2001 before this primer on systems thinking was completed. We are lucky that Diane Wright of the Sustainability Institute saw fit to edit Meadows notes and put together this excellent introduction to systems thinking. The book begins with the basics of systems modeling. While there are plenty of stocks and flow diagrams, her explanations of the basic concepts are very readable and non-technical. The ease of understanding the concepts carries through the entire book as the complexity of the ideas and behavior build. Meadows extracts rules of systems behavior painlessly for us from familiar examples in the chapters Why Systems Work So Well and Why Systems Surprise Us. It is clear that we are gaining from years of hard-earned wisdom. The chapter called System Traps… and Opportunities describes and gives examples of the common system archetypes. Here there are no system diagrams. Concrete examples of behaviors and consequences of actions paint a picture of the common system patterns. You will start to see how universal these archetypes are as their behavior jumps out at you every day from the headlines. The third section of the book teaches how to use your knowledge of systems to create change. It includes how to find leverage points and how to deal with the complexities of feedback that are beyond our direct comprehension. This has some really wise insights into working with systems but also carries the warning that there is much more than simply systems modeling to effect change, “…it’s one thing to understand how to fix a system and quite another to wade in and fix it.” At the risk of sounding too enthusiastic, I think that everyone who uses systems analysis, or wants to, should read and own this book. The introduction to the basics is very simple, clear and concise and the chapters on living in a world of systems offers tips that even the most experienced practitioner will find valuable. Above all, Thinking in Systems is an excellent example of how to take what can be a complicated way of seeing and translate it into easily understandable and practical knowledge. |
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This may reflect part of how the book was written, but it also says something more abstract: the systems thinking Meadows discusses here originated in engineering, but its practitioners soon discovered that they had transcended technocracy. "(W)e found whole disciplines, libraries, histories, asking the same questions, and to some extent offering answers," Meadows notes. "...(T)he tool of systems thinking, born out of engineering and mathematics, implemented in computers, drawn from a mechanistic mind-set and a quest for prediction and control, leads its practitioners... to confront the most deeply human mysteries." The book mirrored that structure, beginning very technically and gradually becoming more philosophical — in other words, moving into my intellectual wheelhouse.
This isn't a paradigm-shifting book (despite its helpful exhortations to shift and transcend paradigms) but it does offer some useful insights into how to think about complex systems and errors to avoid. (Many come down to not addressing only the symptoms of a problem, or only one aspect of a complicated problem, and expecting to achieve anything more.) Helpful for people who have a high opinion of humans' ability as active agents to control our world, or for people who have a low view of human agency and sees us as largely passive bystanders. Meadows lies in the middle, and urges us to be realistic about what we can't change easily but to recognize how we can affect change. ( )