The Manager's Pocket Guide to Systems Thinking & Learning

1. Understanding Systems Thinking & Learning

A new age—the Systems Age—has clearly begun. Today’s technological changes and innovations focus mainly on systems, particularly electronic ones, and on systems linking and interface (e.g., GATT, Mercosur, the Internet). The systems around us have multiplied and enlarged, often to overwhelming numbers and proportions. Corporations span the globe; communications satellites ring the skies. As distance is redefined, systems collide in countless ways, defying our comprehension of change and the adequacy our usual problem-solving methods. We find ourselves in a small world of enormous complexity, a new world that demands we see it from a new perspective—a systems perspective—with a mindset attuned to processes, ...